Emmie’s father considered her for a second. “You’ll be with Max?”
“Yeah.”
“All the time?”
“Of course. That’s okay, right?”
Emmie’s father nodded, but only reluctantly. He leaned against the counter and picked an apple out of the bowl.
“Nothing bad is going to happen, Dad.” She thought for a second she’d tell him about Angie’s text and how Nick had forgiven her, and how everything was going to be okay. But thankfully, she caught her tongue before she had to explain how she knew.
“I know. I’m a dad. I like to worry.” Then, after a second, he added, “So, does this mean you’re dating Max? You feel…close”—he adjusted his collar—“to him?”
Emmie looked down and slowly nodded. She did feel close to Max. She didn’t like being separated from him.
Her father twisted the apple’s stem until it broke off, but he didn’t take a bite. “You’re still raw from all that happened last year.”
Emmie’s head popped up, and he put his hand out to stop her protest before she got started. “Don’t be upset. Everyone has their own raw spot, love. Somewhere deep inside us that hurts to touch. If you’re going to let someone get close to yours, you have to know that you can trust them with it.”
Emmie swallowed hard. She had a raw spot. Could she trust Max?
“I think you can trust that boy, and it’s good that you two have each other. That’s why I’m letting you go out tomorrow. And because I trust you too.”
Emmie smiled and closed the gap between her and her father. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing the words thanks and then I love you into the fabric of his shirt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DINNER DATES
Max glanced over at Emmie in the passenger seat of his jeep. She was riding along with him to his anger management class with Cardigan John because Max thought it was about time they have a real date, and there was a Thai restaurant right around the corner from John’s office that he wanted to try. He’d never had Thai food before, but he liked how it made him sound when he suggested it to Emmie. Like he was worldly and sophisticated about food he couldn’t pronounce.
Maybe it would suck, but as long as he was with Emmie, it would be the best dinner ever. Max rolled his eyes at how cheesy his thoughts had become. Lately, he barely recognized himself.
After a few moments, Max looked over at Emmie again. She was worrying her lip between her teeth, and it looked like she was going to mangle the paperback book she’d brought to read while he was in class.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“Am I?”
“Are you trying to come up with something interesting to say? If you are, you don’t have to work so hard. I don’t mind the quiet.” Max put on his signal and changed lanes.
“It’s not that. Just thinking about something my dad said.”
Emmie didn’t say anything more, so after a while, Max started to worry too. Had she changed her mind about him? Again. Had he said something to piss her off? It would be just like him, but that couldn’t be it. He’d barely said two words to her since they got in the jeep, and she’d seemed all right when they left school.
It wasn’t him then. It was something with her. Something was wrong. Had there been another visit from one of her old…He didn’t even know what to call them. Friends just didn’t seem right.
“I have to tell you some things,” Emmie said. Max exhaled. She was talking. This was good.
“You do,” he said, reaching over and tweaking her nose with the side of his finger. He was trying to keep things light, but it felt forced. He wondered if she could tell.
“That’s your response?” she asked.
Max looked over at her, then quickly back at the highway. “What more do you want me to say to you? That you’re cute? That you’re amazing? That sometimes you scare the shit out of me? That I’ve been waiting for you to trust me for a long time now?”
“I’m not opposed to any of those things.” Emmie burrowed her chin into her chunky knit scarf, but even though Max waited patiently, she didn’t say anything more. It had been a dramatic introduction to a whole lot of nothing.
Max exited the highway and a minute later pulled into the parking lot behind Cardigan John’s building. He unbuckled and turned his body toward Emmie. “What do you want to tell me?”
“Everything.” Then she added, “I think.”
Max slid across the bench seat toward her. “Then tell me. You won’t enjoy dinner if you’re worrying about something all night.”
The corners of Emmie’s mouth turned up slightly.
“And talk slowly,” Max said, trying once more to add a little levity to the tension that was now palpable between them. “I’m just a douchebag Neanderthal, remember?”
Emmie wrinkled her nose at him. “That’s true.”
“A douchebag Neanderthal who wants to be with you.”
Emmie rolled her eyes, then looked out the side window. “You may change your mind about that.”
Max shook his head in exasperation. Did she really give him so little credit? Apparently yes, because a few more seconds dragged on in silence. Eventually, Max gave Emmie a nudge, and she nodded with resignation.
“My mom is an addict.” She turned and looked up into Max’s eyes, but he didn’t flinch.
Was that it? Max felt terrible for Emmie if that was true, but it was hardly reason for her to think he’d cut and run.
“I didn’t know about it when I was begging my dad to let me go live with her. But when I realized how bad off she was, I couldn’t leave. She needed someone to make sure she was eating, and someone to give her a ride home when she couldn’t make it herself.”
“Why didn’t you just tell your dad?”
“Because I really, really didn’t want him to know I’d made a mistake about going to live with her. I thought I could take care of things. I did take care of things. We did okay, I guess.”
“Emmie…” How could she feel bad about taking care of her mom? Why would this be difficult to tell him? If anything, it only made him love her more.
The word stuttered across Max’s mind. Love? He wasn’t in love with her, was he? But when she pulled in close and laid her hand against his chest, it didn’t take more than a breath for the answer to come roaring back at him. Christ. I’m in love with her.
“It’s okay,” Emmie said quickly, as if his expression had scared her. “She’s in rehab now.”
“That’s it?” Max asked. “That’s what you’ve been struggling to tell me?”
Emmie shook her head. “Not exactly. Last year, Mom and I got kicked out of our apartment, and my mom owed her dealer a lot of money…”
And that’s when the pieces started to move into place. Max could see where the tension in Emmie’s face was coming from, and he wanted to find the guy and kick the ever-living shit out of him. “Nick,” he said.
Emmie nodded. “My mom said that if he gave us a place to stay and set her up when she needed it, I’d work for him for free. He agreed, so after that I was his carrier. Nick called me ‘Pigeon.’ You know…like a carrier pigeon? Because I always came back. He could depend on me.”
Emmie swallowed hard, and Max held her hand between their chests. He could feel the pulse in her thumb, and it was racing.
“Later…later I was more to him than just a pigeon. I was like…his.” She hazarded another look at Max’s face. “If you know what I mean.”
Max felt his expression darken, and it made him feel like crap when he saw the flicker of pain in Emmie’s eyes before she looked away. His hands trembled as they always did before he lost control, but this time he had the tools to fight it back. He was going to have to thank Cardigan John for that later.
“I mean…” Emmie still wouldn’t look at him. “It was kind of a good thing because no one else messed with me since they knew I was Nick’s, and he would kill them if they tried anything, but it was bad too because…well�
�just because.”
Max nearly growled. “That bastard hurt you.”
Emmie bowed her head, but Max put his fingers under her chin and turned her face toward his.
“I never got involved in the drugs though,” she said a little too brightly, “Nick wouldn’t let me, so I guess I can thank him for that.”
“But you ended up in court,” Max said softly, redirecting the conversation to where he wanted it to go. He’d been curious for too long. What had she done?
“It wasn’t because of the drugs, actually.”
“Then what?”
“One night, Nick got this wild hair about robbing the Taco Bell. He told me to drive for him, and the whole thing went so well that we hit a couple more places the next night.
“Later, he planned to rob the SuperAmerica on Hiawatha Avenue, near where he lived. He picked it because he knew the overnight cashier. His friend was supposed to be in on it. I guess you’d call it an inside job, except that the guy panicked. He called in sick to work that night and didn’t tell us, so there was some other guy working when we got there.
“Nick got the money in the register, but the cashier pulled the alarm before Nick knocked him seven ways from Sunday with a bat. The police caught up to us before I’d driven even five miles away. So I guess I should have driven faster…”
“Shit,” Max said softly under his breath. He drew an arcing curve with his finger over Emmie’s hand, like a pendulum swinging. “What happened to the cashier?’
“Bad. Really bad,” she said, her voice dropping to a nearly inaudible tone. “Afterward, Nick and I were both charged. I went to live with my aunt Bridget, and my dad got his friend to represent me. She worked out a plea bargain with the prosecutor, who agreed to drop the felony charges against me if I pleaded to aiding and abetting assault as a juvenile. And if I testified against Nick. That included testifying about criminal sexual conduct on account of I was only sixteen and he was twenty-six.”
The icy fury was still building in Max at the thought of that monster getting anywhere near her, touching her soft skin, poisoning her lips, but he didn’t want to scare Emmie with how he was feeling. He didn’t want her to be scared ever again. He kept his voice flat. “He’s why you don’t like people to touch you.”
Emmie wove her fingers through Max’s. “I’m starting to get used to it again.”
Max fell silent as he processed all that she had told him. She must have been so scared. How bad had it been for her mom that Emmie would sacrifice herself like that? And why—goddammit—why hadn’t she asked her dad for help? Max had never met Nick, never even seen him, and yet the image of him was very clear in his mind. The idea of him touching Emmie…And what about her mom? What kind of woman set up her own kid like that?
“What are you thinking, Max?”
“That I probably shouldn’t meet your mom until I graduate from my anger management classes. Right now, after I finish that asshole, I’d like to have a few words with her about what she did to you.”
“Mom…? She didn’t do anything to me. I made my own choices.”
“That’s bullshit, Emmie. A mother doesn’t sit by and watch her kid basically serve herself up on a silver platter just so she can get high for free.”
“Max, she’s—”
Max pulled his hand from hers and took the keys from the ignition, shoving them in the pocket of his letter jacket. “Sick. Yeah. I know. Whatever. But you can’t expect me to like anyone who’d ever want to hurt you.”
Emmie didn’t like to think of it like that. Her mom hadn’t served her up. Emmie had been a willing participant. At least at the beginning. It wasn’t like she told her mom about everything that was going on with Nick, and her mom wasn’t exactly the rock-the-boat type. A part of Emmie worried that her father had been right about her mom telling Jimmy and Frankie how to find her. They were another boat that didn’t like rocking.
Max and Emmie climbed out of the jeep. Max grabbed her hand and held it tightly in his own. His expression was serious, but it wasn’t judgmental. At least not of Emmie, and she was grateful for that. They’d work through the rest of her shit later.
They entered the office building together, right behind a short kid in an American Eagle jersey. “Is this your girllllfriend?” the kid asked Max in a suggestive, singsong way.
“Shut it, Jesse. And quit acting like you’re in junior high,” Max said.
“I am in junior high,” Jesse said. “So is she your girlfriend?”
“Yes,” Emmie said, shifting her book from her right hand to her left. “I am.”
Emmie’s answer made Max’s heart do that little flip-flop trick it had done when she’d asked him to go skating, and several more times since then.
“Lucky dude,” Jesse said, letting his eyes glance all over her.
“Damn straight,” Max said, insinuating his body between Jesse’s and Emmie’s. “And that’s just about enough of that.”
“I’ll just read out here until you’re done,” Emmie said, indicating the lobby.
Max glanced over his shoulder at her as she gestured toward the chair by the window. Then he planted a kiss on top of her head, which elicited some catcalls from Jesse. But Max didn’t mind at all. He couldn’t blame anyone for taking notice of Emmie. As little as she was, she commanded attention. And she had all of his. For always.
The lobby of the little office building where Max took his classes wasn’t much of a lobby. It was one hard-cushioned chair with a ficus plant. Emmie thought it would need back issues of People magazine to rightfully be called a lobby. But it did have a big front window with lots of light, and even though it was freezing outside, the sun coming through the window made Emmie believe that spring was right around the corner.
Which was true. They really only had to get through February, and then it would be spring. Emmie didn’t care that March was Minnesota’s snowiest month. To her, it still counted as spring. March, April, May. That was spring regardless of the hanger-on blizzards. And it really was right around the corner. The light at the end of the proverbial winter tunnel.
She collapsed into the chair with a hard bounce and tried to get comfortable. She was on page two hundred of her book. The main character had finally infiltrated the government’s central command, and she’d found her hot guy unconscious on the floor.
Emmie was turning the pages quickly. She was starting to lose track of time, so she checked her phone. Four twenty-five.
Only another half hour or so, and Max would be coming back down the hallway, his hair tousled, his hoodie bunched under his letter jacket, his jeans riding low. She imagined his face, the grin that she knew would be spreading across his face like the Cheshire cat’s. Their first real date, not counting the dance. It still seemed so unreal.
The sun went behind a cloud, casting a shadow across her page. It took her eyes a second to adjust. The shadow shifted, and she realized the cloud was head-shaped. With shoulders. The shadow moved, and the door to the office building opened.
“Hello, Pigeon.”
Emmie jumped to her feet, and her book slid to the floor. “Nick? How? What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t Daddy tell you?” he asked. “There’s been a change of plans.”
Emmie’s heart turned stony because she saw her error in Nick’s narrowed eyes. Nick didn’t forgive her for testifying. She’d been completely wrong about Angie’s text, about Nick. About everything. But she wasn’t the only one who was wrong. If Nick thought she was leaving with him, he was sadly mistaken.
But then Jimmy and Frankie entered behind him, and Emmie knew she was in trouble. For a second, she thought about running down the hall toward Max’s classroom, but Nick saw the thought in her eyes and blocked her path. From behind her, Frankie and Jimmy laughed.
“Touch me, Nick, and I swear to you I will scream so—”
A hand slapped over her mouth, a meaty thumb aligned with her nose. The skin smelled like hamburger grease and gasoline. Frankie w
rapped his other arm around Emmie, pinning her arms. She thrashed and kicked, but it was without effect. Frankie was a junkie, but he was still strong, strong enough to lift her off her feet. Her legs circled, as if she were riding a bike, trying to strike out at anything whether it was in front of her or behind.
They spun, and Emmie made contact.
“Ow!” Jimmy cried. Emmie struggled to breathe. Her chest burned. Nick got in her face and whispered. She didn’t know why, but whispers were always more frightening to her than shouts.
“Listen, sweetness.” His gaze glanced over her face and down her neck, resting on her chest. “I don’t want to make a scene. We’re going to walk out of here calmly. Like old friends.”
Emmie bit down on Frankie’s pale fingers, hard. He let go, and she screamed.
Nick slapped her across the face, and she shut up. White light flashed in her eyes. Emmie tried to focus on regaining her vision. That was something she could do, and right now she needed to know that there was something she could do. Something she could control. If she couldn’t, she would panic, and if she panicked, she was as good as done.
“Let’s go, Ems.” Nick opened his coat and flashed a steely blade. “Nice and easy. C’mon.”
Emmie tried to bust past them, but Frankie and Jimmy flanked her, their hands wrapped around her coat sleeves, leading her out of the building and onto the sidewalk. Nick was behind her. So close Emmie could feel him against her back.
She would find a way out of this.
They took her across the street and down an alley where she could see Angie’s car parked behind a dumpster. Nick opened the front passenger door and pushed Emmie down and inside. Frankie and Jimmy got in the back seat, next to someone who’d been left waiting in the car.
“Dan?” Emmie asked, trying to make sense of why her probation officer should be sitting in Angie’s car. “Wh…what are you doing here?”
Dan McDonald looked up at her, and his expression was pained. He glanced quickly out the window, apparently unable to look Emmie in the eye. “Sorry,” he said.
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