She tried to think rationally despite the pain in her stomach and head. Max had told his father he planned to break up with her before she got too attached? Too attached? She was so attached she didn’t know if she’d be able to leave this office without leaving half of her bleeding heart on the table covered with ripped and stained magazines.
So he was a liar. This is what happened when she trusted. She’d dropped her gloves, exposed her tender areas and he’d taken the shots.
Fine. He won. He could have the gold belt. She’d go home and lick her wounds and learn her lesson for next time.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled, fumbling behind her for the door.
She wanted nothing to remember this weird, horrible moment by. She tossed the cookie container on a table covered in magazines. “You can have those,” she said, avoiding eye contact with either man.
There was a whispered curse and a creak of a chair but she was already out the door, pushing against the wind. But she didn’t feel it because her whole body felt numb.
And right before the door closed, she heard the deep rumble of the boulder. “Something wrong with her leg?”
And that’s when the tears came. She felt those through the numbness, tracking in hot streams down her face. But she kept her head up.
They wouldn’t see her fall.
They wouldn’t see her stumble.
And they most certainly wouldn’t see her cry.
Screw Max and his thousand personalities. He could live with them, because she was done with dating several guys at once.
She was halfway home before she realized never once had he even said her name.
H
IS DAD KEPT
him late at the shop, like he knew Max was miserable and wanted to torture him more. Max wanted to throw a tire iron at him, scream about how he was done with this. Done with this garage and this life and everything that took him away from Lea.
He wanted to live his life for himself.
But he didn’t. Because his sole focus now was getting back to Lea.
As soon as the garage was closed, Max ran to his truck and fired it up, wheels screeching as he took off toward Lea’s apartment.
All the visitor spaces in her parking lot were taken and he slammed his hand against the steering wheel, waiting for his headlights to find an open space.
No dice.
He growled and wrenched his truck out of the parking lot, heading to the nearest lot, which was on campus. He’d have to cut through, between a couple of dorms, but it didn’t matter.
He parked his truck haphazardly, not caring he wasn’t between the white lines, then took off across campus, shoulders hunched, hands shoved in his pockets.
Staring at his feet as they crunched on the cold ground, Max thought of what he’d say to Lea when he reached her apartment. If only she’d understood he’d done it to protect himself. And her.
He ran through lines in his head wondering if he was going to have to camp out at her door when she refused to open it.
Just as he was thinking maybe he should have gotten some flowers or something a blow hit him from behind.
He grew up with two older brothers. He knew what a punch from a fist felt like. And this wasn’t a fist. This was something hard and cold, and pain laced through his scalp. His head rolled and he stumbled to one knee and a palm. He fought to keep his wits about him, shaking his head, pretending this was a hockey game and he’d been checked into the boards. He couldn’t lose consciousness. He had to figure out what the hell was going on and how to get out of it.
Get up, Max. Get up and get that puck.
He struggled to his feet and arms immediately clamped around him, pinning his arms to his sides. He blinked blearily into the dark, head swimming from the blow.
“Hurry up and help me!” A muffled voice yelled by his ear. “He’s a strong fucker!”
A strong fucker. He was a strong fucker, and big, yet right now he couldn’t do a thing. He couldn’t get out of the iron grip around him. He heard more footsteps.
This guy had backup. And that’s when it finally hit him, like whatever that had been to the back of his head, that these were the guys. The ones who’d been preying on the campus and town.
The ones who hurt Nick.
“Stop struggling.” That voice rasped in his ear, like gravel scraping open his skin.
The fear paralyzed him. He was fucked.
He’d been so focused on getting to Lea. To apologize, beg, whatever it took to get her back that he hadn’t watched his six. He hadn’t paid attention to shadows in the dark.
The footsteps grew closer. Murmuring voices.
Grunts sounded in his ear as he renewed his efforts, wiggling and squirming, trying to break free.
No luck. This guy had a vice grip around his middle.
He wanted to pound these guys into the ground. That’s what his dad would do. That’s what his dad would
want
him to do. Stay and fight and make them pay for all the pain and fear they’d inflicted in this community. For landing Nick in the hospital. For making Lea cry.
Lea.
And then her voice pounded in his brain, breaking through the pain fog like a beacon.
Create a diversion and get away.
He shook his head again.
Think, Max. Think
.
In this position, heel stomps didn’t work. But grabbing this guy’s junk would.
His arms were pinned at his sides, but he slipped his right arm back. The guy stiffened and Max had his shot.
He took it.
He grabbed a hold of something he never wanted to touch ever again in his life and squeezed and yanked.
The arm prison around him dropped and a male howl sounded in his ears. Max slumped into a crouch.
The footsteps grew closer, and Max saw two figures materialize out of the dark in front of him.
He paused. He could turn around and kick this guy in the ribs. He could take on his two friends. Two against one wasn’t so bad. He was a “strong fucker” after all.
But then Lea’s voice again.
Life isn’t a Jason Statham movie.
He knew where the emergency phones were and if he made it out from between these two dorms, he could reach one in seconds.
“Hey asshole!” Called one of the dark figures. “Oh shit, he got Ray—”
And Max didn’t stay to hear the rest. He took off like a sprinter out of a starting block. His head pounded as he pumped his arms. He stumbled. That guy probably gave him a concussion, but he couldn’t worry about that now.
His focus was getting to that phone under a bath of streetlight.
He tripped over the sidewalk, his depth perception fucked, and fell on his hands and knees again, this time knowing he tore open his jeans as gravel dug into his skin. But that pain was nothing compared to the pain in his head. He got back up and didn’t stop running until he was right in front of the phone. His body slammed into the pole holding the call box, and he ripped the receiver off of its hook. As he raised it to his ear, he heard one ring and then, “Bowler police.”
Relief washed over him. “The guys. The assaults. I’m Max Payton. They just attacked me and I got away. I hurt one of him, between Macon and Dorset dorms.”
The voice was saying something in his ear but he couldn’t concentrate because there was something trickling down his neck. Something warm and wet. What the . . .
He reached up with shaking fingers, realizing his whole body was trembling. And then the pads of his fingers touched something sticky. He drew his hand away and saw the red and smelled the iron. How . . .
The voice in his ear was more urgent now. But he couldn’t make out the words. Something about staying put or . . .
He looked at the phone but it was no longer in his hand, it was dangling by its cord beside the box. His vision blurred, his head rolled, and the ground rushed up to meet him.
L
EA IGNORED HER
ringing phone for the third time. She didn’t even look at the display. She figured it was Max, calling to officially end it.
And she didn’t want to hear it because her gut still churned, and she was still too raw. She needed her wounds to heal, scab over, develop scar tissue because she needed protection from Max.
What did more scars matter? Inside and out. She matched now.
She heard the ringing of another phone out in the living room and hoped Max didn’t start calling Danica, too, because she’d staple his balls to the wall.
She heard Danica’s voice answer her phone, her murmurs too low to decipher even through their thin walls.
Then the volume of the TV stopped, Danica’s voice rose higher. Lea thought maybe she should get out of bed and walk out there, take the phone from Danica and end it with Max once and for all.
Because Danica hadn’t been amused by Lea’s retelling of the scene at the shop. In fact, she’d been furious.
No one messed with Danica’s people. And Max had just been dropped as one of Danica’s “people” and shoved solidly into enemy territory.
There wasn’t a gray area with Danica.
But then there was a crash. Followed by a curse. And then bare feet ran down the hall and Lea’s bedroom door flew open, slamming back on its hinges.
Danica’s face was white, her lit phone held out from her ear. “Lea,” she gasped.
Lea raised to a sitting position, bracing her arms behind her. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“It’s Max,” Danica whispered.
Lea frowned. “What’s Max?”
Danica looked at her phone and Lea could hear a tinny male voice through the speaker. “I don’t want to talk to him, Dan—”
“He was attacked.”
Lea’s body flushed numb. Like someone had stuck a needle in her spine and injected some serum right into her marrow.
The gun. She hadn’t told him about the gun. And then that needle was yanked out and in its place was a bone-deep chill. She wrapped her arms around herself, in a lame attempt to warm up her body temperature, and rocked forward. “The gun. Oh shit, Danica,
the gun
!”
Danica nodded. Then slowly raised the phone to her ear. “I’m back, Stone.”
Lea closed her eyes, not even wanting to hear the words, the words that despite her anger at Max, despite the fact that minutes ago the sound of Max’s name had made her want to spit fire, were words she didn’t want to hear.
Max with his arrogance and his eye-for-an-eye-justice bone.
Oh Max, what happened?
Danica said, “Well keep us updated,” and Lea raised her eyes because updates were good. Updates meant there was something to update. Updates meant there wasn’t an end.
“How bad is it?” Lea whispered. She remembered Nick lying in the hospital bed. Swollen eyes. Casted arm.
And that was before these assholes armed themselves. She looked around for her trash can in case she needed to hurl.
The guilt was . . . overwhelming, thickening her blood in her veins. She clutched her chest as the pain splintered out from her heart into all her limbs. If only she’d calmed down, taken a minute to forget her anger and warn him about the gun. She knew he often came back to his town house Saturday nights. She knew and yet she’d let her emotions take over.
She’d lost control.
And she hurt Max.
Danica walked over and lifted up the covers, crawling into bed beside Lea. They sank down onto their sides, sharing a pillow. “Alec said Max’s brother called him. Max is at the hospital. He was taken by ambulance when they found him collapsed at a campus emergency phone.”
Campus? What the hell had he been doing on campus? His town house was in town.
Danica brushed Lea’s bangs off of her forehead. “Lea, he was bleeding. From the head.”
“Oh my God,” Lea groaned, knowing the only reason she wasn’t throwing up now was because her stomach was empty. “Was he shot? Was—”
Danica shook her head. “I’m sorry sweetie, but all Stone knows is that Max is alive.” The
for now
hung in the air between them.
Lea yanked on her hair. “This is my fault, I—”
“What?” Danica gripped her wrist and tugged so Lea let go of her hair. “In what world is this your fault—”
“I didn’t tell him about the gun—”
“It’s not your fault they had a gun! Lea—”
“I know, but I should have told him!” Lea shouted, and Danica’s face fell. Lea had never seen Danica cry, but now her face was flushed, her eyes wet.
“Honey . . .” Danica started.
And then Lea broke down in sobs. “I should have told him. He would have been more careful, then. I know it.”
Danica grabbed Lea’s head and tucked it under her chin. Lea nuzzled into her roommate’s soft skin as tears soaked Danica’s shirt.
“Even if you told him, this still could have happened . . . Max isn’t always the most careful person. I think he thought he’d be untouchable to these guys . . .”
But Lea didn’t believe that. Max would have listened to her. If she asked him to be careful, he would have.
Or . . . the Max she thought she knew. The one who took her on dream dates and sang karaoke and kissed her until she didn’t know her name.
She had no idea which Max was real. And if she’d ever get back the Max she fell in love with.
So all Lea did was sob until she couldn’t anymore, until her pillow was soaked and her body ached and until she fell asleep with Danica smoothing her hair.
W
HEN
M
AX WOKE
up, he swore he had an axe embedded in his skull, splitting it in two. His palms and knees burned, and his whole body ached.
He remembered a little of the night before. Reclining in an ambulance, wheeled to a bed in the hospital. Poking and prodding and a thermometer in his mouth and a blood pressure cuff on his arm.
Nurses disturbing his precious REM sleep throughout the night to complete the same routine over and over again. He’d tried to bribe one to leave him alone and she’d rolled her eyes at him.
He guessed his charm didn’t work with a head injury.
Max reached up and gingerly prodded his head, feeling a bandage behind his right ear. It was sore as shit and he winced and dropped his arm back to the bed, noticing the additional bandages on his hands.
He wore only a hospital gown and other than that, he was naked. His knees and palms were bandaged, probably where he fell, and his arms were bruised. He wiggled his toes under the thin hospital sheet.
His room was small, with a couple of chairs and a TV bolted to the wall across from him.
Fumbling for the remote to the bed, he raised it to a sitting position so he could check out his surroundings.
A snuffled sound drew his attention. Cal was slumped on a chair beside the bed, snoring softly. His boots were untied, his fly was down and his shirt wasn’t buttoned right. A baseball cap was pulled down over his eyes, arms crossed over his broad chest.
“C—” Max said, then swallowed thickly around his dry, swollen tongue. He tried again. “Ca-al.” The word was rough and broken, the two syllables snagging on the sandpaper of his tongue.
Another snuffle, then blinking slate-gray eyes appeared below the brim of the cap.
Cal gasped awake, bolting upright on unsteady legs like a newborn colt. “Bro.” He gripped Max’s chin in the palm of his calloused hand. He didn’t say another word, just searched Max’s face and roamed his eyes over Max’s body.
“Cal.” Max said again. This time one syllable. “I’m thirsty.”
Cal nodded abruptly and pressed the nurse button on the bed remote. A male voice answered seconds later. “Can I help you?”
“He wants water,” Cal said bluntly.
A pause. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Then a click.
Max squinted at Cal. Which made his head throb more so he quit doing it. “You couldn’t say please?”
“You’re thirsty. We need water.” Cal said, as if that explained his rudeness.
Max sighed.
Cal pulled the chair over beside the bed and sat down. “How ya feeling?”
“Like shit.”
“You look like shit.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine. They ask you to visit the pediatric wing to give a pep talk?”
Cal shot him the finger, and Max laughed, then winced and clenched his jaw as pain pierced his skull and ripped down his spine. “Fuck, don’t make me laugh,” he said through gritted teeth.
Cal looked down and rubbed his hands together. “Good to hear you laugh,” he said quietly.
Max rested his head on the mattress behind him and rolled to look at Cal to his left, fortunately on the side without his bandage. “What?”
Cal looked up but his eyes skittered around the room. His jaw ticked before he finally locked eyes with Max. “They had a gun.”
“A gun?”
Cal didn’t answer.
Max fingered the bandage behind his ear again. “I thought . . . I thought it was just a crowbar or a pipe or something. Those fuckers had a
gun
?”
Cal nodded.
“When the hell did these guys get a gun? I don’t remember that on any of the news reports.”
Cal sighed. “They apparently attacked someone the night before your attack. The victim reported seeing a gun. It hit the news while we were working, and the university e-mailed late that afternoon.” Cal shrugged.
“Do they know you’re supposed to shoot it, not fucking whack people in the head with it?”
“Not. Funny.”
“I’m just saying—”
Cal’s eyes flashed. “We just got a call that said they found you bleeding from the head by the campus phone. I mean, what the fuck, Max? Dad went into shut-down mode, and Brent wouldn’t stop rambling. I almost had to thunk their skulls together to get them to focus and get in the fucking car to come to the hospital.”
“Are they here?”
“Brent’s in the cafeteria eating. Because that’s all Brent ever does. And Dad went home to get you some clothes. You had blood on the ones you wore here and they had to cut the shirt off of you.
“They cut my shirt?” Max whined.
“Bro, they didn’t want to move your head too much.” Cal said.
That made Max more upset than anything. This would require mourning. He’d been wearing his special Cross Keys bowling shirt he got last year at Kat’s surprise birthday party. It was the only time he could get away with wearing a graphic that looked as close to a cock and balls as possible. “Damn it, I’m gonna need Kat to get me a new one.”
“That shirt was stupid,” Brent said.
Max turned his head and ignored the pain because his brother had just insulted his favorite shirt. “No, it wasn’t. All you wear is flannel. Don’t try to talk to me about clothes.”
“I like my flannel shirts!”
“Just saying—”
“Can we not argue about this right now?”
Max chewed his lip and fell silent, his thoughts drifting to the stress his hospital stay would place on his family. But it’s not like the Paytons didn’t know hospitals. Or injuries. “Look, I’m okay. I mean, we got hurt as kids all the time, I don’t—”
Cal talked over him. “This isn’t a fucking game, Max. You got jumped.”
Max bristled. “You think I don’t know that? I’m the one who got hit in the head. I’m the one who ran like a fucking bat out of hell to get away from those punks.”
Cal shook his head and smoothed the corner of the blanket on the bed. “They got ’em.”
Max relaxed his shoulders. “What?”
Cal met his eyes. “The police. There was a cruiser driving nearby when you called. So they radioed him to swing by and got all three guys.”
Max turned his head and stared at the white cinder-block wall in front of him, a riot of emotions curling in his stomach like smoke.
Part of him regretted the thought of those guys sitting in a cell now, because Max had wanted them to pay for the pain they gave to others with pain of their own. Instead, he sat in a hospital bed. He was angry.
But at the same time, he was relieved. He was proud. Because his actions were the reason those guys would hopefully pay—legally—for what they did.
He straightened his spine. “I did that.”
Cal looked at him silently.
“I did that,” Max said again. “I got away, I called the cops and now those fuckers are in cuffs.”
Cal’s smile was slow, but it ended with a blindingly white grin. He reached out and squeezed Max’s shoulder. “You did. Proud of you, bro.”
Cal had always been the serious brother. The one with the common sense, always thinking of the family unit.
The one who held them together when Dad didn’t.
So his approval flushed through Max like a breath of fresh air. “Thanks,” he whispered.
The door of his room swung open and the nurse walked in with styrofoam cup of water and a straw.
He handed Max a cup, and he sucked down the water greedily, despite the nurse’s commands to sip slowly. Fuck that.
The nurse—Jeremy—then took his vital signs and told him a doctor would be in soon. Max would need an MRI to check for any swelling in his brain, which is why they’d kept him overnight. Then Jeremy left him alone with his brother.
Cal shifted in chair. “Why were you on campus?”
“Huh?”
Cal squinted. “You were attacked on campus and called from an emergency phone near a dorm.”
“What are you, a cop?”
“Just answer me.”
Max tensed and immediately regretted it as his head throbbed and muscles screamed. The whole reason he was in the hospital now was because he didn’t open his mouth when it mattered.
He didn’t stand up and be strong when it mattered.
He’d kept silent and he hurt Lea. Probably beyond repair.
It’d been a dumbass idea to try to chase after her last night. He should have called her or something rather than racing across campus at dark o’clock only to get his ass jumped.
Did she know? Did she care?
She was the reason he got away. She’d given him that strength and that knowledge.
And now it was time to be honest.
“I was on my way to see Lea.”
“Who’s Lea?”
“My . . . well, she was my girlfriend.” Max moved his toes under the sheet. “I think she’s pretty pissed at me right now but—“
“That was her.”
Max looked up. “What?”
“That was her. At the shop. The one Dad was a dick to.”
Max hated when Cal did this all-knowing omniscient shit. “How do you know that?”
Cal snorted. “Maybe Dad’s too old to see it but I could tell right away something was up between you. I’m not an idiot.”
“Yeah, well—“
“You sure fucked that one up, then.” Cal leaned back and linked his hands behind his head.
Max glared. “A little support maybe?”
Cal shrugged. “You didn’t even say her name.”
Max opened his mouth and then shut it. Shit. He hadn’t. He hadn’t even said her name. She’d stood in that shop with the container of cookies clutched to her chest, chin raised at his bear of a father, not backing down.
And Max hadn’t even acknowledged he knew her name.
That was kind of fucked up.
“Prepare to grovel,” Cal said.
“Again, are you rubbing this in? Enjoying it? I have a massive head wound because I got pistol-whipped. Would it kill you to be nice to me?”
Cal smiled, but then as quickly as it came, it faded. He brought his hands down and fisted them at his sides. “I’m joking with you because I’m glad I can.”
Max let his anger fade. “Yeah, okay. I can deal with that.”
Cal nodded and then rose. “Gonna go get Dad and Brent, okay?”
Max nodded. Cal made it to the door and placed his hand on the lever, but he didn’t move.
“Cal?”
A pause, and then he twisted just at the hip. “Brent told me what you said to him. And . . . you need to get honest with yourself. And then you need to get honest with Dad. All right?”
Brent and his fucking big mouth. “But—”
Cal shook his head. “Step up, Max. You’re not weak just because you don’t wanna do what’s expected of you.”
And with that, he jammed the lever down and slipped out the door.
T
HE BOOK SPINES
usually felt soothing in her hands, the familiar letters and numbers making her feel at home.
But this morning her leg hurt and her head ached and her eyes were raw.
She’d almost stayed home from work but then thought that lying in bed and wallowing wasn’t such a good idea. So she was here. Distracted.
Out of her mind with worry.
She’d woken up to an empty bed. Alec hadn’t called again before she had to drag her carcass out of bed to get to the library on time for her shift.
Despite everything, she wanted to be at the hospital. She needed to see for herself that Max was okay. But she had to work before visiting hours started and she didn’t know if Max could even have visitors right now.
She shelved another book with a sigh. Then growled at herself when she had to pull it back out and reshelve it because apparently she didn’t know the difference between a three and a five.
Stupid curly numbers.
“Lea,” a voice breathed behind her, and she whirled around to see Alec standing behind her, hands in his pockets, hair unkempt. His eyes were red behind his glasses.
“Alec?” His name a question on her lips, because she wanted to hear news. That was it, news about Max.
“He’s okay.”
She closed her eyes and gripped the book in her hands so hard that her fingernails cut grooves into the soft leather binding.
“Oh, Lea.” And then he was in her space and she was in his arms. She breathed him in, smelling soap and hair product and leather jacket and everything that was Alec.
But he wasn’t Max. Only Max got to wear the stains of her mascara-laced tears on his shirt like a souvenir.
She let Alec hold her because she appreciated the warmth and the comfort of his hand moving up and down her spine. When he stepped back, he gripped her shoulders and bent his head so he could look in her eyes. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. His brother Cal called me and told me Max was sleeping. But he’d been awake and talking. And made a couple of jokes, so we got our Max back.
Which Max?
she wanted to ask, but instead she whispered, “Okay.”
Alec glanced at his watch. “You wanna hear what happened from me or wait to talk to Max?”
Dread dripped down her spine like acid. Alec didn’t know. He didn’t know about what had happened at the garage. About how Max had treated her. He didn’t know about how she’d failed Max by not telling him about the gun.
So she ignored the question, glad they were in a secluded alcove in the library. “How bad is he?”
Alec ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture she’d never really seen him use. “He doesn’t have a lot of injuries, just a rather serious one to his head—”
Head injury.
That tap controlling the acid burning down her spine opened wider.
“—but they are monitoring him and the swelling is going down, so everyone is optimistic.”
She gritted her teeth. “And how did he get the injury to his head?”
Alec blinked. “Oh, right, well apparently these assholes decided to step up their game and found a gun. One guy came up behind him and hit him with it. Cal told me the doctors were surprised he didn’t lose consciousness with the blow. It wasn’t until he was on the phone with dispatch that he went down. He had on his favorite shirt—that stupid bowling one—and they had to cut it off, so he’s been bitching about it.”
She sucked in a breath. Relief warred with guilt. They’d used it on him. They’d smashed a gun on Max’s head. He would have had blood in his beautiful, thick hair. And on his clothes. And . . .