Several minutes later, the door to the café opens again and I look up, hoping for Chasm but finding Maxx.
Crap.
My eyes widen as he storms over to me, slamming his palms down on the table so hard that the employees start murmuring amongst themselves. Factoring in my luck—or lack thereof—as of late, it wouldn’t surprise me if they kicked us out and told us to never come back.
“She’s devastated, Kota. She climbed in her car and took off like a bat out of hell. What if she gets into a wreck? Can you handle having your sister’s death on your conscious?”
I grit my teeth, but what can I do? If I call her now, it’ll only make things worse. Maxine really might crash; Parrish could die.
“I feel sick.” I shove up to my feet and take off for the women’s bathroom, assuming that X won’t follow me. He does anyway. Luckily, it’s just the two of us in there, but if the employees hadn’t considered kicking us out before, they might now.
I try to escape him by slipping into a stall, but he reaches his hand into my blazer pocket and snatches my phone before I can stop him. I whirl around, but it’s too late. He’s turning the phone on and …
“What are you doing?!” I choke out as he grabs my hand and presses my finger to the screen, unlocking the phone with my fingerprint. “X, stop!” I don’t even bother to try to keep my voice down. If somebody comes in here to check on us, great. I want to be kicked out. I really need him not to look through that phone.
I recorded that last video call so Chasm could see it before I deleted it. I’ve been making sure to factory reset the phone every night; this proves to me exactly why that’s necessary.
Maxx presses play just before I tackle him. Like, I mean, I really tackle him. I throw my full body weight into his, but he’s a hell of a lot taller than me and thick with muscle. There’s just something about that chiseled motocross body that makes it feel more like I’m tackling a rock than a person.
He just grabs my arm and forces me back a step, his eyes on the screen and not on me.
I consider screaming, but I don’t want anyone else to walk in here and accidentally see the video.
It starts to play, and his eyes widen, the sound of my voice and Mr. Volli’s echoing around the bathroom. X uses his thumb to scroll farther into the video until … he sees Parrish.
“What the actual fuck?!” he snarls, his wide-eyed gaze flicking down to mine.
Without thinking, I throw myself at him again, but this time, I don’t tackle him. I wrap my arms around his waist in a huge hug, and I squeeze him as tightly as I can. I put every ounce of love I feel for Parrish and Maxine into that hug, just so he’ll know, so he’ll listen to me.
“Please,” I whisper, my voice cracking, my cheek pressed against Maxx’s citrus-smelling t-shirt. I fist my hands in the back of his unzipped windbreaker. “Please, Maxx. You can’t tell anyone about this. You can’t. If you do, Parrish will die.”
I can see Maxx’s face in the mirror to my right. His eyes are even wider now, his mouth half-open in surprise. He’s shaking, too, and the video’s still playing. My love confession a heart-wrenching echo against the pink-tiled walls.
“I love you, too,” video-Parrish replies in his sad, broken voice. “Dakota, you need to tell Maxine that you don’t want to see her anymore.”
“What the … fuck?” X repeats, turning the video off and setting it on the edge of the sink. He very carefully reaches out and grabs my arms, forcefully extricating himself from me like I’m crafted of poison and hate, a toxic monster to be removed and cast aside. He keeps my forearms in his strong grip and pushes me back a step. “Please don’t touch me,” he chokes out.
His words hurt, but I try not to let them puncture my soul too deeply. He has every right to hate me, to feel disgusted by me.
“Maxx, I need you to listen to me,” I start, just before the bathroom door opens and a freaked-out looking employee in an apron pops his head in.
“Hey, um, could you take your lovers’ quarrel outside? You’re upsetting the other customers.”
“Yeah, sorry, sorry,” Maxx mutters, snatching my phone and shoving it into his own pocket before I get an opportunity to steal it back. He snatches my hand in his, and the employee gives me a look.
“Are you okay? Do you need me to call the police?”
“No, I’m alright. We just …” I glance up at Maxx, but he won’t look at me. Instead, he’s swallowing hard and staring at anything and everything but me. “We just broke up. But I’ll be okay.” I make myself smile. What’s another forced smile? I’m sure they number in the trillions by now.
