The sound of a car pulling into the garage draws us both out of whatever trance we were just in.
Maxx comes in fairly quickly after, tossing his keys in the air and catching them. He pauses when he sees us both waiting there.
“I have to get home; Seamus is not in a great mood today.” Chasm looks away sharply, and I remember the bruises I saw on his arms earlier today. The thought of that man throwing Chas around makes me see red. “Don’t bother Dakota too much, okay? We can all sit down together tomorrow and talk.”
“Take care of yourself,” Maxx tells him, which isn’t so much an agreement as it is a careful avoidance of the subject. “Drive safe and text me when you get home, okay?”
“Sure, Mom,” Chas says with a roll of his pretty amber eyes. He offers me up another half-smile before disappearing out the door and into the garage.
Now, it’s me and Maxx having a weird, uncomfortable rendezvous at the base of the stairs.
He meets my eyes without flinching.
“I knew you were good,” he says, which makes me smile. That exact line is in the English dubbed version of Spirited Away which, as we know from my soot spirit pen, is one of my favorite movies of all time. In a strange way, Maxx reminds me of the dragon in that movie. “I knew it.”
I raise a brow but then find myself forced to stifle a yawn because I’m exhausted beyond all reason.
“You knew it, so it must’ve been true, huh?” I ask, and Maxx gives me a loose shrug of his shoulders. His face is relatively impassive, but I can see the desperation just behind his eyes. He deserves to hear about what’s happening. He deserves to know. I lean in to whisper, even though I can still hear Tess sobbing far too loudly to hear me. “If I agree to tell you what’s going on, do you agree to keep the information to yourself? You won’t tell another soul?”
“As long as I feel that keeping this a secret will benefit you and Parrish more than telling it would be,” Maxx whispers back, leaning in close to me. Our faces are within inches of one another. If I turned sharply to the left, I’d …
Fuck.
Gross.
I retreat back a step and turn, gesturing for Maxx to follow me up the stairs.
I invite him into my room and lock the door. As soon as I do that, I realize how awkward it really is having him here. Sort of like when Chasm’s in here.
Actions and not thoughts. Actions.
If the universe knows anything to be true, it’s that I love Maxine more than life. Even if X is attractive and perceptive and fiercely protective of those he loves, even if he has a good sense of humor and says really wise things at the base of waterfalls, I am not interested in him. Because, even if he and Maxine don’t end up together, she had him first.
He will be forever forbidden, forever off-limits, and I’m okay with that.
I am.
“Sit.” I point at the chair beside my desk, the one that I got for twenty bucks at a yard sale and helped my grandmother refinish. X raises both brows at me, but he does what he’s told, pulling out the chair and sitting facing me on it, his arms crossed over the back.
I take a seat on the edge of my bed and immediately remove my wet shoes and socks, my blazer, my tie. Maxx watches me so intently that I start to feel uncomfortable, and then he glances away sharply, as if he’s just realized what he’s doing.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” I say, sighing and running my hands over my green and black hair. It’s still wet. That’s what happens when you drag ass-length hair through a rainstorm. More than once. Oh well. In the scheme of things, it isn’t important in the least.
I start with the dream that wasn’t a dream, then the mysterious bloodstain on my bed, the ATV accident. Maxx listens patiently, waiting for me to get to the relevant portions of this story, with the video call, the demands, the fact that … that …
“So, I guess you heard the part about him being my father,” I start, closing my eyes and wishing I could melt into the floor. I open them again, watching as Maxx exhales and sits up straight, bringing his folded arms in against his hard chest. “The really fucked-up part of this all is that he’s not only my bio dad, but …” I sigh, lift my chin, and then make myself say it, accept it, understand that this is real and that it isn’t going away. “He’s also the Seattle fucking Slayer.”
As soon as I open my eyes the next morning, I realize that I’ve missed something so obvious that it may as well be plastered across a billboard outside my window, one covered with neon signs and blasting air horns.
