With shaking hands I opened the door of his car and got out. I walked up the steps to my apartment building, escaping to the safety of my own four walls.

Escaping the truth that reverberated through my body.

I loved Maxx.

What was I going to do with that?

chapter

twenty-one

maxx

i didn’t want Aubrey to go home. I knew that if I let her leave when I felt like this, I couldn’t trust myself alone. Having my hours cut at the stable had left me reeling—I had no idea how I was going to manage to scrape by without that money. My immediate thought after receiving the unwanted news was that I wanted to get high. Really fucking high. And forget about how much my life sucked.

I could have called a hotline or one of the numbers the counselors at Barton House had given me. But I didn’t want to call a fucking hotline.

I only wanted Aubrey.

And so I’d kissed her like a man drowning. And she hadn’t pulled away. She took everything that I gave her.

I felt it. That moment when she surrendered herself to me all over again. The taste of it was sweet on my tongue as I took exactly what I wanted.

It had been a while since I hadn’t asked permission to fucking breathe. I grabbed her, and I held on like my life depended on it.And maybe it did.

But then it was over and she was leaving and I was left alone.

Always alone.

I drove home, feeling depressed and not entirely sure what the hell I was going to do and whether I had the energy to try.

I walked up the stairs to my apartment trying to figure out my next move. Finding another job seemed like the most sensible plan. But the thought of pounding the pavement attempting to find someone who would be willing to give me a chance made me want to smash stuff.

I thought again about the art gallery and how royally I had screwed it up. I had been holding the golden goose in my hand, and I had lost it. And now here I was trying to find a way to survive without falling back on the easy solution. The club. The drugs. Quick cash in my pocket.

But what would be the price?

“Where the fuck have you been?” a voice growled from the shadowed recess beside my door. Marco stood up from where he had been sitting on the floor and gave me a look that could break bones.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, wondering about my chances of knocking his ass out and getting into my apartment. The last thing I wanted was to deal with Marco and whatever he had come here to say.

“Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that you dropped off the fucking Earth and Gash is ready to roast your ass on a pike?” Marco shouted, his voice echoing down the hallway. My meth-head neighbor opened his door a crack and peeked out. I could see one bloodshot eye watching Marco and me as we squared off outside my apartment.

“I’m not doing this shit out here,” I replied, shouldering past the guy who had been my friend for over five years, and put my key into the lock.

“Then we’ll talk about this inside. But I’m not fucking leaving until you give me some goddamned answers!” Marco roared, pushing past me and into my apartment.

I flicked on the light and figured I might as well have this out with him now. I had avoided it long enough, and I knew Marco wasn’t going anywhere until he got what he wanted.

And right now that was a small dose of truth.

Marco tossed something at me and it smacked my chest. I grabbed it before it could fall to the floor. I held it up and saw that it was a plastic bag with a dozen or so pills of all different colors.

My only salvation and my greatest nightmare.

“I don’t want this shit, Marco,” I said, holding out the bag for him to take.

Marco shook his head. “I figured you needed some incentive to tell me what’s been going on with you,” he said, sitting down on my couch and putting his dirty boots up on the clean coffee table.

My hand shook as I held the pills. My ears buzzed, and I couldn’t see anything but the drugs in my hand.

“Have you become a housekeeper or something? Your place is seriously clean. I’d be impressed if I didn’t want to rip your nut sack off and shove it up your ass,” Marco was saying, though I barely heard him. My mouth had gone dry, and my heart started to pound.

I’m right here, Maxx. I’ve never really left you. Not like everyone else. You can always count on me.

The goddamned voice was back. I heard it as clear as if it were a real person whispering in my ear.

I could barely control my fingers as I twisted the bag into a knot and shoved the pills into my pocket. Nausea erupted in the pit of my stomach, and I felt bile crawl up the back of my throat.

“Have you gone deaf as well as stupid since I saw you last, fuck face?” Marco threw a pillow at my head, and I didn’t even bother to catch it.

“I don’t have time for your crap, Marco. Say what you want to say and get the fuck out.” I gritted my teeth and swallowed the urge to punch him in the face. This guy had been my closest friend for years. But it wasn’t what you’d call a “healthy” friendship. Our relationship had thrived on the worst of each other. He was the one who could undo everything I was trying to accomplish. And he didn’t even realize it. And I doubted he’d even care.

Marco’s face darkened, and I knew that we were dangerously close to coming to blows.

“You’re a dick, Maxx. You disappear for over a month, leaving me in the fucking lurch. You took off with Gash’s money and his fucking drugs, and then you don’t answer my calls? I’ve been by this shithole every week since you up and took a trip to la-la land and this is the crap I get from you? I’ve had your fucking back for years, X. You and me, we had an agreement. And you flaked. Pretty hard core, too. I deserve some answers as to where the hell you went.” Marco swung his feet to the floor and sat up, no longer lounging like he owned the place.

I thought about telling him where I had been. That I had almost died and had gone to rehab. I probably should have. It would have been the smart thing to do. To be honest with the only pathetic excuse for a friend I’d ever had.

But Marco wouldn’t get it. And more important, he wouldn’t give a shit, because in the end, I had bailed. There weren’t enough excuses in the world to make him okay with that.

“I had stuff going on with Landon,” I lied, hoping it would be enough of an answer to let me off the hook without going into specifics.

“What was up with Landon?” Marco asked, as cold as ever. Of course he knew my brother. He had spent time at my house before I had graduated high school and Landon had been much younger.

“It was a bunch of drama with David. You know how it goes. I had some things to sort out and square away.” I had forgotten how good I was at lying. It was effortless, like sugar on my tongue.

Marco’s face smoothed out marginally, and I knew he had bought my story. “Well, you’d better get your kneepads ready, because you’re going to have to do some serious sucking in order to make it up to Gash. And I hope like hell you have his money. Otherwise you’ll be eating out of your asshole for the rest of your life.”

It was good that I had put the wad of cash from that last night at the club in my dresser before heading to rehab. I had sold the entire supply Gash had given me to sell. I had made the fucker his money before taking enough smack to stop my heart.

I walked back to my room and got the bundle of cash I had stuffed into a sock in the back of my drawer. I came back out to the living room and handed Marco the money.

He quickly counted it and looked relieved it was all there. “Shit, you actually did what you were supposed to for once. You’re damn lucky, X. Gash has been livid since you pulled your Houdini act. He wants you back at the club immediately. Like, now. He’s been on a hair trigger lately. He fired Randy and got rid of three of the bartenders. He’s tearing through staff like crazy. Someone’s lit a fire under his ass, and he’s ready to rip us all a new one.” Marco scratched the douchey goatee he had grown in my absence, looking as nervous as I’d ever seen him.