And I felt completely and totally loved.

I waited for Maxx after his shift at the coffee shop. I had been sitting in the same booth for over an hour, pretending to look over my assigned reading when actually I was simply watching him work.

He looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes. His smile was strained as he greeted customers. The bright blue of his eyes was dull and listless even though they still lit up when he looked at me.

I could see Maxx talking to the other girl on duty. She smiled a sickeningly sweet grin and flipped her hair. He picked up a plateful of chocolate fudge cookies and inclined his head toward me.

I quickly ducked behind my book but peeked out over the top. The girl’s expression soured, but she nodded.

“I see you,” Maxx said, dropping down into the booth across from me.

“Didn’t realize I was hiding,” I teased, though feeling embarrassed at having been caught staring like a psycho girlfriend. He slid the plate of cookies toward me, his exhausted face softening as he looked at me.

“What was it you said about chocolate?” he teased.

“That I’d do just about anything for it,” I responded, picking up a cookie and taking a bite.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” he said, his voice husky and rich.

I cleared my throat, feeling my face flush and my belly twist in that slightly painful way that meant I was completely turned on.

“So, I have a proposition for you,” I announced, putting the rest of the cookie back onto the plate.

Maxx reached across the table and took my hand, his thumb sliding back and forth over mine. “Well, that was the point of the chocolate,” he said with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes but had to clear my throat again before continuing.

“I’m thinking about going home for the weekend. To see my parents,” I said quickly, needing to say it before I lost the nerve.

Maxx frowned and dropped my hand, sitting back in the booth. “Okay . . .”

“I haven’t been home in three years.” I glanced out the window and then back to Maxx. “I haven’t seen my parents in three years,” I went on.

“Wow. Okay. So why are you going now? Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine. My mom called and said she’d like me to come home. She has some things of Jayme’s she’d like me to have. I just think . . . that it’s time.”

Maxx nodded. “Well, if that’s what you need to do. Then absolutely you should go.”

“I’d like you to come with me,” I stated, not quite able to look at him. I hadn’t really thought about Maxx coming with me until that moment. But I realized that if I was going to do this, I wanted him with me.

Maxx blinked a few times, looking shocked. “You want me to come to North Carolina with you? To meet your parents?” he asked incredulously.

Shit.

This would be that “meet the parents” moment.

It was too much too soon.

He was going to balk and freak out and God knows what else.

The niggling doubts that always worried at the back of my mind when it came to Maxx roared to life.

He’s going to go get high. You’ve pushed him, and now he’ll need to turn to the pills. It’s all he knows. He will always disappoint you. How can you have a relationship when you don’t even trust him?

I became enraged at myself for letting that horrible voice in my head drown out everything else.

“It’s cool. You don’t have to. I just thought I’d ask. I was only thinking it might be nice to get away—”

“Of course I’ll come, Aubrey. If you need me, I’m there. Always,” Maxx said earnestly. He reached back across the table and took my hands again, and I relaxed marginally.

“I know it’s a big step, meeting the parents and all. Particularly my parents, because they’ve sort of sucked. And if this freaks you out or makes you want to—”

Maxx leaned across the table and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, gently tugging me toward him. He kissed me. A hard pressing of lips that effectively silenced my worries.

When he was finished, he rested his forehead against mine, our noses touching. “I’m ready for any and every step, Aubrey,” he whispered, and I shivered.

I sat back in the booth and gave Maxx a shaky but genuine smile.

“Okay, then. I guess we’re heading to North Carolina.”

My heart seized up the moment we entered the city limits. Marshall Creek, North Carolina, hadn’t changed a bit. There was something both comforting and exasperating about that.

I drove through the familiar streets, past the diner where Mom took me to celebrate winning the school election. Past the local library where Jayme volunteered during middle school. And right by the high school where I had graduated.

I didn’t look at any of it. I didn’t need to. The memories of this place were imprinted on my mind whether I wanted them there or not. And strangely, it still felt like home.

I had expected to feel nothing. A numbness. An emotional disconnect. But the warmth that spread outward from my heart to be back in this small country town was something indescribable. It felt good.

Maxx hadn’t been very talkative on the two-and-a-half-hour ride to my hometown. He had spent most of the time staring out the window and chewing on his bottom lip.

After agreeing to come with me to see my parents, he had seemed to retreat into himself. He was present but absent at the same time. I began to second-guess my decision to ask him to come with me in the first place. Because it seemed to weigh on him in a manner I didn’t understand. I just wished he would tell me why.

“I always pictured you in a place like this,” Maxx murmured, half under his breath.

I looked through the window at the nondescript brick houses and well-manicured lawns. The white picket fences and random joggers with their dogs on the sidewalks.

“Really?” I asked, turning off the main road and onto a side street lined with red maple trees. In the fall they turned a bright, almost violent red, and Jayme had always loved to walk by them.

“It’s sort of perfect,” Maxx said, finally looking at me. “The streets are clean, the houses are painted, the people are smiling. You deserve to live in a place like this.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I gave him a small smile in return, which quickly faded. I slowed down the car as I approached the end of a cul-de-sac and the house with light blue siding and tan shutters flanked by the familiar red maples. I could still see the frame of the tree house my dad had made for Jayme when she was six among the bare limbs.

I pulled my car into the driveway. I thought I was going to be sick. And then I started to panic.

“I can’t do this,” I said, my voice hoarse as my throat tightened.

I gripped the steering wheel as though I would break it in half. “I have to leave. I can’t go in there.” I heard the rising hysteria in my voice and knew I was three seconds from losing it. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe in and out of my nose, trying to slow my erratic breathing.

I was jolted out of my downward spiral by a gentle touch on the back of my neck. Fingers buried into the hair at the base of my skull, a firm pressure that had an instant calming effect.

“It’ll be okay, Aubrey,” Maxx whispered, and I felt his lips on my temple, the soft whisper of his breath as he spoke in my ear. “It’ll be okay.”

I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. Blue eyes burned into mine, and I knew he was right. I leaned in and kissed him, unable to put into words how much his presence meant to me. Maxx Demelo had become my savior.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I said, a little louder than I meant to. I pulled away from Maxx and opened my door, getting out before I could talk myself out of it.