Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
MAX
“Max? Max! I know you’re in there. Open up!” Gwen’s fist pounded against the door, accompanying her shouts.
“Go away!” I yelled back. I wasn’t ready to look her in the eye.
“You really are an idiot if you think that’s going to happen.”
“Would you two shut up? Some of us are trying to sleep!” the omega in the room next to me shouted.
Yeah. He’d definitely been sleeping a half hour ago when I’d checked into this seedy motel. The clerk hadn’t even batted an eye at someone coming in at this hour.
The walls of the Paradise Plaza Inn weren’t exactly soundproof. Hell, I wasn’t even sure they were builder-grade. I threw my head back against the pillows—which I’d covered with a jacket I found in my backseat because I was almost certain they hadn’t been washed between guests—and sighed.
I’d left Mr. Marino’s house an hour ago, giving me plenty of time to drive around town and spiral, pull myself together just enough to find somewhere to sleep for the half hour left before sunrise, and then spiral all over again at how royally my life was fucked.
Not in the least because of the awful shit I’d said.
“I’m only going to ask one more time,” Gwen called, “before I kick the door down.”
She would. And it’d only be one more thing we had to deal with, so I heaved myself off the bed and flung the door open. “If you’re here to drop off my cat, you could’ve texted to arrange a pickup instead of just showing up,” I said, not looking at her.
“Women are the emotionally unstable sex, my ass,” she mumbled, pushing her way inside and slamming the door shut behind her.
“Of course. I tracked you down, parked my freshly waxed Mercedes in that godforsaken, pothole-ridden excuse of a lot, and nearly broke into this room that hasn’t been cleaned since before I was born because I just need to know what it’s like to get bed bugs. ”
I bit my cheek to keep from laughing. She hadn’t earned it yet. “Well, when you put it like that.”
Silence stretched.
“Max,” she began.
I knew from the soft tone of her voice that I’d fold immediately, no matter what she said, but I swore to hold out as long as I could.
“We shouldn’t have kept secrets from you for so long.
I should have been more honest about my friendship with Atlas when you told me about him.
But I hope you’ll understand how complicated everything was.
We didn’t keep you in the dark out of spite or malice.
You know what’s at stake if he were discovered.
And Atlas… he’s… Well. He’s never been an open book. ”
I couldn’t help the tremble in my lip. “I feel stupid and naive all over again.”
Sensing my impending cry fest, Gwen reached for a tissue and passed it over. “You’re not. Not at all.”
I let out the waterworks. “You’re just the only real friend I’ve ever h-had, and you know everything about me—all the w-worst things.
I feel blindsided that there’s been something so b-big between us this entire t-time.
It feels like you’re all l-laughing at me.
Like… like Joey’s laughing at me again.”
“Shh,” she said, wrapping me up in a hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Was it real?” I whispered, doing my best not to get snot on her shoulder.
“Was what real?”
“Are you really m-my friend? Or was that fake?”
She pulled back, eyes darting between mine in horror. “Oh, Max. Of course, I’m your friend. God, what do you think we did? Plotted to trick you into feeling wanted for two years?”
When she said it like that, it sounded ridiculous. I shrugged. “It just feels like the rug’s been pulled out from under me all over again. Joey was my friend. I thought I knew him, and didn’t see what he did coming. I thought I knew what our friendship was, too. I thought I knew Atlas.”
She grabbed me by the shoulders, eyes intense. “You do. You know me. And him, too, I suspect.”
I took a deep breath, eyes skittering away. “Does Mr. Marino really like my food? Or was that just a part of the plan, too?”
She sighed. “Once we knew you were going to be okay, Atlas asked Saint to give you an interview because he knew you’d gone to culinary school. You know how Saint is, Max. The man doesn’t tolerate bullshit. If he hated your food, he would’ve found something else to recommend you for.”
“And the apartment?”
“The guest house was already set up to function as two separate dwellings. It’s common for staff to live in for positions like yours. No one was keeping you hidden or trying to manipulate you. I think…”
“What?”
She sighed. “It really is for Atlas to tell. But I think he wanted you to have somewhere safe to call your own.”
I couldn’t even process that he’d lived there before I moved in. For two years, his scent had haunted me. It felt like he was everywhere.
Because he was everywhere.
Pissed off all over again, I said, “He rejected the bond. He’d rather go back on suppressants than mate with me. He doesn’t want anything from me he hasn’t already had.”
She palmed her face and mumbled something under her breath about melodramatic men.
“I’ve been up since two in the morning, and it’s an atrocious hour of the day.
I don’t think it will do any good to try sorting through that now.
Will you please come home, and we can talk about it after we’ve had some rest? ”
Home, my omega whined. Mate will be at home.
I did my best to ignore the pull I felt to go to him. My chest ached to be near him, like it was wrong to be this far away.
Truthfully, going home sounded infinitely better than sleeping on someone else’s dirty sheets, but I couldn’t give in that easily. “No, I’m not going back there. I’ll pick up Jeffrey tomorrow, but that’s it. I’m not staying where I might see him.”
Or smell him, or remember what he felt like inside me while he told me he loved me.
“He won’t come back unless he knows you want him to, Max.”
“Well, I don’t. And I don’t really want to see Mr. Marino, either. I want to move out.”
My omega howled.
Gwen sighed. “How about you wait twenty-four hours before making life-changing decisions, hmm? Come stay with me. I’m getting itchy just standing here.” She cast a look around as if the bed bugs were already crawling through the carpet toward us.
Actually, they probably were.
Even still. Things were too raw. “I need space, Gwen,” I said. “I need time to think.”
Sadness colored her features. She was puffy-eyed, too. “Alright. But can we please meet for lunch in a few hours? I want to explain things.”
My heart ached. I just wanted my friend back. I wanted to rewind the last few hours and stop the rift between us before it ever formed.
I wanted to stop a lot of things from falling into ruin, but I had no idea how.
I nodded. “Yeah. Lunch would be good.”
Just then, Gwen’s phone dinged with an incoming message. Then again. And again. And again. “Fucking hell, let me breathe,” she mumbled, checking it before furiously typing a reply.
Not above being nosey, I tried to peek but wasn’t able to read clearly with my old glasses prescription. “Who is that?”
Is it Atlas? Is he asking about me? Or worried? Please be worried about me. Wait, why do I care if it’s him? He doesn’t even want me. He hurt me—
“Who do you think it is at this hour?” she asked with a deadpan look.
I bit my cheek, trying to ignore the pang of longing in my chest. “I have no idea.”
She rolled her eyes. “He wants to know if you’re okay.”
I huffed. “Not sure why he cares. Besides, why is he asking you and not me?”
Gwen shook her head before pocketing her phone. “I’m sure it’s because he knows you won't reply. And he cares, Max.”
“But—”
“Atlas doesn’t let himself need people,” she interrupted.
The soft, gray light of dawn filtered in through the curtains behind her.
“He doesn’t invite anyone into his life.
Saint, Enzo, and I are the only ones he’s ever let matter, and we only made it in by default. ” She paused. “And then he met you.”
My heart caught in my throat. The urge to go to him grew so overwhelming I had to squeeze my eyes shut. “Then why doesn’t he want me?” I whispered.
She reached out and squeezed my hand. “He does. I know he does. But that’s something you’re going to have to talk about with him.”
We said our goodbyes, with Gwen agreeing to pop in and check on Jeffrey since I’d left without feeding him his breakfast. I’d sort him out later, once I knew where I wanted to go.
Exhausted, I tumbled back onto the bed. I desperately needed to fall asleep and forget this horrible night had ever happened, but it seemed my omega hadn’t caught up with the reality of the rejected bond, because I tossed and turned for hours, sick with longing.
How could I get past this? Did I even want to? Did he?
My omega howled, long and mournful. Finally drifting off, I dreamed I was wrapped in a warm pair of arms that had always made me feel safe and wanted.
If only that were true.