Chapter 23 #2
I pressed my eyes shut before meeting his gaze. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep well, but I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not my place to say anything, even if you did need to.” I shuffled my feet awkwardly. “If you don’t have my clue, I’ll just go.”
He grunted. “I don’t.”
“Oh.” I frowned. “I thought I’d been onto something. That it wasn’t just about who we met but the order we met everyone in. My theory meant you were next.”
He shrugged. “Sorry.”
I nodded, knowing he couldn’t share more than that. Accepting it was time to go, I turned away from him.
But his voice stopped me. “I don’t have your next clue.”
“Got it,” I said slowly, pressing my lips together. “Thanks.”
The annoyed look on his face didn’t suggest that he was helping me, but I wanted to believe he was. In case he planned to offer any additional hints, I waited a beat, but he shrugged like it was no big deal.
Resigning myself to disappointment all around, I walked away, unsure why he’d said that instead of letting me walk away. Unless I was reading into his response, he could’ve been saying he didn’t have my next clue, but he did have one.
“Wait!” I called out before I could stop myself, and I spun around, expecting him to be halfway into his room.
He wasn’t. Still facing me, he stood frozen in place with a white-knuckled grip on the doorknob.
“You don’t have my next clue?”
He blinked rapidly, shaking out of it. “That’s what I said.”
His brow creased as he released the doorknob, and something in his expression had me walking closer to him.
“Max, can I ask you something?”
“Didn’t you do that already?”
When he swung his gaze to mine, I pursed my lips, silently requesting permission to ask another question.
“Fine.” He heaved a sigh. “Go for it.”
“Are you…” I swallowed past the lump in my throat as I reached him, unsure if asking anything was the right move, but needing the tiniest bit of hope after what I thought he’d just done. “Are you happy?”
He stared at me. No sign he’d heard me, save for the slight flare of his nostrils.
When he didn’t respond, I ran a hand through my hair and tugged. “I guess, a better question is, will you be?” Gesturing with my hand, neither of us missed how I lingered on Vivian’s door. “After all this is over, will you be happy?”
A tremor ran through his clenched jaw, his nostrils flaring as he processed. And when he finally responded, he spoke carefully. “Why are you asking me that?”
He sounded lost, and I latched onto that tiny spark of hope, even as it hurt.
Swallowing again, I forced down the emotion rising in my throat. Over what he was dealing with on his own. Whatever he thought I wouldn’t understand. Or, worse, forgive.
“That’s what I want for you, Max. You deserve to be happy.” I dropped my eyes. “Even if it’s not how I pictured—even if I thought we could be happy—and your future’s not with me.”
He stood there, unmoving, for the span of four deep breaths.
I held mine.
Then he nodded slowly.
His throat bobbed with a deep swallow, but he didn’t speak.
“Okay.” Taking that as his answer and my cue to leave, I forced a smile and turned away from him. Tears threatened behind my eyes, and I didn’t want to cry in front of him.
Spinning on my heel, I barely made it a step before his voice stopped me again.
“You’re looking at it the wrong way.”
I froze, but I didn’t turn around. “What do you mean?”
“Your so-called theory about me.” He cleared his throat. “You’re looking at it from your perspective. It’s not about that.”
My brow furrowed, and I glanced over my shoulder, hoping I could read his expression. Maybe even pick up on something he couldn’t voice out loud. But by the time I turned around, he’d disappeared inside his room.
As the door shut between us, my heart ached, and the tiny spark of hope in my chest flickered. I didn’t know how much more it would take to finally snuff it out.
The next morning, as I ate breakfast, I thought about what Max could’ve meant. Turning over his parting words, I wondered if they’d been about my theory for the clues or what I’d said about his happiness.
If he’d used the opening to point me in the right direction, then the Scavenger Hunt wasn’t leading me through the people who’d impacted my journey at Camelot Court, and I had to rethink my strategy.
If he’d been talking about my theory over his happiness—how I’d be happy as long as he was—he’d said it wasn’t about my perspective. Did that mean it was the opposite for him, and he’d only be happy if I was?
While that was romantic as hell, and it spared me having to accept Vivian as his one true love, he was still telling me to let him go. I didn’t know how to do that or why he couldn’t see that it went both ways.
Given what I knew about him, it wasn’t that hard to believe, but after everything we’d been through and said, Max had to know what I felt for him. Surely he hadn’t been going along with the Valencourts because he didn’t understand the depths of my feelings for him.
After all my attempts to prove I’d fight as hard for him as I had for Kingston and Landon, did he still doubt it?
It was a big if at this point, but with the lesson the day before, and his reaction to my question this morning, I still had reason to believe he was putting on an act to protect me.
If I couldn’t convince him to let me in, where did it end?
What would his belief drive him to do?
Unable to answer that, I focused on the first option—the Scavenger Hunt—and I examined the cleaned-up photo I’d put aside after running into Morty. If Max’s parting words had been a hint about my clues, then the order was still important, but maybe it wasn’t about who I had seen.
In the background of the photo, the grounds and buildings were expansive. There were plenty of places to look upon the entrance of Camelot Court without being noticed.
Maybe it was about who had seen me.
Landon had still seen me first. Then the gatekeeper, or Morty, and then the pledges and Max, but…unless I had to hunt down the pledges, I had to be missing an option.
Had there been someone who’d seen me before I saw them?
As I ate, the list of options ran through my head on a loop. Landon, Morty, an unseen option, the pledges, Max.
Landon, Morty, the pledges, an unseen option, and Max.
Landon, the gatekeeper, the—
I got up and marched straight to Kingston’s office.
“You saw me enter the gate. On your phone.”
Kingston lifted his head at my arrival, and his smile confirmed my suspicion. “I certainly did.” He held out a piece of paper and waited as I stepped forward and took it. “Clever girl…”
I lit up at the praise and proof that I was on the right track. “Thank you!”
His lips twitched, but he only nodded. “You’ve made excellent progress.”
Beaming, I walked over to his chair and gave him a kiss. Eager for answers before meeting Ben. “Thank you, darling.”
He smiled broadly, cupping my cheeks and kissing me firmly—taking his time. By the time he released me and planted one last soft kiss on my lips, I’d melted into a puddle.
“Alright. Go on, love.”
As I left his office, I unfolded the paper he’d given me. Kingston had written a riddle on it in his elegant scrawl. I read it a few times, unsure what it meant and too distracted to puzzle it out right then.
But I headed for my Endurance session feeling lighter, with more hope than I’d felt in days.