Chapter Thirty
I t took Max all of three seconds to open the adjoining door from his room and step into mine.
I assured him several times that I was fine after my panic attack in front of his dad, repeating it until the tension radiating from his forearms faded.
Even then, he didn’t leave the doorway. “Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?”
I shrugged, wrinkling my nose. “Maybe.”
“Why the face?”
Struggling to get the words out, I finally released a breath. “I am sorry, you know? I…I struggle with trust on my best day. Taking anyone at their word when their actions don’t always line up with them. I know that’s not exactly fair. The always part, I mean.” When he relaxed slightly, I let the rest out. “As much as I want to, it makes it hard to find solid ground with you. It scares me. You scare me, and it’s easier to…”
My cheeks reddened when the admission left my mouth, and I hid my face so he couldn’t see it. Especially since I had to swallow my pride and admit I was wrong next.
“But I don’t believe you’re capable of doing what I accused you of. Not just to me. You haven’t done anything to deserve that. It came out because I was scared and confused and I didn’t know what to think. But it shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”
He nodded and stepped farther into the room, his voice gruffer than usual as he said, “I’m sorry, too.”
“You are? For what?”
Smirking, he came to stand by the bed. “Whatever I did that triggered your very obvious trust issues, I guess.”
I rolled my eyes as I stood up. “And for your vaguely insulting deliveries, I hope?”
“Yeah.” He huffed a laugh. “I do see your point there.”
“Come again, now?” I cupped my hand behind my ear, leaning closer to him. “Can you repeat that?”
He snatched my wrist and tugged me toward him. “Don’t be a brat.”
When he wrapped me in his arm, I couldn’t help but admit how much I liked being there. If I hadn’t been completely exhausted, it would’ve been the perfect opportunity to climb him like a tree. I thought about it, but before my inner sex goddess could take the reins, Max pulled back.
“Let’s get you ready for bed. We have a few days here before everyone else joins. You should get some rest tonight.” He leaned in again and pressed his forehead to mine. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
The promise in that statement, and the idea of what might come when we were both rested and ready for it, had me agreeing. I let him stay while I hunted for my pajamas. Or, rather, my replacement sleep shirt.
The one with grumpy cats was still missing in action. But its stand-in had doodles of sunflowers and bumblebees with smiling faces on it, like they’d been drawn in a diary page. Plus, it was crazy soft.
When Max slipped my comfiest socks on my feet, I melted into a puddle of goo at his. By the time he put me in bed, and kissed my forehead, I expected to pass out the minute he left.
He smiled at me from the door. “Sweet dreams, Princess.”
I yawned and snuggled farther under the covers. “Night, night, Master Max.”
The sleepy nickname didn’t fully register in my brain as I said it. When it did, I squeezed my eyes shut, praying he hadn’t heard. But they popped back open at his answering groan.
“Fuck. I swear, you’re trying to kill me.”
He rested his forehead against the doorframe, holding onto it like he was trying to keep himself from coming back in. With his eyes slightly wild, he gave me one last heated look, tapped the wall, and went inside his room.
As soon as the door closed, he cursed. And I couldn’t smother my answering giggle.
“Go to sleep, woman!” he called from the other room.
Chuckling to myself, I burrowed under the covers. More at ease with him and with Kingston, my heart felt lighter.
But, of course, as soon as I had that thought, I ached for the last piece of the puzzle. Landon had been about to say something in the car before Max opened the door.
And I couldn’t help but wonder what it was.
* * *
The next morning, Max woke me with the promise of breakfast. Miss Alice made us waffles and sent us on our way. We took our plates up to his room, eating in silence before Max finally broke it.
“Can I ask you something?”
He released a heavy breath, and I nodded, a bit warily.
“Last night, I went into the cabin to get our stuff, and when I came back to the car, you and Landon—And the other night, before the ceremony…”
I tensed, my inhale sucking in sharply.
“Then, at the party, you were upset, too…Did something happen between you two?”
He frowned, like that hadn’t come out exactly the way he wanted, but regardless of how he said it, his question about Landon and me threw me off. Throughout our six days together, questions about the other guys had been an unvoiced boundary between us he hadn’t crossed.
My brain quickly tried to parse out why he’d ask now. Especially given what had happened at the cabin between the three of us.
Max rubbed the back of his head. “I didn’t notice you with him at the party, so…”
My mouth twisted into a frown. “Why are you asking?”
“Why are you avoiding the question?”
“I’m not avoiding the question. I’m just trying to figure out why you want that information, or why you think you have a right to it.”
He let out a sigh and stood up, pacing a few steps before facing me. Leaning back against the dresser, he crossed his arms over his white t-shirt and gave me a once-over.
“Even after what he did, you still want him.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I went with, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t answer mine. And you know why I’m asking, Quinn. Or you should, given what happened between us.”
I stood up from the bed, affronted and even more annoyed by his use of my name. “And that gives you some claim over what I do or don’t do with someone else?”
Max shook his head. “That’s not what I said. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, then,” I snapped. “But I thought after the other night?—”
Caught off guard, I couldn’t get the words out.
He acted as if I hadn’t been sandwiched between the two of them two nights ago. Like he didn’t know I still wanted Landon, too.
The fantasy I’d come so close to believing could be a reality came crashing down around me.
And for what?
Some hatred they had for each other that made no fucking sense given what I knew about them. What I’d seen from their dumbasses both separately and when they were together? They were more alike than they realized or wanted to admit, but Max remained hell-bent on hating him.
“God, I have no idea what the deal is between the three of you, but I don’t want to be dragged into the middle of it.”
“I’m not dragging you into anything. This has nothing to do with him. Or them.” He dropped his head, shaking it like my reaction disappointed him.
It made me furious.
“Oh, so you’re just checking in on my feelings out of the kindness of your heart?” I growled out my frustration, dragging my hands through my hair. “You’d be totally fine if I said he’d fucked me in a dark room during the party?”
Max’s head snapped up. “Did you sleep with him?”
His tone caught me by surprise.
It wasn’t just jealousy or anger.
But I couldn’t fathom the emotion behind it, and I was so goddamn sick of everyone prying into my sex life like those details belonged to anyone but me.
“That’s none of your business, Max. You don’t own me any more than he does.” The words felt hollow as they left my throat, and that made me even angrier. “I’m not a toy for you to fight over or a prize you get to fucking claim for yourself.”
“I never said you were.” He growled and turned away from me. “But, Quinn?—”
“Stop. Fucking. Calling. Me. That.” I punctuated each word through clenched teeth.
His eyebrows rose, but he kept his mouth shut.
I hated when he called me by my name.
Even if that was ridiculous, I hated the line it drew between us. It was hypocritical. Especially as I stood there, etching lines between us in giant block letters with a red fucking sharpie. I was aware.
I just didn’t care.
If Max didn’t understand—if he was hoping I’d hate Landon so he could have me to himself—had anything really changed? Had he?
“I fell for him, Max. Hard. My heart had been this shriveled organ in my chest, locked in a fucking safe with no key, and he broke through that. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. And I tried like hell to keep it from happening, but it did.”
Pain lanced through my chest. That stupid, useless organ reminding me of what he’d done. Reminding me of the way my heart had been crushed as soon as he got through my walls.
“And then he took that barely beating organ, and he stomped on it. He stood up in front of everyone and said he didn’t have faith in me. Right when I decided to have faith in myself. Faith that made it possible for me to let him in. Right after choosing me instead of all this bullshit.”
Max’s jaw tightened, the muscle working furiously as he held back whatever he wanted to say.
But I wasn’t telling him all this so he would have more ammunition to hate Landon.
I needed him to understand why I didn’t.
“Nothing about what he did makes sense. And the more I think about it? The more I see him stare at me like he can’t fucking breathe”—my hand clutched my chest reflexively, squeezing just like it did whenever those dark amber eyes found me—“the more I know he’s hiding something from me.”
I panted, ragged breaths heaving my chest.
“Something happened, and I don’t know what. So, as angry as I am with him, I can’t hate him. I can’t shut out the part of me that believed him, that promised to trust him and that wants to find out the faith I put in him wasn’t misplaced.”
Max held my gaze as I stared him down, but he didn’t respond.
“If things are done between Landon and I, it won’t be because of anyone but me. Because I decide it’s over and I’m done. And if something happens with us”—I gestured between him and me—“and I fall for you? It can’t change that I fell for him, too.”
He stepped toward me, but I put my hand out to stop him.
“You want me? Well, if what that looks like to you is being the sole owner of my heart, mind, and body, then I’m sorry. Because I can’t give that to you. I can’t give that to anyone anymore.”
I hated that he couldn’t see that.
That he didn’t understand why.
“I gave a piece of myself to Landon, and I’m never going to get it back. I don’t want it back. I made the decision to let—I chose him. What happened after? It doesn’t take that choice away from me.”
“But…” Max’s brow furrowed as he fought to find the words. He stared at me in disbelief. “He didn’t choose you, Princess. Don’t you see that you deserve more than that?”
“How do you know he didn’t choose me?”
“You said—We all heard him say…” He trailed off, not wanting to repeat the word.
“Do you know why he did that?”
“No,” he said carefully. “But does it matter?”
“Maybe not to you, but it does to me. So, when I get the answer to why he said that, when I know why without any doubt in my mind, it’ll be my choice to decide where he and I go from there. Or if I decide I’m done waiting for the truth, that will be my choice, too.”
“And what is all of this with me, then? Something to do while you wait for the Knight you really want?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
He pointed at his chest. “You stare at me like you want me. And you bring me into the middle of whatever that was the other night, but why? To keep you busy or give you a buffer while you wait? Is that all this is to you?”
I forced myself to disregard the bait there and answered his last question as honestly as I could.
“I don’t know what this is yet, Max. Less than a week ago, you wanted me eliminated from The Quest. When this started, that was your goal. That’s what you told me. I’m trying to believe you when you say that changed for you—I do! But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have doubts. Some things don’t add up, and you won’t open up to me about it. Last night, I thought…but now, there’s all of this.”
“So, with him—with them —you hold onto the possibility and wait for answers. But with me, I have one thing I don’t want to talk about— one thing I’m not ready to share—and you run in the opposite direction?”
My heart clenched. I tried to make sense of how we’d gotten to this. The hypocrisy of it couldn’t be denied, but how could I share my truth with him if he couldn’t do the same?
Growing flustered, I said the only thing I could think to explain. “Words are just words, Max. I told you I struggle when actions don’t line up. I need time to see what’s real?—”
“I’m not a bed warmer, Quinn. I’m not a consolation prize if plans A and B don’t work out for you.”
“I never said you were. Don’t put words in my mouth, either.”
“But you are saying that even though he hurt you. Even though they both lied to you, you’re still holding onto them. While I’m here telling you I want you? No games. No second-guessing. No exceptions. Just time for me to share one thing that’s?—”
He scrubbed his hand over his face.
“I’m still the only person here who hasn’t hurt you, and somehow I’m still the asshole who’s not good enough.”
The pain in his voice as he said those last two words stopped my heart. “No, Max. It’s not?—”
“It’s fine, Princess.” He turned to the dresser, gripping the edge so tightly I thought he might snap it off. “Believe it or not, I’m used to it. Especially when it comes to them.”
I wanted so badly to dig into what he meant by that, but if we couldn’t get past this point, then going deeper into who he was only meant I’d lose more when it didn’t work out.
Him or them.
“Why does it have to be one or the other?” I choked out. “Why is it so impossible to believe I could want you as much as I want them? That I could feel something equally strong and confusing as fuck for all three of you?”
He leveled me with his gaze and the sadness in his voice. “Because I only want you.”
But if Max just wanted me in the way he thought he should have me, then he didn’t know me. Not really. He couldn’t give me what I needed.
And I couldn’t do that for him, either.
That didn’t mean what he or I wanted was wrong, but…it meant we weren’t right for each other. Maybe that was why we kept holding back with each other.
He couldn’t see it, but asking me to want him without them—asking me to choose?
I shook my head. “No, you don’t. You want the idea of me, Max. The picture in your mind that doesn’t match the reality of who I am.”
His jaw clenched.
“And I do know I deserve more than that.”
I left him standing in the bedroom, the tiny spark of hope I’d felt after last night snuffed out with one final, shuddering breath.