15. Maxon
Paige is passed out, at least that’s how she looks once I get her settled into the passenger seat of my car. I proceed to dig through her purse, finding the pink pompom that’s attached to her car keys and hold them out for Devon. “Go ahead and just bring it over in the morning.” I tell him and he nods, climbing into the yellow beetle parked behind my car and then pulling away from the curb Paige had parked along.
I run a hand along the back of my neck and start towards the driver’s side and startle when I spot Jake standing there. He’s changed out of his swim trunks and now has his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, leaning against the hood of my vehicle.
“She okay?”
I nod. “She doesn’t handle alcohol well.”
He scuffs his shoe against the curb. “I didn’t know.”
I shrug. “Don’t think differently about her, she’s a good events coordinator.”
He arches a brow at me, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. “Tell me, do you take this much care of all of your staff?”
I narrow a glare on him. “She’s my friend, Jake. I take care of my friends.”
The smirk turns into a grin. “Friends, huh? So you don’t mind me giving you my number to give her? She’s cute, not to mention fiery. Told me straight to my face all the things I did wrong at my own party.”
I let out a laugh. “That definitely sounds like her.”
There’s a moment of silence before he asks again. “So, you don’t mind giving her my number?”
My smile falls. “I’m not doing that.”
Jake straightens. “What, you don’t mix business with friends? And here I thought that we were friends.”
“No, I just have no interest in watching you try to win Paige over.”
His smirk returns, as if this was the direction he’d intended the conversation taking this entire time. “Why? Is she your girl or something?”
His words fly around in my head, is she my girl? She used to be, that was for sure, back then I would have punched anyone who even suggested dating her. And I’m not entirely convinced I ever let her go. I clung onto the thing we had like it was a life preserver and I was lost at sea. Even during college and law school I’d never dropped the idea of her. Any girl I ever dated always complained about living up to some unrealistic expectation. Shouting at me that I just wanted to sabotage the relationship with them. That I just wanted a cheap and easy way to end things. That I didn’t care about them.
And the truth is, I didn’t.
I tried to care about them, I really did. None of them were bad girls, especially in college. I tried to find someone that made me forget about Paige and our weird relationship with all of its boundaries and rules. Make me forget about my broken heart. But I just couldn’t. If the girl laughed, it’d make me think about Paige’s laugh. If we went on a date to a coffee place it would remind me about Paige’s caffeine addiction. If I took them for a ride on my bike, I would think about the numerous times Paige sat behind me, her arms wrapped tight around my waist while her head rested against my back.
It was all always Paige.
All of my unrealistic expectations were things that Paige did and I craved.
Dang it, I still crave them. I have an entire case of Dr. Pepper at my house simply because she used to drink the stuff so much that she tasted like it. And I became addicted to it just like I became addicted to her.
I’m a sad, sorry, sap that’s been in love with the same girl since I was ten years old and she doesn’t even know how obsessed I am with her.
What I’d do to make her look at me the same way she used to…
If I even could…
Could I?
The passenger door to my car flies open, snapping my attention back and I can hear Paige throwing up again. This time, hopefully, on the street and not in my car, and I can’t help the smile that picks at the corner of my lips.
“Yeah, she’s mine.” I say and can’t help but notice how right the words feel.
In my head she’s mine, she’s always been mine, and I was an idiot when I stopped trying to make her realize that I was hers. That no matter what, she was it for me. I could go my entire life without wondering what the next kiss felt like from the next girl, what she looked like or how she sounded. All I needed was the constant of Paige, the girl who I already knew everything about. I knew how she felt, how she tasted, the sound of her laugh, her fierce sense of independence, how we fight and make up like clockwork.
And I was obsessed with it all.
Within such a short time, I’ve become hooked on her once again, begging for some kind of relief. A sweet word, a soft look… a kiss. Like that one back at the restaurant but this time I want it to last much longer.
Into oblivion.
I tell Jake a quick goodbye before climbing into my car, the engine purring to life before I pull away from the curb and the party I never had any intention of enjoying. At some point during the drive to the party earlier, I’d come to the startling realization that all I wanted to do was go back to the cabin and relax alongside Paige. That I’d been silently craving figuring out her new routines. To see if she still relaxes in the evening with a cup of tea and reading like she used to or if that has changed over the years that we’ve been apart. As much as I used to know her like the back of my hand, I know there are things that have changed about both of us in the years we’ve been apart.
Yet I want to figure out all her new routines, relearn her until I know exactly what she wants and what she is going to do. As if I was back in school and Paige Knox was my favorite subject.
In the passenger seat Paige makes a groaning noise. “I’m never drinking anything ever again.”
A smile picks at my lips as I focus on the road. “We’ll get you home and get some water in you.”
“I just said no more drinking.” She turns her head and narrows her eyes at me. “You don’t listen very well.”
“Never have.”
“I remember.” She says before burping and I bite my lips together to keep from laughing, knowing full well when she wakes up tomorrow and remembers this she’ll be mortified. “Why do people enjoy drinking if it makes them feel like this?”
I shrug. “Some people try to dance that line of having fun and being sick.” I cut a glance at her. “Others drink to fit in. Others drink because they like the taste of it.”
She lets out a dry laugh. “It did taste pretty good.” She gags slightly but managed to hold down whatever had sprung up. “The first time around.” She adds with a groan.
“We’ll be home soon.”
She lets out a sigh, nestling into the leather of the seat. “I don’t have a home.” She mutters and something inside me shifts. A literal force that knocks the breath out of me as I drive and my hands tighten around the wheel.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I don’t fit in anywhere. Not here, not with the Bennetts, not in your group, not with Ma and Gram. That tiny apartment was all I had and I don’t even have that anymore.”
I gulp down the lump that formed in the back of my throat, stealing a glance to her, taking her hand in mine and I know she’s out of it because she doesn’t try to pull away. “Your place is with me Pages, it always has been.” I say, lifting her hand up to my lips and brushing a kiss across her knuckles. “Just like my place is next to you.”
A smile touches her lips as she watches me. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.” She says, her eyes drifting closed slightly and I shake my head because I wasn’t. I said the words and nothing in this world felt more right. I belonged by her side. Always. I was still wholly in love with the girl next to me regardless of trying not to be, regardless of her pushing me away.
She was mine and I wasn’t going to lose her again. I just had to figure out how to make the girl who refused any kind of sweet gesture and fought me at every turn, fall in love with me all over again…
“I’m not.” I finally say, and I can hear her breathing slow as she begins to settle into sleep. “I let you go once Paige, I’m not going to let that happen again.”