Chapter Ten
W e spent the next two days hiking and exploring the caves, returning to the diner for each meal.
Bill and Diane shared stories about Max helping them around the place, filling in when Diane got sick and when Bill had to have surgery on his leg.
If they were paid actors, they really beefed up their backstories and memorized them until they knew them like the back of their hands, so I hoped he’d paid them extra.
But I slowly accepted reality.
This was Max Dread. Not the smug, hot-and-cold playboy he acted like at Camelot Court, but the sweet, thoughtful guy who longed for normal days and a life away from the crowd.
Seeing that side of him affected me more than I wanted to admit, but I still didn’t doubt my ability to last through the challenge. It felt more like a vacation than a true test.
Unless…that was part of it.
A way to lure me into a false sense of security.
I kept my guard up to be safe.
And since Vivian had informed me that it paid to know my adversaries, I peppered Max with questions—surely to catch him in a lie. Not because I wanted to find out more about him.
“What are you studying in school?” I took a sip of my milkshake and tapped my toes on his shoes.
“Business.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Why?”
Even though Max could pull off the suit-and-tie look like he’d been paid to advertise it, I couldn’t picture him working some nine-to-five corporate job. Or actually knotting the tie around his neck, for that matter.
He shrugged. “Most of the Knights major or minor in business. Some study political science and are prelaw. Others are premed. But we all have jobs lined up for us after college, too. Doesn’t really matter what I major in at the end of the day.”
“That must be nice,” I muttered. “But why business, then?”
He let out a sigh, accepting that I planned to pester him.
“Bill…He was in the hospital last year, and I helped Diane with some of their bookkeeping. She hates math, so normally, he does all of that. Guess I got a taste for it, then.”
My lips pursed. “I don’t buy that.”
He laced his fingers in front of him and slid his hands across the table as he leaned forward. “Why do you care, Quinn Everly ?”
“Call me curious.”
That earned me a smirk. “I’ll share mine, if you share yours.”
He’d made that offer several times over the last four days, and most of the time, what he wanted me to reveal felt too personal, no matter how much I wanted answers from him.
But this one, I could handle.
“Deal.”
He narrowed his eyes but heaved a sigh and answered. “I’m sure as fuck not going to follow in my Dad’s footsteps, right? Be the next advisor to the King of Camelot Court.” He scoffed, his jaw muscle ticking in a way that caught my eye. “I had two choices, and I picked the lesser of two evils.”
“Two choices? But you said there are other majors.”
“Not in my family.”
His body tensed, communicating what he wouldn’t say, and I sensed I’d stumbled into territory he didn’t want to discuss. Not wanting to trigger him, I let it go, nodding and taking another sip of my milkshake until his posture relaxed.
But I put a mental pin in that for later.
“Your turn.”
I mirrored his posture, straightening my spine and pushing my shoulders back before clasping my hands on the table in front of me. “First off, I’m a dance major. And let me start by saying no, I will not dance for you.”
He waved me off. “I’m aware, and I haven’t asked you to dance for me yet, have I?”
“What do you mean you’re awa—Never mind. That one, I don’t even want to know. I chose my major because when I was six years old, my dad read The Princess Bride to me, and like a lot of little girls, I wanted to be a prin—pirate. I wanted to be a pirate.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Like the Dr—Like the one in the book.” I frowned, getting flustered before shaking it off. “My parents always told me I could be anything I wanted, so when I realized being a, uh, pirate meant a peg leg and eye patch, I switched it to ballerina. They signed me up for dance classes.”
“And the rest was history?”
I laughed. “Oh, god, no. I was terrible at ballet. And my body is all wrong for it.”
Max raised an eyebrow. “Your body is all wrong?”
“Yeah, these boobs and these hips? Not to mention my love of milkshakes. I’m a ballet coach’s worst nightmare.”
He growled, muttering under his breath. “I knew I fucking hated the ballet.”
My cheeks warmed.
The little girl in me who’d still wanted to be a ballerina even though I hadn’t been exactly right for it practically glowed.
I gulped down a sip of my milkshake, letting my hair shield my face so he wouldn’t see.
When my body calmed the fuck down, I lifted my head and one of my shoulders. “Anyway, there are plenty of other types of dance that allow for unlimited milkshakes.”
He nodded, his brow still furrowed, like he’d be the judge of those dance forms as well. “And that’s what you want to do for the rest of your life? Dance?”
“What’s wrong with dance?”
“Aside from ballet’s asinine body standards, absolutely nothing. I’m just asking.”
“Yeah, that’s been my plan since…” I trailed off, having just walked into territory I’d been trying hard to steer clear of, but when Max raised his eyebrows, I sighed and told him the rest. “Since my mom died. That’s been my plan.”
He stared at me intently, like he was trying to read inside my mind, which I didn’t particularly care for at that moment.
I looked away after a minute, pretending to be interested in the view outside the window. The pretty birds. The random car driving past the diner. But after a few minutes, I faced him, arching my brow and waiting for his inevitable commentary on my life choices.
He surprised me. “When did it stop making you happy?”
My mouth dropped open, and I instantly snapped to defend against the attack I’d expected him to make, a reflexive argument against his accusation poised on my tongue.
But I didn’t release it.
He lowered his eyes and took a sip of his milkshake, allowing me to process the question without the weight of his stare on my face.
I had stopped thinking about it. Whether dance made me happy or not. Which felt ridiculous considering I was here, participating in The Quest to get money for my program.
Not to mention the medical bills for my asthma.
While I didn’t have to tackle that health problem as aggressively now—at least, not with more appointments and medication, but just my regular inhaler and healthy doses of therapy—my goal in all of it was to keep dancing.
It probably shouldn’t have, given how I’d chosen to cope by not dealing with my grief at all, but it surprised me that I hadn’t once examined whether dance still made me happy.
To be fair, I’d primarily been pushing away thoughts of the accident. Namely, the guilt I still carried over my dad’s death. I couldn’t think about it for long before it hurt too much.
But I’d been dancing through that. Trying, at least. Fighting with my breathing to hold onto that future. The one I picked when I was twelve years old to honor my mom.
A twinge in my chest confirmed there was a reason I never stopped to ask myself if it still made me happy.
Considering it now, I gave Max the only answer I had. “I don’t know, honestly.”
“Your mom…” He cleared his throat. “Was she a dancer or something?”
I shook my head.
“So, why keep doing it?”
Mulling that over with a few sips of my milkshake, I tried to put it into words. “Taking a new path…It means leaving the one you’re on, where you started from.” I glanced out the window again, staring at the mountain road. “What if you can’t find your way back? What if taking a new path means you lose where…”
Max tilted his head. “But if you never lose sight of where you started from, you never move forward, Princess.”
My mouth twisted into a frown. “Well, have you ever been on a path for so long when you finally stopped and looked around, realizing it wasn’t what you wanted anymore, you convinced yourself the distance to the end was shorter than the time it would take to turn back around and start over?”
I sighed heavily, dropping my shoulders and sinking against the back of the booth. “I guess, after she died, I held onto it because it was the last thing she saw me doing that I loved. It made me happy, but…”
“At some point that stopped.”
I nodded.
He studied me before staring out the window at the woods.
“You know, when I’m out on a hike, sometimes I realize I’m going the wrong way. But you’re right, going back to the start to take a new path takes longer and doesn’t make the most sense when there’s another option.”
My eyebrows rose. “What’s that?”
“Veer off the path you’re on and forge a new one.”
I huffed a laugh, gesturing at the six foot three inches of solid muscle in front of me. “Easy for you to say when you can knock the trees out of your way with your bare hands.”
“Ah, so you’ve noticed.” He smirked, leaning back in his seat and clearly flexing. “But I’m serious. You could do that. Keep moving forward in the hopes you find your way. It doesn’t change where you started from.”
I twisted my hands around my glass. “I don’t even know what I’d do.”
Max leaned over and grabbed one of the napkins from the silver dispenser at the end of our table. Picking up the glass cup filled with used crayons, he tipped it over between us. While he laid out the napkin, I gathered the scattering crayons to keep them from rolling off the table.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.” He winked at me before scribbling something in crayon on the napkin.
I frowned. “I hate that line now. It sounds like code for I’m lying, and you won’t know until I make sure it hurts as much as possible .”
His eyebrows shot up as I spoke negatively about the two elephants constantly in the room with us. Thus far, I’d avoided talking about them, even after what happened at the dance. My feelings and his hatred being well established.
And with Max keeping me so busy, I’d almost had no time to think about them at all.
Almost.
Instead of commenting on my dig at his mortal enemies, he pushed the napkin between us. “This is a chart of your skills and assets. As you can see, I added a few to get you started.”
As I read the list, a laugh burst out of me.
He’d written “those boobs,” “those hips,” and “loves milkshakes” in the Assets column.
Max grinned and tapped the paper. “Your turn.”
“Wait, you want me to do this now?”
He nodded.
“No way, I’m not listing my skills and assets in front of you. You’ll either figure out how to counter them or use them against me.”
Not bothering to respond to that, he pulled the napkin back and wrote something.
“Skeptical?” I read aloud. “You expect me to believe you think that’s an asset?”
He suppressed a grin.
“Okay, point taken.” I huffed.
More scribbling.
“Logical?” I hummed over that one. “Okay, not always, but?—”
Max wrote something else.
“Shrewd? Wait, argumentative!” I snatched the crayon out of his hand. “Okay, no. You’re not using this to insult me.”
I folded the napkin and tucked it in my pocket.
Max skirted his gaze to the napkin dispenser, so I set it on the booth beside me. He shook his head, looking past me at Diane to let her know we’d take the check.
I sat there, stewing over Max ruining another potentially sweet gesture with his insulting delivery, but I considered everything he’d said.
One thing I knew for sure. I couldn’t keep going down the path I’d been on if it didn’t make me happy. While I’d kept dancing after losing my parents, it wouldn’t honor their memory if I disregarded the main thing they’d wanted for me. To choose a path that made me happy, doing something I loved.
It surprised no one more than me that Max Dread had brought about that revelation.
But if he was right, why did that thought make me so sad?
On the drive back to the cabin, my heart ached over the thought of saying goodbye to dance. It felt torn in two. Knowing what my parents wanted for me didn’t change that letting go of dance meant losing the last thing that made me feel connected to them.
Maybe I wasn’t ready for that. Maybe Max didn’t know what he was talking about. And maybe this was a normal part of grief, and I was just spiraling.
I wasn’t sure.
But when we pulled up to the house, I got out as quickly as possible, needing space between us. I had let him get too close. Let my guard down. Let him see too much.
Or think he saw right through me. Enough to make me question things about myself I wasn’t sure I wanted to question.
Max called my name as I beelined for the house, but I ignored him. Head down, I went up the steps, praying he’d left the door unlocked, so my epic storm off wouldn’t be for naught.
But I didn’t make it that far.
My body whipped around before I registered his hand on my arm. I swung right into his chest, and Max pushed me behind him faster than I opened my mouth to protest.
“What the?—”
“Shh.”
My mouth snapped shut. Something about the tone of his harsh whisper or the tension in his body pushed past my natural instinct to tell him to fuck right off.
I stared up at him, searching for what put him on guard.
He stared at the door to our cabin.
Or, more accurately, the wide-open door.
Max reached back to anchor me behind him, and if that hadn’t been enough reason to be concerned, the hint of fear in his voice certainly was.
“Stay behind me, Quinn. I mean it.”
With my cheek pressing against his right side as I peeked around his body, I nodded. Stepping toward the house, I gripped his flannel shirt tightly.
With no context for what had him worried, each slow and careful step he took only amplified my anxiety.
Max had never struck me as scared of anything. To fear, a person needed to care. Flippant at best, Max teetered on the edge of being annoyed or pissed off more than anything, usually when required to pretend he gave a damn about something he didn’t.
But this was different.
We reached the open door, and he paused. “Stay here.”
“No fucking way!” I whisper-shouted. “What if whoever opened the door is out here?”
“Shit,” He cursed and grabbed my hand. “Do not leave my side. You got me?”
“I got you.”
He moved to go inside while I scanned the house. At least, as well as I could with his large frame blocking most of my view. Forced to search lower to the ground, I spotted the reason our door was open before he did.
“Max, look!”
He followed my finger to the gift basket on the floor. Relaxing slightly, he still turned back to the door and closed it behind me. I found no trace of messing around in his onyx eyes as he locked it.
“Stay here. I just want to make sure.”
What exactly he wanted to make sure of, I didn’t know. But I did what he said and waited. Once he made sure the kitchen and bedroom were clear, he came back over to me, scrubbing his face with his hands.
“Sorry. I thought…I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine.” I touched his arm, unsure if I was reassuring him or myself. “But what had you so worried?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just didn’t expect the door to be open. No one has a key but me. At least, I didn’t think anyone did.”
I wasn’t convinced that was all there was to it, but I let it go right then. Needing a minute to let the adrenaline rush fade. I planned to circle back later.
If there was something out there capable of scaring Max Dread that thoroughly, I had to know what it was.
“I need to make a call.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled to the last person I expected.
Kingston.