Fear dragged up anger, and it worsened every time I glanced at the unanswered messages on my phone. I retreated to my room when the sun came up. Sitting in bed with my copy ofThe Princess Brideon my lap, I stewed and stared blankly at the pages.
My anger festered, and eventually, I was ready to burn the place down. But before I could, a door in the hallway slammed, and a loud bang came from Max’s adjoining room.
I startled, shutting the book and setting it beside me to climb out of bed. My feet moved on instinct, and I was at his door to make sure he was alright before I realized I was going.
Yes, we hadn’t spoken since the lawn.
And yes, he’d ghosted me for hours.
But I refused to leave him bleeding out on the carpet or on the floor like a fallen oak tree, if that explained the crash I’d heard. With no clue what was going on with him, I half-expected to find him transformed into an actual drunken bear stumbling around the room.
I didn’t expect to find him the way I did.
He paced the room, hunting for whatever he could find and throwing it as hard as possible. Hell-bent on destruction, he didn’t register the adjoining door opening or notice me standing there. Running his hands through his hair, he pulled so hard I thought he might yank it out in giant tufts.
“Hey, that’s my job.”
Midway through grabbing a lamp off the table and pulling back his arm to chuck it into the wall, he heard me and spun around. His arm was raised above his head, and fury slashed across his face. Thankfully, he noted my presence before he could launch the lamp in my direction.
I tried to squelch the fear rising inside my chest, but alarm bells fired off inside my head.
I’d never seen him like this.
Granted, we hadn’t known each otherthatlong, but I hadn’t seen anything that led me to expectthis.
Max flickered between hot and cold like the flame in a faulty pilot light. It was part of his charm.
But that fire inside him, one I’d been drawn to from the moment we met, was a single match compared to the incendiary rage coursing through him now.
Trying to appear casual, I leaned against the doorjamb. I kept my voice as calm as possible and shrugged. “I’ll share mine, if you share yours.”
He furrowed his brow, staring at me and huffing out heavy breaths before fixing his eyes on the lamp he had raised in my direction. He lowered his hand and set the lamp down.
But the tightness of his jaw told me answers might be off the table. “It’s not what you think.”
“I’m not sure what to think, Max,” I hedged. “Because you’re not telling me anything.”
He ran his hand through his hair, his movements rough and jerky. “I turned twenty-one this month.”
I blinked, unsure what to say. That wasn’t close to what I’d been expecting, and I wanted to ask him a million questions.
What day was his birthday?
Why hadn’t he told me?
Did he want to celebrate it later?
But since it seemed tied to his anger, I held back. “Oh…You don’t seem happy about that.”
“Vivian’s parents are coming.”
Even with what I’d learned about his mother and the inheritance, I didn’t understand the connection between that and his birthday, so I waited for him to expand.
Instead he gripped his hair again, his face screwing up with emotions I couldn’t make sense of.
Other than the rage, of course.
“Whatever it is, Max…you can share it with me.” I stepped further into the room. “No matter what happens—Or, happened between us on the lawn, I’m still here. Even if we disagree or fight, I want to be here for you. If you need me.”
