Page 7 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

Max exhales through his nose and rubs a hand over his face like he’s the one who’s been inconvenienced. Her leaving is the problem that needs solving here, apparently.

He looks back at me, eyes narrowing.

“Well,” he barks. “That was dramatic.”

I freeze with the wooden fox in my hand.

I lift my gaze slowly. “Dramatic.”

Max spreads his hands like he’s the reasonable one. “June, I’m trying to talk to you.”

I stare at him. At the sheets. At the dent in the mattress. At the place my body used to curl against his at night when I still believed we were real.

“You were fucking someone else in our bed,” I say, each word sharp. “And now you’re trying to talk to me?”

Max’s jaw tightens. “I told you, it wasn’t⁠—”

“Don’t,” I cut in. “Don’t say it wasn’t a big deal. Don’t say it didn’t mean anything. Don’t say I’ve been distant, like any of that makes it okay…”

I gesture helplessly at the bed, at the air, at the entire scene, like it’s too disgusting to name again.

He takes a step toward me. “June⁠—”

“I got fired today,” I say once more. “Did you hear me? I got walked out of my job with a box of my things because someone decided I looked guilty.”

Max’s eyes flicker. Not with sympathy.

“I’m leaving,” I say.

He laughs, short and disbelieving. “No, you’re not.”

I start packing.

My hands shake, but they keep moving because they have a job to do. If I stop, I’ll break.

Max stands, looming. “June. Stop. You’re not thinking.”

I glance up at him.

His anger is simmering now, controlled. The kind that scares me more.

“I am thinking,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “Where are you going to go? You don’t have anywhere. You don’t have money.”

I swallow.

Because he’s right.

My stomach turns as I remember my bank app. The pathetic number. The way I’ve been living paycheck to paycheck while Max insisted on nicer things, on going out, on keeping up appearances.

He takes a step closer. “Come on. Let’s be adults about this.”

Adults!

Like he didn’t just get caught with another woman in my bed.

Max’s gaze flicks to the lanyard still around my neck. The school badge with my photo and my name, smiling like I believed the world was kind.