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Air emptied from Max’s lungs. “Fuck, cat… Fuck!” He gripped Sean’s shoulders and shook his head. “You can’t say shit like that!”
“Yes, I can. Because it’s true.” That lump in his throat made a comeback. “Please, Max. Just say it.” Sean’s voice cracked. “Just say it.”
Max’s brows pinched high. Sean could see his war waging, waging like a firestorm in his eyes. He clutched Sean’s shoulders tighter. A grimace etched his face. “I do, Sean,” he breathed. “I do love you. But that doesn’t mean I want to… Because I don’t.”
Sean stared at him, heart sinking. What kind of profession of love was that?
Max closed his eyes. Then his voice dropped to a stone-cold mutter. “I never wanted to love you. Never wanted to love anyone. God knows, I learned my lesson. Play with fire and you get burned. And fuck, did I ever. I’m talking burned to fucking ash.” He shook his head. “No. I won’t ever do that again.”
“But you’ve got to try again. How else will you get your happy ending?”
Max chuckled darkly. “Happy endings. What a loaded crock of shit.”
“They’re real, Max. I know they are.”
Max opened his eyes. “How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen them. With others.”
“But how do you know it was real?”
Sean frowned, but couldn’t answer.
Max’s gaze turned bleak. “My dark is too dark for you, cat. You need to find someone who’s right in the head.”
“No.” Sean clutched Max’s wrists. “I don’t want anyone else.”
“You will, Sean. I promised.” Max eased them apart.
“No, I won’t!” Heart hammering, Sean tried to grip Max’s elbows.
“Sean. Stop.” Max’s features crumbled. “You gotta let this go.”
“I don’t know how!” Tears threatened. Sean’s vision turned blurry. Pain streaked through his chest.
“You’ll figure it out.”
He’d figure it out? Jesus. What a dick thing to say. But then he looked at Max’s face and understood. He was shutting down as they spoke, right before Sean’s fucking eyes.
“Don’t,” Sean croaked, desperately shaking his head. “Don’t go, Max. Come back.” He clutched Max’s forearms. “Don’t shut me out!”
“You’re already out, Sean. Now, it’s time for you to go.”
Sean shoved Max’s hands off his shoulders, his head spinning, his heart splitting. “You promised you’d never hurt me. When this all fucking started. You promised you’d never hurt me!”
“I lied.”
Air rushed from Sean’s lungs. Fuck, this hurt so fucking bad. He could feel himself crumbling. His insides dying. Coming apart with no strength to regroup. No strength, and absolutely zero desire to anyway, all while Max stood there like a statue. Which, despite the debilitating sadness consuming him, really fucking pissed Sean off.
Forcing his feet to move, to carry him toward the door, he stopped when he got there and turned around. “Congratulations,” he rasped. “You fucking coward. In protecting your own ass you’ve just destroyed mine.”
* *
Coward.
Jesus God.
Max’s mind buckled under the weight, under the accuracy of Sean’s words, unable to breathe. All he could do was just stand there, watching as Sean staggered away. He was the worst fucking hypocrite to walk the face of the Earth. He wheezed for air, aghast, the bitter irony assaulting him. He’d just made Sean hate him for the very reason he loathed Kevin. He’d literally spat the word coward on Kevin’s grave. Max’s frame shook. That he made Sean feel the way Kevin had made him? He truly was a monster. Although, even monster didn’t feel strong enough.
Max was the devil himself.
Barely holding himself together, he finally dragged in some oxygen. He hadn’t wanted to hurt him again. Would never have come home had he known Sean was there. But he’d wrapped shit up earlier than he’d expected to at Mason and—Goddamn it, he’d just crushed Sean so fucking bad. That dimness in his eyes as he’d left just now? Max had never seen that look from him before. Like he hadn’t just sucked out Sean’s happy this time, but his will to keep going, too.
Max rasped a curse, face pinching. He hadn’t meant to do that, but he’d been so fucking unprepared. Hadn’t expected to see him. Hadn’t expected Sean at his house. His guard had been down, weakened by lack of food and sleep. So he’d wavered in judgement and made some really bad decisions. Like lingering in Sean’s presence. Trying to converse in his current state. A state where the strength in which he missed Sean completely ruled him.
He should’ve told Sean to leave, or hell, walked away himself, but he hadn’t been able to take his gaze off him. Off Sean’s beautiful face. Off his midnight blue eyes. The sight of him was like a drug, and it’d gone straight to Max’s head. Making him feel light-headed in the strangest kind of way. Exuberantly ecstatic, yet devastatingly sad. Sean’s presence lit him up and fucking crushed him. To the point where he didn’t know what to say or do. And Scott’s smug-ass fucking antics just made things worse.
