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All this time I’ve had her by my side. Having Sloane is fucking terrifying, and I love it.
* * *
As I step out of the shower, I hear pounding on my front door. Sloane watches me from the bed as I quickly throw on a pair of sweatpants and rush to see who it is.
Max’s voice comes through the door. I lied to him and said I needed to get up early because I wanted time with Sloane, but I don’t think he understood correctly.
“All right, I know you said you didn’t want to talk and that you have to go to sleep early, but guess what, Mikhail? I simply don’t give a fuck. You are my best friend. You don’t get to decide when we can and can’t hang out.I do.I’m bored. I want a shot. I couldn’t give two shits about the bodies you have to bury tomorrow. Let. Me. In.”
I laugh despite how frustrated I am with Sloane and Giovanni. Opening the door, I find Max looking at me, both arms holding his weight against the doorframe.
“Mikhail?” he asks.
“Yeah?”
“You actually answered.”
“Are you going to cry about it?”
“No.”
“Okay, then get in.”
He stumbles over his feet and finds his way to the couch. “I can’t be by myself,” he says, lifting the bottle to his lips.
“Put the beer down, Max.”
He rolls his eyes and puts it on the table, and I shuffle the cards. He takes the cards from me and deals them. While he looks at the seven cards he has, I just look at him.
“Are we seriously going to play Go Fish right now?”
“What’s wrong with Go Fish? You scared to lose or something?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Go Fish. You start.”
We take our turns asking each other for cards. Max puts all his might into the game, and it makes me want to laugh my ass off.
“I miss her,” he tells me.
“I know, but you can’t do anything about it.”
Max likes that I never ask him questions or force him to do anything. Giovanni thinks he spends his time running a club his father gave him, but instead he’s been trying to figure out what the Clarkes are up to. I don’t understand his obsession with them. He isn’t the kind of person to pick a side but his own.
“I saw her,” he says. “I told her she was fucking dead to me.”
My gaze lifts to his, and I see a familiar pain. His eyes try to hold back the tears, but they flow down his face effortlessly.
“Some days are just ... heavy, Max. Eventually, you’ll make peace with who she is in your head.”
We play for a little while longer until his eyes begin to flutter and his drink falls from his hands. I shake my head even though he can’t see me. Grabbing a blanket off the arm of the couch, I throw it over him.
“Sleep tight, man.”
CHAPTER34
SLOANE
A few weeks later ...
