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Oh, no.
“Um, from Dad? What was it about?”
Max walked into the kitchen, leaning his ass against one of the countertops and crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought we talked about this, Kelsey. Why’d you tell him now?”
Her mouth was suddenly as dry as a desert, then she turned to face him, holding up her still bound hands. “I don’t know. I think it was just too much for me to bottle up anymore. There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing, Max. It’s just better to have it out there, so that it’s not a situation where we’re sneaking around and being dishonest.”
Max nodded slowly, but the line of his mouth showed anything but agreement with her. “Whether or not it’s right, or okay, or not a big deal—in our opinion—doesn’t mean it was a good idea to tell him now. You know this. And yet you still did it.”
“How did it go? Like, was he raving pissed, or was he just irritated?” She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the answer to that. Perhaps she’d get lucky. Maybe her dad, after all the stress they’d been under, would see that this was actually… a good thing?
But what Max told her then was like an icy splash of water in her face. It wasn’t going to be that easy.
Max took a deep breath, looking away as he said the words. “Basically, it was Mitchell demanding I send you home immediately. Of course, I told him I wasn’t doing anything of the sort—unless you want to. And that just pissed him off more. Then I got pissed at him because he was overreacting—which he was—but in his defense I wasn’t exactly as calm as I should have been, either, considering the subject of our conversation. I have to admit I was taken aback by the fact that you didn’t even bother to tell me that you were going to tell him.”
Inside, she recoiled at the sting of the rebuke, gentle though it might have been. But this was a side of Max she had never seen before, and she didn’t like it, even as she knew she deserved his anger, and worse, his clear disappointment. That was the hardest of all.
It was at that moment that she realized things were in danger of going sideways.
Max continued, “I told him you’re a grown fucking woman. That there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing. All the words that, while they’re true, don’t really matter when someone’s pissed at you.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Anyway, then I tried a different approach. I tried to be conciliatory—and I urged him to talk to you.” The line of Max’s mouth hardened then. “Which is when he told me he’s been trying to reach you, but that you’d said you wouldn’t be able to talk until tomorrow. Why? Why would you do that?”
She swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat. “I… I thought if he had some time to think it over, and cool down, maybe he would see it with clear eyes. That this isn’t a big deal, really.”
“You don’t understand men very well then. That… wasn’t a good plan, Kelsey.” Max winced. “I finally just had to let him go, as it wasn’t getting us anywhere. We sort of ended the conversation on ‘Fuck you, and fuck you.’ Which isn’t something I’m exactly used to when it comes to him.” He pushed himself away from the countertop, and drifted out to the living room again, silent, a deep furrow at his brow in a way she hadn’t seen him since—
Not. Now.
“M-Max, where are you going? Dinner’s almost ready. Chicken’s in the warming drawer. I just need to dish up the potatoes…”
He shook his head, but the fact he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze hurt the worst. “Put the dinner in the fridge after you have what you’d like. I’m exhausted. Going to go lie down for a while. When you’re done, come up and kneel at the bedside until I let you into bed.” He paused. “If I let you into bed.”
Then he was gone.
Stunned, she stood at the counter, staring out the window over the sink, listening to the clicks and snaps of the oven’s heating elements slowly cooling.
What she’d hoped hadn’t come to pass at all. She knew her dad, and to hear that he’d called up Max, snarling at him? That was something her dad never did. Never. He was cool as cool could be, as long as she could remember. To have him be so demonstrably angry? At both Max and her?
She’d miscalculated. And badly.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. Ironically, it was how Max has reacted. In any other situation, his possessiveness and territorial response when challenged by her dad would have made her want to kneel down at his feet and beg for his cock down her throat.
Now though? It made things even worse.
How could you have not thought of this?
And it was then that it hit her like a ton of bricks, her stomach sinking, her voice a trembling whisper as she held her hands to her face. “I’ve gone and screwed everything up. Jesus, Kelsey, why do you have to be so fucking stupid!”
She knew what she had to do, even if it made her heart twist in agony. It was the only thing she could do, to avoid this blowing up into something terrible for all of them.
Picking up her phone, she dialed his number. The tears were streaming down her face by the time the other end picked up, and she heard his gruff, tense voice.
“Hi, Daddy. Can… can we talk?”
Chapter 23
Arlen’s car had shown up just after three in the morning, and he was idling it outside. She’d packed up everything she could, the tears never really stopping as she did. Finally, everything piled up near the front door, ready for her shameless exit, she paused, needing to see him one last time.
Creeping up the stairs in the dark, wincing at every crack and snap of the risers, she padded quietly into his bedroom. She sat upon his bed stroking his hip. He was naked from the waist up, his arm thrown over his head exposing his ribcage. There was so much that she wanted to say, so much she wanted to do, but the terrible part of it was that the only thing she could do was the one thing that would break his heart. For her heart was already breaking, and to hurt him too, it made all of it so much worse.
