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It wasn’t a great time for me to feel that way. I needed to go back to sleep for an extended period of time and maybe an increase in my pain medicine.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Bridget finally spoke. “I’m not trying to make this about me, but all these years, you’ve hidden your pain from us. I…I wouldn’t have said what I did to you about not putting out if I’d known. I would have been there for you. I wouldn’t have run off to Hong Kong and left you alone.”
I swallowed. “That’s why. I didn’t want to be treated like I wasn’t able to take care of myself. Funny, right after the treatment was actually when I felt the top of my game. I was on like this rush of a high. I’d pulled it off. No one knew. Over time, it really hit me, and I had some help. But probably not enoughhelp. And truth be known, I could really use some medication too. I lock my doors. Over and over and over.”
Bridget grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “We love you. We would have been here for you. But we will be now. Do you want to live with me? Do you want me to move back to New York and live with you?”
Layla dabbed her eyes. “You asked me to come live with you, and I turned you down. I’m sorry. You needed me, and I didn’t know.”
I pulled myself into a sitting up position that was easier said than done. “My loves, we all have to live our own lives. It was my choice to be silent. Well, Dad encouraged it. But it’s on me. I’m trying to do better, I’m trying to find some kind of…I don’t know…redemption for things that I do.”
“Like what? What terrible thing could you have done?” Bridget’s voice rose. “You’re terribly nice. Almost too nice.”
“Well.” I didn’t really want to get into the whole story of Max right then. “Layla, I left you in France. Broke. Alone.”
Bridget shook her head. “We both thought that A, it would be worse if we didn’t leave with Dad, and B, that we could reason with him and make it better on the plane. We didn’t know that our dingbat brother was going to do that to you, and the second you found out, Hope, you texted Zeke and sent him to her.”
“And,” Layla kissed my cheek, “it turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to me. On that note, you have to go home with Max. Don’t get me wrong, I want you with me, but he is something. I think you need to spend more time with that man.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s complicated.”
“Of course it is. Hope, look at me.” Layla demanded so I did as she wanted. “There is good complicated and bad complicated. I think this is good complicated. I mean…he followed you across the world to a place we’re not supposed to visit and has, forthe last week, been there every waking moment for you. Good complicated.”
That was probably true. But given the history between us, I wasn’t sure if even good complicated wasn’t just too complicated.
“Are you sure about this?”I realized it was the fifth time I was asking him, but the plane was going to take off and if he really couldn’t do this, I’d rather know it before we were in the air.
Max shot me a look. “I’m sure. I wouldn’t offer if I couldn’t do it.”
I chewed on my lip. “But Hyperion?”
“Anna is doing a great job with it, and Eric feels so good, he keeps trying to leave the house. It will survive a few weeks without me. I’ll even work on some new recipes while I’m there. It’ll be productive. No one will get to you where we will be. If they somehow do find you, they won’t get through me.”
I stared at his hard profile as the airplane took off, and I tried to ignore how much I hated takeoffs. He winked at me. “You hate this part.”
“That obvious?”
He yawned. “Yes, very. Come here. Put your head on my shoulder if it’s comfortable. Close your eyes. Get some sleep.”
I’d taken a pain pill not too long ago, which meant I was going to pass out any minute anyway. I stretched out my legs, but there was no good way for me to sit comfortably. I’d be glad to be unconscious soon.
I winced. “I don’t think I can. It’s awkward. I pretty much have to stay like this.”
He nodded. “Been there, unfortunately.”
That was right. One of the things I’d learned in the last days was that Max had been shot twice. Both times had been superficial because he was, his words, “a lucky bastard.” But he knew how much healing sucked.
We were alone on the airplane set up by Zeke to bring us to Max’s home in Maine. I wasn’t sure where we were landing. It didn’t really matter to my tired brain. Where, who cared? Just so long as we landed.
“Can I ask you something?” He pressed his nose into my hair.
“I think at this point, you’ve earned the right to ask me anything.” Yep. My hip area had officially replaced my shoulder for the most painful injury.
He breathed out and then kissed my head before pulling back. “Was your first time in the back of that car?”
I blinked as it took me a second to realize what he was asking me. “Since the bar and the incident? Yes, it was.”
He closed his eyes like they pained him. “Fuck.”
