I used to love this. And I still felt the power of it. But it felt disgusting and wrong. I didn’t stop until I was out of the club. I didn’t bother talking to Marco again, either. Not when my shame was heavy on my back.
Just one more time,I repeated to myself the whole way home.
I went home and instead of sleeping, I thought about the drugs in my bag. How much I wanted them. How much I craved them.
Just one more time...
chapter
thirty-three
aubrey
“ifeel like we’re ships passing in the night,” I teased on a balmy Monday afternoon. Maxx gave me a tired smile, having just woken up, and kissed me as I walked into his apartment. I hadn’t seen him all weekend, this being the first we had been together in days.
“How was Landon on Saturday?” I asked. I had only been able to speak to him briefly on Sunday, and the subject of his day with his brother hadn’t come up.
“Huh?” he asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He seemed to be sleeping more and more lately. I worried he was getting depressed. I tried to keep him up and active, but he was resistant and grouchy.
I knew he was worried about his financial situation, and I also knew that I didn’t have any way to help him. He had pounded the pavement trying to find more work, but he was coming up woefully empty-handed.
“Your brother. The kid you were hanging out with on Saturday,” I prompted with a confused smile.
Maxx gave me a sheepish grin. “Oh yeah. He was good. He wants me to go with him to look at art schools this summer.” He pulled out a box of cereal and dumped some into a bowl. He looked in the refrigerator, but there was no milk, so he started eating it dry. I thought about buying him groceries, but I knew that his pride wouldn’t allow him to take money from me.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and nuzzled into his chest. “That’s awesome, Maxx.” Aside from the financial stresses, I knew that he agonized over how to make his relationship with his brother work again. Landon felt betrayed, and I completely understood where the younger boy was coming from. And in true teenage fashion, he held a serious grudge.
Maxx crunched on his cereal and swallowed before leaning down to kiss the top of my head. “I’d like to take you out sometime next week. Somewhere nice,” he said suddenly. I pulled back and looked up at him.
“You don’t have to. I’m just as happy staying here and hanging out with you,” I protested. I didn’t want Maxx wining and dining me when he could barely afford the bare-bones groceries in his kitchen.
“I’d really like to. I haven’t had a chance to take you out on a date that you deserve.”
I kissed his chest and laid my cheek over his beating heart, strong and sure beneath my ear. “You have other things you have to pay for. You don’t need to take me to some fancy dinner,” I argued.
Maxx put his bowl on the counter and wrapped his arms around me so that we held each other. “I haven’t done much right by you, Aubrey, but let me do this. Besides, I’ll be flush with cash after the weekend,” he said offhandedly.
I leaned back, pulling out of his hold slightly, and gave him a questioning look. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” I asked.
“I’ve been given a chance to make some great money.”
I brightened. “Did you take your stuff to a different art gallery?” I asked hopefully. I had, as subtly as possible, been suggesting he try to sell his art to other art dealers. The interest was out there for his work; he just needed to seize it. He had been adverse to it after his earlier rejection, but maybe he had finally come around.
Maxx scratched his temple. “Uh, no. That’s not it. I don’t really want to talk about it right now, but hopefully my days of living hand to mouth will be over soon and I can finally start banking on our future.” He pulled out of my arms and dropped his now-empty bowl into the sink.
I wanted to badger him about this great newopportunity.The fire in his eyes worried me. But before I could say anything, he picked up the small gift bag I had brought with me and held it up.
“Is this the surprise you were teasing me about?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, feeling distracted.
Maxx grinned and began pulling tissue paper out of the bag. He lifted the heavy frame into his hands and stared down at the picture behind the glass. His face was carefully blank, and I wondered if I had overestimated his pleasure at receiving it.
“How did you find this?” he asked quietly, not looking at me, his eyes trained on the photograph of the four people in the picture.
“Actually, I found it one of the first times I was ever here. I know you kept it in the back of your drawer, and I just thought it was time you took it out of hiding, don’t you think?” I asked quietly.
Maxx stood there for a long time, then without a word, he walked down the hallway. I followed after him, not sure what he was going to do. He approached his dresser and slowly put the framed photo in the center. He moved it until it was facing his bed.
