“It’s cool. You don’t have to. I just thought I’d ask. I was only thinking it might be nice to get away—”
“Of course I’ll come, Aubrey. If you need me, I’m there. Always,” Maxx said earnestly. He reached back across the table and took my hands again, and I relaxed marginally.
“I know it’s a big step, meeting the parents and all. Particularly my parents, because they’ve sort of sucked. And if this freaks you out or makes you want to—”
Maxx leaned across the table and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, gently tugging me toward him. He kissed me. A hard pressing of lips that effectively silenced my worries.
When he was finished, he rested his forehead against mine, our noses touching. “I’m ready for any and every step, Aubrey,” he whispered, and I shivered.
I sat back in the booth and gave Maxx a shaky but genuine smile.
“Okay, then. I guess we’re heading to North Carolina.”
My heart seized up the moment we entered the city limits. Marshall Creek, North Carolina, hadn’t changed a bit. There was something both comforting and exasperating about that.
I drove through the familiar streets, past the diner where Mom took me to celebrate winning the school election. Past the local library where Jayme volunteered during middle school. And right by the high school where I had graduated.
I didn’t look at any of it. I didn’t need to. The memories of this place were imprinted on my mind whether I wanted them there or not. And strangely, it still felt like home.
I had expected to feel nothing. A numbness. An emotional disconnect. But the warmth that spread outward from my heart to be back in this small country town was something indescribable. It felt good.
Maxx hadn’t been very talkative on the two-and-a-half-hour ride to my hometown. He had spent most of the time staring out the window and chewing on his bottom lip.
After agreeing to come with me to see my parents, he had seemed to retreat into himself. He was present but absent at the same time. I began to second-guess my decision to ask him to come with me in the first place. Because it seemed to weigh on him in a manner I didn’t understand. I just wished he would tell me why.
“I always pictured you in a place like this,” Maxx murmured, half under his breath.
I looked through the window at the nondescript brick houses and well-manicured lawns. The white picket fences and random joggers with their dogs on the sidewalks.
“Really?” I asked, turning off the main road and onto a side street lined with red maple trees. In the fall they turned a bright, almost violent red, and Jayme had always loved to walk by them.
“It’s sort of perfect,” Maxx said, finally looking at me. “The streets are clean, the houses are painted, the people are smiling. You deserve to live in a place like this.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I gave him a small smile in return, which quickly faded. I slowed down the car as I approached the end of a cul-de-sac and the house with light blue siding and tan shutters flanked by the familiar red maples. I could still see the frame of the tree house my dad had made for Jayme when she was six among the bare limbs.
I pulled my car into the driveway. I thought I was going to be sick. And then I started to panic.
“I can’t do this,” I said, my voice hoarse as my throat tightened.
I gripped the steering wheel as though I would break it in half. “I have to leave. I can’t go in there.” I heard the rising hysteria in my voice and knew I was three seconds from losing it. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe in and out of my nose, trying to slow my erratic breathing.
I was jolted out of my downward spiral by a gentle touch on the back of my neck. Fingers buried into the hair at the base of my skull, a firm pressure that had an instant calming effect.
“It’ll be okay, Aubrey,” Maxx whispered, and I felt his lips on my temple, the soft whisper of his breath as he spoke in my ear. “It’ll be okay.”
I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. Blue eyes burned into mine, and I knew he was right. I leaned in and kissed him, unable to put into words how much his presence meant to me. Maxx Demelo had becomemysavior.
“Okay, let’s do this,” I said, a little louder than I meant to. I pulled away from Maxx and opened my door, getting out before I could talk myself out of it.
“I’ll get our bags,” Maxx said as I started heading toward the porch. I took in a million details in the seconds it took me to approach the house that had once been my home. My parents had replaced the old, battered porch swing with a small, wrought iron patio set. My mother’s old rosebush on the side of the house had been dug up, and a wooden lattice now stood in its place.
It was obvious my mother was still compulsive about her gardening. Now that the weather was getting warmer, I could see she had been working to get her flower beds in order.
My eyes traveled over the well-worn steps I had climbed countless times. And then I was standing in front of the door, now dark blue and no longer a gleaming white. There were so many changes, yet it still felt the same. The soothing familiarity ofhomefought to overwhelm the nerves in my belly.
I stood there, staring at the door, not knocking. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but I couldn’t bring myself to raise my hand to the wood.
“Do you want me to do it?” Maxx asked quietly, dropping our bags on the floor by his feet.
