“Fine.” He heaved a sigh. “Go for it.”
“Are you…” I swallowed past the lump in my throat as I reached him, unsure if asking anything was the right move, but needing the tiniest bit of hope after what I thought he’d just done. “Are you happy?”
He stared at me. No sign he’d heard me, save for the slight flare of his nostrils.
When he didn’t respond, I ran a hand through my hair and tugged. “I guess, a better question is, will you be?” Gesturing with my hand, neither of us missed how I lingered on Vivian’s door. “After all this is over, will you be happy?”
A tremor ran through his clenched jaw, his nostrils flaring as he processed. And when he finally responded, he spoke carefully. “Why are you asking me that?”
He sounded lost, and I latched onto that tiny spark of hope, even as it hurt.
Swallowing again, I forced down the emotion rising in my throat. Over what he was dealing with on his own. Whatever he thought I wouldn’t understand. Or, worse, forgive.
“That’s what I want for you, Max. You deserve to be happy.” I dropped my eyes. “Even if it’s not how I pictured—even if I thoughtwecould be happy—and your future’s not with me.”
He stood there, unmoving, for the span of four deep breaths.
I held mine.
Then he nodded slowly.
His throat bobbed with a deep swallow, but he didn’t speak.
“Okay.” Taking that as his answer and my cue to leave, I forced a smile and turned away from him. Tears threatened behind my eyes, and I didn’t want to cry in front of him.
Spinning on my heel, I barely made it a step before his voice stopped me again.
“You’re looking at it the wrong way.”
I froze, but I didn’t turn around. “What do you mean?”
“Your so-called theory about me.” He cleared his throat. “You’re looking at it from your perspective. It’s not about that.”
My brow furrowed, and I glanced over my shoulder, hoping I could read his expression. Maybe even pick up on something he couldn’t voice out loud. But by the time I turned around, he’d disappeared inside his room.
As the door shut between us, my heart ached, and the tiny spark of hope in my chest flickered. I didn’t know how much more it would take to finally snuff it out.
The next morning, as I ate breakfast, I thought about what Max could’ve meant. Turning over his parting words, I wondered if they’d been about my theory for the clues or what I’d said about his happiness.
If he’d used the opening to point me in the right direction, then the Scavenger Hunt wasn’t leading me through the people who’d impacted my journey at Camelot Court, and I had to rethink my strategy.
If he’d been talking about my theory over his happiness—how I’d be happy as long as he was—he’d said it wasn’t about my perspective. Did that mean it was the opposite for him, and he’d only be happy if I was?
While that was romantic as hell, and it spared me having to accept Vivian as his one true love, he was still telling me to let him go. I didn’t know how to do that or why he couldn’t see that it went both ways.
Given what I knew about him, it wasn’t that hard to believe, but after everything we’d been through and said, Max had to know what I felt for him. Surely he hadn’t been going along with the Valencourts because he didn’t understand the depths of my feelings for him.
After all my attempts to prove I’d fight as hard for him as I had for Kingston and Landon, did he still doubt it?
It was abigif at this point, but with the lesson the day before, and his reaction to my question this morning, I still had reason to believe he was putting on an act to protect me.
If I couldn’t convince him to let me in, where did it end?
What would his belief drive him to do?
Unable to answer that, I focused on the first option—the Scavenger Hunt—and I examined the cleaned-up photo I’d put aside after running into Morty. If Max’s parting words had been a hint about my clues, then the order was still important, but maybe it wasn’t about who I had seen.
In the background of the photo, the grounds and buildings were expansive. There were plenty of places to look upon the entrance of Camelot Court without being noticed.
