Lead Me Not (16 page)

Even if I
was
mesmerized by the man who had snuck his younger brother into the commons so he could eat. Even if I
was
strangely fixated on the person who had plucked a flower out of the cold January ground and given it to me with a smile on his face. And I was entirely too preoccupied with the boy who had shared how scared he was that he would lose himself to the addiction that controlled him.

The obnoxious need to fix him was there. I could feel it. It sat
just beneath my staunch resolve, waiting for me to acknowledge that
I
wanted to be the one to bundle him up and take care of him.

Maxx was right. I had a major savior complex.

It was Saturday evening, and I had agreed to go back to Compulsion with Brooks. I hadn’t seen him much in the days following the disastrous support group. He had brought me soup and a movie, just as promised, but for the first time I had felt a strange undercurrent between us.

He had been
off.
There was no other word for it. When I had asked him what was wrong, he had said, “Nothing.” Which was code for
Something’s bugging me, but I’m going to be annoyingly evasive about it just to drive you nuts.

I hadn’t pressed him. I wasn’t in the mood to play let’s figure out what’s crawled up Brooks Hamlin’s ass. If he wanted to talk about it, he would.

I knew that he was busy preparing for midterms and was stressed waiting to hear from the grad schools he’d applied to. He had told me enough times that his course load was tough. I had to believe that was the cause for his strange mood.

So why was I being paranoid that it had to do with something else entirely?

This concern, on top of my inexplicable feelings toward Maxx, had me feeling close to a postal meltdown. So I was beyond relieved when Brooks called and made the suggestion that we go back to Compulsion. He had been normal enough, and I had been able to persuade myself that I had been imagining everything.

Renee and I were still engaged in a tentative peace. We had even watched some cheesy sci-fi movie the other night before bed. We had made a silent agreement to avoid the subject of Devon. Doing so alleviated a lot of the tension that had established itself between us over the past six months.

It was only six-thirty. Brooks wouldn’t be coming to get me
until ten. I had hours to kill. Renee was out on the couch, studying for her midterms. I had straightened and re-straightened my room a good half-dozen times. I had picked out my outfit for the night, and my reading for my courses was up-to-date. I found myself bored, and that was unusual. I didn’t get bored. I usually kept myself so busy, boredom wasn’t an option. Not knowing what else to do, I joined Renee in the living room.

A muted image of the Shopping Network flickered in the background, and Led Zeppelin played on the stereo. I flopped down on the couch and picked up the remote.

Renee glanced up, giving me a distracted smile before returning to her studying. It was nice seeing her focused on something that wasn’t he who shall not be named.

And then, as if the very thought of him summoned his presence, the doorbell chimed. “You expecting company?” I asked Renee, who shook her head. I got to my feet and started to cross the room to answer the door when it swung open.

Devon sauntered into the room, his hands holding plastic grocery bags filled with beer; two of his skeevy buddies trailed behind him. Devon didn’t bother to acknowledge me as he walked into
my
apartment and dumped the bags on
my
coffee table. His friends ground mud into the carpet as they walked into the room.

Devon snatched Renee’s textbook out of her hands and tossed it behind the couch. “It’s way past study time, baby,” he announced, flopping down on the couch beside her and propping his feet on the table, not even bothering to take off his shoes.

His friends, neither of whom looked as though they had bothered with a shower that day, grabbed stools from the island and brought them into the living room. Each guy pulled out a bottle of beer and popped the top, tossing the discarded caps onto the table.

Renee looked flustered and not in the least bit happy to see her boyfriend. But of course she didn’t say anything. She let him take
over her space, dictate her time, and decide what she would be doing with her Saturday evening.

I stood there, my mouth slightly agape, hardly able to believe the size of the balls this dude had—balls I’d be more than happy to remove with a butter knife.

“Get your feet off the table,” I told him, my voice low. Devon barely looked in my direction. At one time I may have understood why Renee turned herself inside out over him. He was good looking in an I-try-really-hard-to-look-this-badass way. But I knew that his attitude, his entire persona, was about as fake as the leather of his jacket.

And despite the image he seemed to try to project, I was becoming all too aware of the person he really was beneath the surface.

Devon Keeton was the type of guy who needed to treat his girlfriend like shit because his dick was ten sizes too small. He was the guy who’d wet his pants if confronted by someone bigger than him but would then turn around and kick a dog, just because he could.

I watched as Devon continued to take over the apartment, his friends opening bags of chips and dumping crumbs on the floor. Renee seemed to shrink in on herself, her eyes becoming hollow.

Maybe it was the sight of my friend losing a part of herself that had me ready to explode. Or maybe it was watching Devon and his friends disrespect our home. Or perhaps it was the increasing amount of food debris collecting on my spotless floors.

Whatever it was, it flipped a switch inside me, and I knew if I stayed there a moment longer, I wouldn’t be able to stay silent. I wouldn’t be able to mutely watch my best friend be bulldozed by her jerk of a boyfriend.

I looked over at Renee, her eyes staring straight ahead. I felt angry and sad and a deep, gut-wrenching disappointment at her
inability to stand up for herself.

I couldn’t stomach being there anymore. I grabbed my coat and purse and slammed out of the apartment, the sound of Devon’s and his friends’ laughter ringing in my ears.

I walked out into the cold winter air and wished I’d remembered to bring my gloves, which I’d left behind in my haste to leave. I shoved my hands into my pockets and hunched my shoulders up to try to shield myself from the wind.

It was already dark, and I wished I were back home, snuggled up in bed instead of outside in the freezing cold, pissed off. This was hibernation weather, and right now that didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Between my less-than-professional feelings for Maxx and the fucked-up dynamic between myself and my best friend, the thought of sleeping for a few months sounded extremely appealing.

I found myself walking back toward campus, having no other destination in mind and no other friends to call.

I suppose I could blame Jayme’s death for my reluctance to reach out and make new friends, except for Renee and Brooks. Losing her had been traumatic in the worst way possible. But the honest truth was I had never been the sort of person to seek friends. I had a few people I hung out with in high school, but they were the type of friends it had been easy to lose touch with after I had moved away.

Sheesh, this amount of personal reflection was giving me a headache.

“Whoever pissed in your cornflakes had better watch out,” a voice called from behind me. I hadn’t realized I was already on campus. I was on the sidewalk just behind the library.

As the figure came out of the shadows, I was hit by a déjà vu so strong it had me taking a step back. The wide shoulders, the unrecognizable face. My mind immediately jumped to the guy from Compulsion.

But this wasn’t a stranger.

Maxx’s swagger was as confident as ever, his smirk firmly in place. He wore an old gray hoodie splattered with paint. His movements were sluggish, and I wondered if he was on something. I hoped not, for his sake. That would land him in the violating-his-probation kind of trouble.

“Did you take a dip in a bucket of paint?” I asked sharply, unable to alter the nasty tone in my voice.

Maxx looked down at his hoodie and shrugged. “Community-service stuff,” he explained, and I felt like a bit of an asshole.

“Why so angry, Aubrey? You look ready to kill someone,” Maxx observed, leaning against the lamppost, hands in his pockets, looking blasé.

“If you’re just going to vomit up more crappy come-ons, please find another girl who’s more receptive to your witty personality. I’m honestly not in the mood to fend off your pickup lines,” I responded peevishly.

Maxx looked taken aback. He blinked a few times, opening and closing his mouth as though he were trying to think of something to say. I tried to suppress the grin that threatened to give me away.

“What? Nothing to say?” I asked, lobbing my own sarcastic teasing.

Maxx chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. His smirk transformed into a genuine smile. It lit up his face and took my breath away.

“You wanna hang out?” he asked. It was obvious he hadn’t planned on asking me that, and somehow the spontaneity of the offer made it extremely appealing.

“I don’t know if that would be appropriate,” I stated, trying to regain some common sense, something I was sorely lacking when it came to Maxx Demelo.

Maxx snorted. “What’s inappropriate about it? We’re not in group right now. You’re a student. I’m a student. We’re just two students wanting to hang out. What’s the harm?” he asked innocently.

Innocent, my
ass
.

I cocked my eyebrow at him and leveled him with my best who-the-hell-are-you-kidding look. Maxx bit on his bottom lip to keep from laughing. His blue eyes, while red-rimmed and tired, sparkled with excitement.

I couldn’t deny that I wanted to spend time with him, that I was intrigued by him. And for some crazy reason, my internal warning bells weren’t screaming as loudly as they normally did.

“Come on.” Maxx inclined his head in the direction of the sidewalk, lighting up a cigarette as he went.

Fresh out of arguments and more than a little tired of creating them, I fell into step beside him, waving smoke out of my face.

“Do you have to smoke? Some of us have a good relationship with our lungs,” I snipped.

Maxx took a last drag and dropped it on the ground. “No smoking. Got it,” he said, surprisingly seriously.

“So you’re not going to tell me why you’re in such a shitty mood?” Maxx asked as we walked.

“Roommate drama,” I said.

“Did she steal your Crimson Splash nail polish again?” he joked, and I snorted.

“Do I look like the sort of girl to wage war over makeup?” I scoffed, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what sort of girl he considered me to be.

“You look like the kind of girl who doesn’t take a whole lot of bullshit,” Maxx said, bestowing an unexpected compliment. I arched my eyebrow.

“You see right through me, huh?” I replied blandly. Maxx
chuckled.

“Never an inch,” he said under his breath, though just loud enough for me to hear him. I couldn’t help but smile. There was something about being with him that was both comfortable and unexpected. He kept me on my toes, but there were times when our conversation was as easy and natural as breathing.

The dynamic we fell into seemed to pit anger and distrust against lust and longing. Frustration warred with contentment. Irritation and wariness were at odds with vulnerability and sincerity.

It made being around him exhausting, yet exhilarating at the same time. It was easy to see why people were drawn to him.

When he laughed or spoke, people watched. They hung on. They coveted every tiny bit of him.

He had the potential to decimate everything around him.

Me included.

Maxx pulled me to a stop outside the local movie theater, a building built in the 1940s. I had been inside only a handful of times and had been obsessed about possible mold spores in the bathroom. It had a dank, musty smell that no amount of popcorn and air freshener could get rid of.

Looking up at the marquee, I was both delighted and surprised. They were advertising their Cult Hit Saturday
.
They were playing a series of lesser-known movies for a fraction of the usual admission price, and one particular movie that was listed had me especially excited.

“You want to go see this?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward the poster of one of my all-time favorite movies,
The Doom Generation
.

“I’ve been waiting to get you in the dark,” Maxx teased, purposefully closing the distance between us. I took an involuntary step back, creating some necessary space.

“
If bullshit were music, you’d be a big brass band
,” I quoted.
Maxx let out a deep laugh.

“I should have known you’d be a fan,” he stated, looking at me with appreciation.

“I love obscure movies. My sister and I went through a phase where we watched
Doom Generation
every weekend,” I answered, smiling at the memory of us sitting around quoting dialogue and laughing until we couldn’t breathe.

Maxx grinned down at me, and I found myself smiling back at him. And then he did the most peculiar thing. As though without thinking, he lifted his hand and cupped my cheek. His thumb swept up the curve of my face, his blue eyes intense and serious.

“You’re beautiful, Aubrey. But when you smile, you’re breathtaking,” he said softly.

Well, damn. His words were designed to make me melt, and they did, even as I fought hard to resist them. Who was I kidding? What girl wouldn’t dissolve into a puddle of girlie drool after a comment like that?

Cleanup on aisle twelve!

He was looking at me with the sort of tender expression that men generally reserve for proms and marriage proposals. It made my insides flutter.

And then he dropped his hand and moved away from me. I stood there, bewildered, my body and heart still buzzing.

Maxx’s personality changed so quickly it was hard to keep up. But there were flashes of sincerity, like just now, that made it easy to overlook the times when it was obvious he was trying to be someone else.