The Other Side Of Gravity (Oxygen, #1) (18 page)

“Stop squirming. Man, you’re a worse bed fellow than Ambrose.”

Before I could be offended or find fault in why the situation made me want to laugh, I heard a quiet chuckle in the dark by the door. I shot my gaze over in that general direction before Maxton slid out of the dark into the barely-there light that drifted in from the other room. His eyes stayed on mine as he crept in soundlessly in the silent room and then crouched down beside the bed next to my head.

“I came to check on you.” He licked his lips. “I wasn’t just watching you in the dark or anything creepy like that.” He half-smiled. “Okay, I kind of was. I didn’t want you to wake up here, in this strange place, and be…disorientated or scared.” That bottom lip of his got tugged between his teeth a little. I sat up on my elbow, ignoring his sister-cousin’s groan of displeasure at my displacing her as her arm slid from my shoulder to my stomach. He looked at it with a smile before his eyes returned to mine, a look I couldn’t place in them. “I have a pillow over there. I was just taking a nap against the wall, so my eyes
were
closed if that helps.”

“So,” I began, but my voice was low and scratchy. I made sure I fixed it, speaking more clearly on the next word. “Belle called you Beauregard?”

“Maxton Elwell Beauregard. My dad wanted us to have Earth names.” He shook his head, a little barely-there smile playing on his lips. “But, yes, Maxton Q1 is my name here.”

I thought about that. I would have bet his dad was the awesome kind, like my dad. And then as I looked as him, I wondered out loud, “You’re in here, on the floor, instead of the comfy bed that’s in the other room?”

His eyes took in everything, and right then they seemed to be taking in my very soul as they peered deep into my gray eyes that I’d always wondered if I got from my father…because I couldn’t remember if his eyes were gray. And my blue-eyed mother was no longer around to ask.

“You just have to look at the situation and say to yourself
Is the sacrifice worth the risk? Or the reward?
” His eyes never left mine through his confession, if it even was that, though that’s exactly what it sounded like—he was confessing.

“Is it?” I whispered.

He swallowed, the gulp of his throat so…erotic, I could barely sit still. “Hell yes.” My eyes widened, but no alarms went off. He grinned. “There are no techs in here, remember? No monitors, no sensors.” His grin went wider. “Go ahead, give it a go. A free shot. I know you’ve always wanted to curse and never been able to. It’s freeing, really.”

There was only one thing that came to mind. “Go to hell, you bastard. You piece of disgusting idiot trash that thinks he owns the universe. Scumwad, you’re nothing. You… shady asshat, sexist pisshead, you belittling bunghole, you jerky jerkface, you menace to society. You’ll never be more than what you are, and that thought must terrify you. Dungface.”

He probably thought I wasn’t going to do it, or was going to half-heartedly decline, but no. I’d wanted to curse Rivers out every day of half of my life and was never able to. He may not be able to hear me, but those words were for him.

But Maxton surprised me by smiling in that knowing way. “I only wish your proprietor was here to hear you say that to him. His face alone I would pay silver to see.” I found myself smiling, too, imagining Rivers’ flustered behind, falling off his hurtle boots as I called him every name in the book for free. He would have been pissed about
that
alone. Then Maxton scrunched his nose and scratched his shadowed jaw. “Bunghole?”

We both laughed, trying to be quiet. I shrugged as best as I could for someone being spooned by another female. “I don’t know any curses. Or insults. Or slang either.”

“You did great.”

He leaned his elbow on the bed opposite mine, placing his head on his palm to mirror my pose. He had taken his jacket off so his black bird tattoo was facing me, flying toward me as he tried to run away but got nowhere. I often stared at his bird when I got the chance, which wasn’t often because he was almost always wearing his jacket. But when the rare opportunity presented itself, I felt like the bird and I were connected.

Family.

I could relate.

I, too, felt like I was trying to get somewhere fast, but not moving at all, and at the same time like I was stuck in the same place, but like I should be somewhere else, somewhere important. His tattoo was beautiful and epic and told a story in just one look.

All my favorite things.

Maxton and I faced each other that way, both on our elbows, a foot apart but worlds separated us. I tried to remember that as I felt myself going soft. I’d never been soft, and soft would get you killed. Maxton made me soft. He must have seen the change come over me as we stared at each other because he moved his free hand up to play with the ends of my hair, drawing me back into his snare, not letting me get too far gone. Did he know what he was doing to me?

“It’s so weird,” he murmured, seemingly                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               to himself, “how you never know that you like something until one day…bam,” he whispered that one word so softly, so slowly, as if he knew that doing so would make it so much more powerful than screaming it would have.

“What is it you’re all of a sudden in love with?”

I cursed myself for using that word—
love
.

“Red,” he said, his voice low and graveled. “I’ve realized how much I love red,” he practically growled.

Before I could respond—Ha! Like that was happening anytime soon—he let the ends of my hair go and leaned back. “I’ll let you go back to sleep. Tomorrow, we go back to roughing it.”

He got up, but the rustling of movement stopped at the edge of the room. “You’re still here?” I asked.

“I’ll sleep here; already got my bed made and ready to go. Besides,” his voice changed a little, letting me know he was nervous or worried about this next part, “you talk a little in your sleep.”

I gasped, sucking in a small breath in disbelief. “Oh, no. What did I say?”

“Nothing bad, nothing embarrassing. Trust me. It’s just…there were a couple times you seemed scared, you shook, you…asked me—well, you asked
someone
not to leave you.” I felt my face heat as my eyes widened. He scoffed softly. “Now that I think about it, it wasn’t me at all, was it? It was your mother,” he said in sympathy, not an ounce of jealousy in his tone.

“I…sorry.”

“Soph,” he whispered and then said harder, “don’t ever apologize for wanting her here.” He sighed in the dark. I imagined that he was leaning his head back against the wall. “All my bony skeletons are falling out of the closet. You know that I have a secret family, and that I had to keep
the girl I loved at home
safe.” He made sure to emphasize it, referencing back to our conversation at the ship before. I got it and smiled as he said, “My mum.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “But there was also another girl, once.” He didn’t pause for long. He wasn’t trying to build the tension; he was collecting his voice. “My sister. My
real
sister.”

He waited and I could do nothing but sit there with bated breath and open eyes, just like he wanted me, I was sure. “Go on,” I urged quietly. “I remember you mentioning her before.”

“I’ve never told anyone about her.”

I felt my guts take a dive. “I’d be honored.” I couldn’t see his face and that was so nerve-shattering. “But you don’t have—”

“She was older than me.” I shut my mouth so quick. “By a good bit. Thirteen years older. I’m the baby. Her name was Rowell and she disappeared when I was five. They think she pissed off the wrong people and the Militia shut her up. She was my father’s daughter.” He scoffed a laugh. “They were always off on some tangent about the government and secret plans they had for us, but I was too young to know what was truly going on. After Dad died, she got so much worse, sneaking off, coming in late. I remember her and Mum fighting a lot. I’d sneak into Marshall’s room and hide with him under the covers. Even though he couldn’t talk, I felt so safe with him. Because I knew he was trying, even if he wasn’t speaking, to make me feel better.”

“What happened to your dad?” I whispered after he was quiet for a while.

“He died in the mines.”

Oh, no. I puffed a breath. “I’m sorry.”

“So you see—I understand you better than you think.”

I wished I could see his face. I licked my lips once, twice, and then bit into my bottom lip to keep from doing it again. It could have been my imagination when I heard a faint groany-growl come from the dark corner. I felt heat crawl up my neck and into my hairline, but tried to ignore it.

I felt awful in that moment. Absolutely dreadful. He did understand because we had both experienced loss. Too much loss. Too much loss for once person to have survived yet we did it because we were forced to.

“So, what? Are we supposed to wrap ourselves in pillows when we go anywhere or, better yet, just never leave the house? Are we supposed to never love? Never let anyone in because we may lose them and it’s not worth the risk? Is that what our families that we’ve lost have taught us?” I nodded, leaning up on my elbow, not listening to Belle’s complaint behind me as her arm slid off me and she rolled over. “That’s the lesson, isn’t it?
Don’t
love,
don’t
risk,
don’t
let them in.” I shook my head violently, stuck in my reverie.

“No,” he said, his voice hard and gravelly.

“What?” I said, surprised by his answer. I had expected him to join me in my anti-risk pursuit.

“No, that’s not what our families taught us by their deaths. If anything, it’s the opposite.”

“How can you say that?” I opened my mouth to say more, but it got stuck in my throat, choking me.

“My dad used to always say something to us, which is why I think he would never want me to close myself off. He used to say that life would be a big, awesome journey or it would be nothing at all. Live like you’re made of stone or like you’re made of glass, but pick one. Have what you want, go after them, but want the things you’ve got. Bet with the whole pot or walk away with a smile. Don’t ever regret as you look back. And always tell the truth because you can’t ever run faster than a lie.”

I held my breath like I was afraid to breathe, or that by breathing it would take away from the moment, and I certainly wanted his father to have his moment. But before I could speak again he was shifting. “Maxton…your father sounds amazing.”

“He was.” I could hear his breaths before a small chuckle. “Man, he would have adored meeting you.” I looked down before lying back down on the bed. What could I possibly say to that?

“Goodnight, Maxton,” I whispered.

“
Fy melys
, goodnight,” he said softly back.

**

It was strange to be in women’s clothing. I’d never worn them before, but they actually
fit
my body. Though Belle was taller than I was, we were just about the same size, and the clothes she’d given me fit nicely. Snug even. But not an
it-doesn’t-fit
kind of snug, more like an
it-fits-perfect
kind of snug.

I stuffed everything else into my bag and was zipping it up when Maxton came into the room. “Oh…” He looked truly shocked, and turned to show me his back. “I am so sorry. I thought you were in the other room. Please forgive me,” I heard him say softly.

“It’s okay,” I muttered.

“No, it isn’t,” he said back harshly. “What if you had been changing your clothes? You didn’t give me that right. I would have been taking it. Just like your proprietor, just like those guards.” He swallowed. “I won’t be like every other male in your life, Sophelia.” My heart nearly stopped and I felt hot all over. I realized I was swooning. “I won’t just take things from you if you haven’t given them to me.”

I gulped. Oh, no. He had to stop. I had to harden myself against him right now. I could feel myself getting even softer, mush, cookie dough, or what I imagined cookie dough to be anyway. I couldn’t have that. I had to be a stone. I couldn’t afford to be soft for him or anyone else. No more games.

This man had to stop trying to make me fall in love with him.

Chapter Ten

com·mu·nism - a political system advocating class conflict and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is given only what they need.

Maxton

H
ot damn.

That was what I’d wanted to say, but instead I had apologized. They couldn’t stop me from cursing in my mind, and looking at her now, looking so clean and fragile and…female—I gulped to keep from saying any of that out loud to her for fear that she would kick my behind from here all the back to Havard’s ship.

Even though those had been Belle’s clothes, I didn’t remember her ever looking that…female…in them. Was that pigheaded of me? Curvaceous? Luscious? Scrumptious. Delicious? Any other words that ended with –ous that I could throw out to insult her but that completely described the way she looked in those pants right then.

Voluptuous. Found another one. I was sure I could find more.

For such a thin thing, she could sure pull off some curve in the right clothing. Want to see how long I can keep going and talk about her curves?