He shook his head sadly. “Please don’t change that. I never want that look in your eyes to go away. It’d kill me, alright?”
I nodded. Our eyes fixed together, I rose and kissed him gently on the cheek. “I don’t know how I’d ever see you for anything but what you are. And that’s a kind, good man.”
“Damn it,” he muttered, taking off his cap and tossing it onto the chair by the door. Titus popped his head up and looked at us, startled by the sudden movement.
“Alright. I might as well go ahead and do this.” He let a breath whistle through his teeth. He nodded, like he came to some sort of agreement with himself. “Sam’s been around my whole life. She has a way of, I don’t know, putting people off. She didn’t have a lot of friends besides Brielle and her immediate little click.”
“I can see why,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I was kind of her big brother growing up in a way, too,” he continued, ignoring me. “She just had her mom and she worked a lot and I think she drank a lot, too, so our family became hers in a way. So when she’d get in trouble or need a ride, one of us would give it to her. The older she got, the more she stayed with us. Bri’s room was half her stuff and half Sam’s by the time I left for college.”
He stood up and walked in a circle. “One night, when I was at ASU, Sam called me. It wasn’t unusual for her to do that, but I was at a party with Cane.” His eyes darkened, his back stiffening as he relived the story. “I had gone home the weekend before. She and Bri had been out one of the nights and came home. I was the only one up. I think I was studying for a math test or something. Anyway, they had been drinking.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and faced me, resolution written across his handsome features. “I lit them up. Not for the drinkin’ part, although they were too young to be doing it, but for the drivin’ part. That’s just a no-go, dumb as shit. I took Bri’s keys and went to my room to get away from them. A few hours later, Sam came into my room and . . .”
“And what?” I asked, getting the picture this was going to make me hate Sam.
“She just started babbling in the way only someone drunk can. Telling me she loved me and that she didn’t have anyone that loved her. She had put on this little dress to look cute, I guess, but her arm wasn’t even in one of the straps. She reeked of alcohol and it would’ve been funny if she wasn’t such a mess. I just took her back to Bri’s room and told her to go to bed.”
“The next morning,” he continued, “she came into my room again. She didn’t remember everything, but enough to know that she made a fool of herself. She just apologized and said she was embarrassed. I understood, I mean, we’ve all had those moments. She promised not to drink and drive again and I blew it all off.”
“Did she remember professing her love for you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t bring it up and she didn’t either. She was so out of it that she probably didn’t remember. I figured if she was going to hang around our family, it was best not to bring it back up and make things weird.”
“So the next weekend, Bri called and asked if I was coming home. I told her I wasn’t. Awhile later, Sam called and asked me to come home that night. I told her I had plans.”
“Good for you.”
I smiled to myself, a little relieved, that he had put her in her place. If he was looking for a chance at Sam, that would’ve been the time to take it. But he hadn’t. And that made me overjoyed in the midst of the growing disdain I had for her.
He laughed sadly. “So Cane and I go to this party, do our thing, drink a little, whatever. I don’t know—I can’t remember much at this point. It’s all kinda a blur. Sam’s number called a couple of times but I ignored it. It just irritated me that my little sister’s friend was blowing up my phone. I always tried to do right by her, but I’d had enough. I just ignored her all night. A few hours later, I got a call from my dad.” He turned away from me. “Sam and Bri were at the hospital.”
“What? Why?” I asked, trying to figure out how they had ended up there.
Max was looking at the floor, motionless.
“They were out doing God knows what and got a flat tire in the country. A couple guys stopped to help them but instead of changing their tire . . .” Max swallowed hard, his jaw working back and forth.
My breath caught in my throat as I waited for him to continue. He started moving again, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He finally drew his eyes up to mine.
“Sam was raped.”
I gasped in horror, my hand grasping my throat.
“Brielle wasn’t, thank God. They just kind of tossed her against the car a little.”
“Max, oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“Some guy pulled up on the scene and the guys took off,” he said, not even seeming to register that I had said anything at all.