Grace was struck dumb. That was the last thing she expected him to say and that changed things. Massively. The fight in her slowly began to ebb away.
With everything that Max had told her about Lizzie and what happened between them, of course it made sense for him to go to her. He would need closure after everything he’d been through. He deserved that. Still, a dark part of Grace couldn’t help but wonder if Lizzie’s letter was the escape Max needed to get away, to run instead of talking about what had happened the previous night.
Beneath the understanding, cold realization settled in her chest. “So you’re meeting her?”
Max rubbed the tips of his fingers across his forehead. “No, I’m not, I— Maybe, I don’t even know if I will, I just . . .”
Grace swallowed and when she spoke her voice was careful and quiet. “Came here because you want me to tell you it’s okay to go.”
Max’s face creased with incredulity. “What?”
She smiled sadly, resignation slithering through her.
He didn’t want her. Not in the way she wanted him. He was too busy clinging to a past to see what was right in front of him and, honestly, she was simply too tired to keep trying to convince him she was right for him.
“I get it, Max, I do,” she uttered honestly. “It’s important that you two speak. She has a lot to explain, a lot to apologize for. You deserve that.”
He frowned, his eyes suspicious. “Yeah, I do.”
Grace nodded, pressing her lips together to hold back the desperate words that threatened: I love you, come back to me, stop running.
Instead she said, “Will you tell me something before you go?”
Max sighed, glancing back at Carter’s car. “Sure.”
“Tell me you didn’t feel something last night. Tell me it meant nothing to you.”
He stared at her for a moment, his jaw ticking. She knew she’d backed him into a corner and he didn’t like it, but she had to know he felt what they’d shared. Of course, it made no difference; she was under no illusions that he was leaving no matter what, but at least she’d know that last night was something special for both of them.
“It was what it was,” he answered finally, his voice flat. He shrugged belligerently. “A fuck is a fuck, you know?”
Grace’s heart stammered as his words hit like bullets. She knew he was lashing out because he was afraid, but they crippled her all the same.
“You don’t mean that,” she said, her voice wavering.
“I don’t?” He shook his head in a way that could only be described as patronizing. “Shit. I knew this was a mistake.”
“This?” Grace asked, hating the shake in her knees. She gripped the doorframe.
“You!” Max bit out. “I told you all I wanted was sex,” he continued, his voice frustrated, as though he were explaining something simple to a child. “I was straight with you from the beginning, but you chose not to hear me.”
“I hear you now,” she said firmly, shifting the door, ready to close it on him so that he wouldn’t see her shatter. “I hear you loud and clear.”
“Thank fuck!” he exclaimed, slapping his palms to his thighs.
Grace blinked, hating the tear that escaped her eye when she did. She didn’t recognize the man standing on her porch. The gentle, caring, patient man she’d fallen in love with was nowhere in the stranger before her.
She pressed her lips together. “I’m so sorry that all I did was care for you and try to help you see that you’re so much more than drugs and bad memories.” She swallowed. “But, I get it; that’s all you’ve known and anything else, anything new, frightens you to death.”
Max glared at her, his gaze like pinpricks on her skin.
She lifted her chin toward Carter’s car. “So go. If I truly was a mistake, and you feel nothing for me at all, it’ll be easy as pie for you to leave. Right?”
Max huffed, his eyes flashing. “Right,” he spat. He lips twitched as though he had more to say, but he simply exhaled and waved a dismissive hand. “Seriously, I don’t need this shit.”
He spun on his heel, thumped down the porch steps, and strode toward Carter’s car, nearly pulling the door from the chassis. He threw himself down into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Grace watched the car reverse and disappear down the driveway before she stepped back into the house and closed the door gently. She put her back to it, and slid down until she met the floor.
It was only then that she broke apart into a million pieces.
Max was quiet. He was too quiet and, frankly, it was scaring the shit out of Carter.