Page 76 of Rules

I wish I could burn them, but washing will have to suffice. Joe won’t be happy if I tell him something “accidentally” happened to my uniform, and the dickhead he is, he will probably ask me to pay for the new set. A luxury I didn’t have.

Looking around just to make sure I got all my stuff, I finally force myself to get out, only to stop short when I see a person sitting on the floor, leaning against the opposite wall.

When the door swings open, his eyes slowly lift, taking me in. He looks drained. For the first time, I notice dark bags underneath his eyes, and his hair is still messy from all the times he’s pulled on it in frustration.

“Max.” I stop in my tracks, startled. “Why are you still up?”

I was planning to go back to his room and ask him for a pillow and blanket before crashing on the couch or something, but he was here. Sitting on the floor waiting for me. Something warm wraps around my heart, but I push it away, not ready to deal with more emotional baggage than I’m already dealing with.

While I was in the bathroom, he also took the opportunity to shower and change. A faded black shirt drapes over his body in the most delicious way, and even while seated, I can see that the sweats hang low on his waist. There are still droplets of water clinging to the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Hey,” he whispers, looking wearily toward Jeanette’s closed door before returning his attention to me. “I just wanted to check in with you. See if you’re…”

“I’m fine, Max. Just leave it alone, will ya?” I sigh, suddenly feeling tired. Exhausted really. My body is aching from everything it’s been through lately, and all I want is to sleep and not wake up. “I just want to go to sleep and forget this all happened.”

“How can you be fine?” Max’s voice raises if only slightly, but I can hear the anger hiding beneath it. He jumps to his feet, his body looming over me in the narrow space of the hallway. “After everything that happened, how can you be fine? You should be angry, hurt, scared,something!For fuck’s sake, Brook…”

“You’ll wake up your sister,” I hiss at him. “I told you to drop it, so stop already.”

Rubbing my hand over my face, I shake my head.

Push it back, Brook. Push them all back.

Moving around him, I make sure to shove him with my shoulder on the way to… I have no idea. Fuming with anger, I open the first door I see, praying it’s not his parents’ room.

Who does he think he is? Telling me how I should feel. Sniffing around, digging for answers. Forcing to the surface all the things I’m trying so desperately to push back. Toforget.Trying to analyze me like I’m some kind of project. I shouldn’t have come here. I should have...

I turn on the light as soon as I’m inside, breathing a sigh of relief when I realize it’s a spare bedroom. The need to slam the door is strong, but I hold it in since I don’t want to wake half the house just because a certain dumbass got on my nerves, but the door never closes. Instead, it pushes open, Max marching in behind me.

“I wasn’t done,” he grits through clenched teeth.

Turning on the balls of my feet to face him, I cross my arms over my chest. “Well, I was. Now either leave me alone, or I’m getting out of here.”

His hand rubs over his face, fingers dipping into midnight strands and making his hair even messier than it was before.

“How can you be so calm? So unaffected?”

“I’m allbutcalm!” I whisper-scream at him.

“You don’t seem like it!” he accuses, his own demons swimming in his eyes. “All I can do is think what if? What if I hadn’t been there? What if I hadn’t gotten there on time? What if, because I let them slide, they do what they did to you to somebody else?”

I shake my head with regret. “You can’t save everybody, Max.”

You can’t save me.

“But that’s the point, Brook.” He steps closer, so close our bare feet touch. “I don’t want to save everybody; I just needyouto be safe.”

Max’s hands land on my shoulders as those stormy eyes look into mine. One of his hands brushes up the side of my neck, cupping my cheek. Those big, rugged palms that inflict so much damage when he’s on the ice, those hands that pummeled into my attackers without mercy, hold on to me with unimaginable tenderness. I take one of them in my hand, looking over broken and bruised knuckles.

“That’s what you don’t get. I’ll never be safe. We live in the twenty-first century, and the world is still a dangerous place for women. And when you come from where I come from? Even more so.” His stare is so intense it makes my whole body shiver. It demands my attention. It demands an answer, so I give him the safest version I can think of. My darkness is my own, and I’m not going to taint anybody with it. Especially not him. Cupping his cheeks, I force him to look at me, force him to understand. “I’ve seen worse. I’ve been through worse, and if I don’t let it go, all the bad will come back, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to deal with that. So please, don’t do this to me. Don’t make meremember.”

“Brook…”

His forehead falls to mine, bringing him closer to me. So close I can feel the smell of his sandalwood shampoo and feel his warm breath touch my skin.

My eyes fall shut, the sting of unshed tears burning my lids, but I don’t let them fall. When I’m certain they’re at bay, only then do I open them.

Max is staring at me like he has been probably this whole time. His dark lashes are impossibly long, the kind of lashes girls would kill for. You’d think they’d make him look more feminine, but of course not. Not with that square, dusted-with-stubble jaw and his high cheekbones.

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