I hadn’t meant to make him feel like a charity case. But there was something in the way he had looked as he stood there—his trays full of food to feed his kid brother that he couldn’t pay for—that made me want to help him.

But I could tell my help hadn’t been wanted or appreciated.

I glanced at the younger boy, who was still staring at me with his mouth slightly agape. “Who’s this? Your brother?” I asked, giving the boy a 100-watt smile.

He grinned back and looked over at Maxx, who continued to stare holes into the table. His smile slipped a bit as he recognized his brother’s hostile demeanor. He looked from Maxx to me, as though trying to figure out the source of the tension.

“Uh, yeah, I’m Maxx’s younger brother, Landon. How do you know Maxx?” he asked, shoveling another mouthful of food into his mouth. Finally, Maxx’s eyes met mine and communicated an unspoken plea. His embarrassment and anger faded away, replaced by a request for me to stay silent.

It was obvious Maxx did not want Landon to know the particulars of how we knew each other. I could hazard a guess that Landon was completely ignorant of his older brother’s more unsavory extracurricular activities.

I cleared my throat. “We have a class together,” I lied, smiling at Landon, who beamed at me.

“Oh, yeah? Maxx is ridiculously smart. Like genius smart. You know he’s gonna be a doctor. He’s the only person in our family to go to college. Dad always said he’d be the one to cure cancer or something,” he informed me.

Maxx was clearly this kid’s hero—a hero with a drug problem that landed him on probation. He was an angel with one tarnished halo.

“Wow, I didn’t know that,” I said, glancing at Maxx, who seemed extremely uncomfortable as the focus of our conversation. Gone was the familiar smirking smile. This wasn’t a person putting on an act. This was a guy who wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole. His brother sharing his adulation with me unnerved him.

“But I bet you’re just as smart as Maxx, if not smarter,” I told the younger boy, who looked ready to burst at the compliment.

“I wish,” he enthused, grinning at his older brother, who gave him a pained smile.

I stood there awkwardly for a few moments until it became very obvious that Maxx wasn’t going to make any attempts to further the conversation.

“It was nice meeting you, Landon. See you later, Maxx,” I said and turned to leave. I was halfway back to my table, when a hand pulled me to a stop.

I looked down at the hand on my sleeve and then up into Maxx’s troubled blue eyes. “Thanks for not saying anything to Landon about the group. He doesn’t need to hear about that shit,” he said gruffly, his apology sounding more like an accusation and, I knew, given begrudgingly.

“You don’t need to thank me for that. Maybe you should think about why it bothers you so much if your brother were to find out. Maybe, deep down, you know you’re making some seriously shitty choices,” I preached. God, I sounded so freaking judgmental. I really should keep my sanctimonious mouth shut.

Clearly, Maxx found my trip to the top of the soapbox as obnoxious as I did. “I don’t need to explain my choices to you, Aubrey. You don’t know a thing about me.” His hand tightened on my arm as he moved closer to me, bending his lips in close to my ear. I shivered as his breath fanned my neck.

Good-bye, pride, it was nice knowing you.

“I’ll pay you back. I just haven’t gotten around to putting money in my account this month,” he explained through clenched teeth, his words hard and clipped.

He was trying to hide his mortification.

I touched the back of his hand. “Don’t worry about it,” I said softly, which seemed to infuriate Maxx.

“I don’t need handouts, Aubrey. I’ll pay you back the fucking money,” he bit out.

“Fine,” I responded shortly, annoyed by his gruff attitude.

“Good,” he muttered, and then turned around and walked back to his brother, who was watching us. I forced myself to give Landon another smile before walking off with more than a little bit of huffiness.

I rejoined Renee at our table. She had already finished her dessert and looked at me expectantly. “Who was that?” she asked, indicating Maxx. Landon was saying something to his brother, but Maxx’s eyes were on me, the dark blue unreadable.

I shivered, my heart rate picking up even as I tried to not let him affect me. Our eyes clashed in a silent battle of wills, and I ultimately admitted defeat and looked away.

“Nobody,” I answered.

chapter

nine

aubrey

it was almost time for support group, and I felt like crap. I had been fighting a cold for most of the week, and the last place I wanted to be was in a room full of people who didn’t really want to be there.

Kristie had gone out to make copies for an activity we would be doing, and I was straightening the chairs in a circle in the middle of the room. I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and sneezed four times in a row.

“Ugh,” I moaned.

“Do I need to start planning the funeral?” I looked up to find Brooks walking through the door.

“What are you doing here? Don’t tell me that you’ve finally admitted that your addiction to gummy worms is ruining your life,” I joked.

Brooks grabbed a cookie from the tray Kristie had put out earlier and popped it into his mouth. If there was food around, it would invariably end up in Brooks’s mouth. It was a miracle he didn’t weigh 800 pounds. I had yet to discover the secret to his trim physique, considering the way he inhaled sweets and carbs. I suspected black magic.

“Nah, I thought I’d just come by and say hello. I have a cram session with a couple other people in my Research Psychology class down the hall in a few minutes. How’s the group going?” he asked, taking another cookie.

I sneezed into the tissue again, wishing I could go home and crawl into bed. A heating pad and ten hours of solid sleep sounded as close to heaven as I could imagine. “It’s going. I haven’t done much. Kristie runs a pretty tight ship, no need for me to mess with the system,” I wheezed.

Brooks seemed revolted by my state of deteriorating health. It was a good thing he hadn’t decided to go into medicine. His bedside manner sucked. He shoved a box of tissues into my hand and took a very obvious step away from me.

I coughed in his direction, without covering my mouth. Just to be an asshole.

Brooks made a face of complete and total disgust and pulled a bottle of hand sanitizer out of his jacket pocket, squeezing a dollop in his palm and rubbing furiously. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with OCD tendencies. I’d remember that the next time he felt the need to make fun of my cleaning regimen.

I knew I looked horrible. I had purposefully avoided the mirror this morning while getting ready to go out, knowing what I would see: Long blond hair, limp and lifeless. Brown eyes, dull and tired. Dark circles and sallow skin. I had a virus, plain and simple, though from that description I could quite possibly be turning into a zombie. I was grossing myself out.

Watching the group members start to filter into the room, each looking less than enthused to be there, I realized that the support group was becoming less and less enjoyable. The initial meeting had been promising. Kristie had been optimistic that the group would turn out to be interactive and receptive. But with each group meeting, I knew that even her hopes were fading.

Some members had become more combative and defensive. Others had shut down entirely. Evan and April, the couple in need of some major social skills, were downright nasty.

And then there was Maxx Demelo. I knew Kristie thought he walked on water. You know the saying; if you want to look pretty, hang out with ugly people. And Maxx was doing his damnedest to be the belle of the druggie ball.

He was the only one who made a point of answering questions when they were asked. He volunteered personal information—though whether it was factual might be another story—and he seemed just oh-so-engaged each and every time he came to a meeting.

And while Kristie and I were barely tolerated when we spoke, Maxx Demelo reigned supreme. People listened when he opened his pretty little mouth, no matter what drivel fell out of it.

He was so full of shit.

He was one big ol’ pile of fake, and the way he played it up drove me nuts. I had tried to bring up my concerns about Maxx’s sincerity to Kristie several weeks ago, and she had blown me off.

“Aubrey, I can tell that Maxx is one hundred percent dedicated to his recovery. He is an example for every single person in the group. I’m so thankful to have someone like him to show the others that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, I’m thinking about talking to him about providing peer support to some of the more troubled members. I just know he’d help them so much,” Kristie gushed, and I had stopped bothering to discuss it. It was useless.

But even while I was regularly overcome with the urge to call Maxx out, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by him all the same. It was like watching an actor on stage slip into a character. And honestly, it made me determined to see what really lay beneath his cool and confident exterior.

I had seen how he was with his brother in the commons. I had seen him embarrassed and angry. And some sadistic part of me wanted to see that side of him again.

I attempted to observe him clinically. I had myself almost convinced that he suffered from some sort of personality disorder.