His End Game (MMG #1) (11 page)

“As in run it?”

“For the most part. I’d like to eventually own a chain of garages that cater to all types of vehicles.”

“You and Benny seem really close.”

“After my mom died and my dad fell apart I was a mess. Benny and his wife had been friends with my parents for a long time and knew my situation. They stepped up when I had no one.”

“Benny’s married?” Max had never mentioned a Mrs. Benny.

He pulled me in closer. “Benny’s grandfather built the garage and passed it to his dad. Benny and Rachelle dated all through high-school. They were crazy about each other and got married the second they graduated. His dad paid for him to go to UNC Charlotte and get a degree in sports medicine. He had always wanted to work on sports injuries. Back then he worked out once or twice a day. The man was a machine and I completely idolized him. I still do. Anyways, Benny and Rachelle had little Ben shortly after Benny graduated from the sports med. program. They settled near Benny’s dad in the foothills near Morganton. When little Ben was three, Benny was out of town. His dad had taken Rachelle and little Ben to dinner and a deer ran out in front of the car on the drive home. Benny’s dad
swerved, the car jumped the guard rail and they were all killed instantly. I was ten years old when it happened.”

“Oh my God, Max, that’s horrible! Poor Benny.” My heart hurt for him.

“It was beyond horrible. There was no one to blame. It was just a freak accident. Benny went off the deep end for a while but somehow managed to pull himself together. He gave up on sports medicine and took over the garage. When my mom died he was the one who got me to steer my anger toward something healthy instead of harmful.”

“You are lucky you have each other.”

“He started working out again, something he hadn’t done since the wreck, for me. He wanted to give me direction and purpose. I was really angry and hurt and, since he had already been there, he could relate.”

I didn’t know what to say to this. It was all so terribly sad.

“I want a marriage like Benny and Rachelle’s. They loved each other like crazy. I want kids, a family…a place to call home. What do you want?”

I glanced over my shoulder and into his eyes. “I want it all. I want what I have never had, what I’ve only read about.”

I want you for the rest of my life
.

Of course, I didn’t say this out loud.

“If Sarah didn’t need me, I would have left this place a long time ago. I’m glad that didn’t happen because I wouldn’t have met you. Now that I have you, you’re stuck with me ‘cause nothing in this world will ever make me leave you.”

He totally owns me
.

Holding each other, we watched the fireworks. Then we slowly made our way back to Joss and Kurt and the bonfire.

Our talk at the quarry stayed with me for a long time. Max made me think about the future, something I had gotten good at avoiding. He made me wonder how different my life would be now if I had been part of an actual family. He had been blessed with nine years of that type of foundation and wanted it for his future. I had no clue what it felt like, but listening to Max talk so fondly about it made me want more than I thought was possible. I was totally and completely in love with him. I had been since the first night at the lake house. He filled up the empty places inside of me that I didn’t know existed and, for the first time in seventeen years, I felt that I mattered.

A few weeks after the quarry, Piper called. I was pleasantly surprised when she told me that she was flying home that Saturday and was dying for a girl’s night. Apparently she had some things to tell.

She wasn’t the only one with tales to tell
.

I had just taken my first birth control pill that morning and had a month to go before surprising Max. I couldn’t wait to spill my news.

I called and switched around my work schedule to get the weekend off. Piper would be arriving sometime after lunch on Saturday. RJ was picking her up at the airport and they had
family plans until five or so. She was going to meet us at Joss’ house after that. Joss informed me that there was a party that night so if we got bored we had a back-up plan.

Max, Kurt, Joss and I hung out at Kurt’s house Friday night. I was worried that Max would be upset when I told him that I would be spending Saturday with the girls. This would be our first weekend night apart and, even though it was my idea, I was hesitant. For some reason the thought of spending a night away from him made my stomach ache. Knowing how much guys hated crazy possessive girls got me through it. When I managed to pull him aside to talk, he shrugged it off as no big deal. I can’t deny that I was kind of hurt by this. It had taken me three days to gut up and tell him, so for him to act like he didn’t care bothered me. Now I had all kinds of messed up things trampling through my head.

Are all girls insecure ninnies or is it just me
?

Max and I fooled around in his truck after we left Kurt’s house. I didn’t want to leave him since I knew I wouldn’t see him until Sunday or Monday but I had to get some sleep.

The next day I kept myself busy so I wouldn’t think or worry about Max. Finally, I was out the door and heading to Joss’ house for the night. I couldn’t wait to see Piper.

Piper showed up around five but she wasn’t alone. She had her boyfriend Tom with her. From the second I laid eyes on her I could tell that something was off.

After all of the squealing and hugging, she sheepishly introduced us. “Tom really wanted to come home with me and meet my family and friends,” she explained in this pitchy fake, so not Piper, voice. She introduced me as Ellison and Joss as Josselyn.

What the hell
?

Joss and I stood there dumbfounded. “Hi,” we both awkwardly said.

Tom was not someone I had envisioned Piper dating. He was about six feet tall and super skinny with beet red hair, bright blue eyes, lackluster skin and a face like a really pretty girl. I couldn’t believe that out of the hundreds of times that I had talked with Piper this summer, she had never physically described Tom to me, other than the one time she referred to him as ‘different.’

I’ll say…

Eyeing us up and down and obviously finding us lacking, Tom said, “So sorry to intrude upon your girly get together this weekend.” Joss’ eyes bugged and I had to turn my head away to keep from laughing.

Girly get together? Who is this guy
?

Piper was clearly enthralled by Tom. I had never seen her act this way before and it was disturbing…to say the least. After watching her gaze adoringly at him, I cut my eyes back to Joss. She was staring at the two of them with a strange look on her face.

“You guys make yourselves comfortable,” she said and then, after mumbling something about phone calls and changing clothes, she grabbed my hand and bolted off to her bedroom, pulling me behind her.

“What in hell was that?” I asked.

“You’d be amazed how people change when they think they’re in love.”

Was she referring to me? “Have I changed?”

“I wasn’t talking about you, Ellie,” she assured, “I was just speaking in general terms. It’s normal to want to please the person you love, but sometimes people will bend over backwards and completely change for someone else. If I ever do that, tell me.”

“Only if you do the same for me.”

“Deal,” we both agreed.

We spent the next half hour frantically trying to call Kurt and Max with hopes that they would let us tag along with them for the evening.

“What am I not getting?” I asked.

“Huh? Damn it, Kurt is not answering his phone.” She started dialing another number.

“Who are you calling now?”

“Harry. Why don’t you try Max?”

“I already got his voicemail and left him a message. I still don’t get it,” I repeated.

“What? That Piper is clearly in love with a guy who looks like a Chucky doll?”

My breath hitched when she said this. We had spent a long weekend back in March watching the Child’s Play series. It took me weeks to stop having Chucky nightmares.

Holy shit, Piper is dating a life-size Chucky
.

I tried to hold back my full body shudder. “This is bad.”

She threw me a sarcastic eyebrow raise. “You think? Okay, I’m making an executive decision here. Get changed. We’re going to that party. There is no way in hell that I am staying here with those two all night.”

I hadn’t properly planned for this so the only thing I had to wear was a pair of old jeans. I was going to have to raid Joss’ closet for a top and, not only was she shorter than me, but her cup size was miniscule compared to mine.

Nice
.

I spent what seemed like forever trying to find something that didn’t look obscene. Finally, I settled on a white v-neck sweater that had a little stretch to it.

If I don’t get cold or bend over, this will work
.

I knew that Max would be seriously unhappy if he saw me in this top but what choice did I have? Plus, he was out with
his friends. My gut told me to get in my car and go home. Did I listen?

No
.

We drove up to the party and, of course, it had to be at someone’s house who had just graduated with Max.

Please don’t let Max be here
.

My heart was thumping out of my skimpily clad chest. “Joss,” I said, through gritted teeth, “does Kurt know about this party?”

Her face broke into a grin. “How do you think I heard about it?”

I jerked to a stop. “Max is going to kill me. I told him we weren’t going out and if he’s here, he’s going to think that I either lied to him or that I am stalking him.”

“Yeah, but once he sees you in that get up, Chesty La Rue, he’ll forgive you anything,” she winked. “Come on, Ellie. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

I shot her the bird and she laughed.

“Don’t worry about it, Elsie, just follow Pips and me. We’ll protect you,” Tom said, patting me on the back.

“Ellie,” Piper corrected.

Joss raised her eyebrow and chuckled. “Elsie and Pips?” she mouthed at me and I couldn’t help but laugh. This scene was beyond comical.

We watched them disappear through the door.

“Chucky doesn’t protect people. He humps them and then kills them,” Joss whispered in my ear. Then, grabbing my hand, she dragged me through the door and into a room full of sweaty dancing bodies.

While I was taller than most, I couldn’t see a thing in front of me except for wall to wall bodies. It reminded me of the last party I had been to.

We all know how that night turned out
.

Blink 182’s
Violence
was blaring throughout the house and I couldn’t help but think that if Max was here, there was about a three percent chance that he would run across me in this crowd. We mulled our way through the mass of people and into the kitchen.

“Do you want a beer?” Joss asked, handing me a cup.

“Is it imported?” Tom asked. His whiney voice grated on my nerves.

We both looked over at Piper, waiting for her to answer in her sarcastically funny way, but she just stood there acting like a doorknob.

“Uh, it’s just regular old Bud Light, Tom,” Joss sighed, clearly disappointed.

After thirty minutes of standing around in the kitchen staring at each other, Piper started telling us about some play that Tom had taken her to recently. Joss kept making funny faces behind Tom’s back and I just wanted to know what had happened to my best friend.

The kitchen window looked out onto a large deck. I was watching the people outside, while formulating my escape plan, when I saw what looked like Bobby McManis walk by.

Max said he would be with Kurt, Harry, Tyler and Bobby tonight. Shit, this means that Max is here
.

Right as I turned to tell Joss, Kurt and Tyler appeared. Tyler was holding hands with Missy Landry, one of Jennifer’s evil minions.

Snapping my finger at Joss, I nodded my head at the window.

“No way,” she moaned when she saw what I was staring at. “Can this get any worse?”

My thoughts exactly
.

We watched Tyler lean down and plunge his tongue into Missy’s mouth. Kurt and Bobby were shaking their heads and laughing at him.

“Yep, it just did,” I said.

“Shit. Do you think that…”

“Yep.”

Max is here somewhere and so is Jennifer
.

Turning to Piper and Tom, I announced, “I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic and need some air. I’m going outside for a minute.”

“I see Kurt. I’m going outside to say hi,” Joss said.

I followed Joss across the crowded deck. When she jerked to a stop I barely avoided running over her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She stood there staring open mouthed at something. I felt her hand grab mine in a tight squeeze and I knew. Still, seeing it with my own eyes was a shock. Sitting, relaxed back in a deck chair was none other than Max. That would not have been so bad if Jennifer Tilson hadn’t been sitting on his lap with her hands in his hair and her lips on his neck.

I was floored. The pain that I felt as I stood there staring at my guy, with
her
, was indescribable. Max knew how much I despised Jennifer, yet there he sat. His words ran through my head.