His End Game (MMG #1) (6 page)

Slowly, I made my way to the kitchen doorway and immediately understood the look on Joss’ face. Piper was plastered, boobs to crotch, to Kurt. Kurt was staring across the kitchen at Joss with a guilty look on his face.

I knew something was up with those two!

I wanted to help Joss, but first I needed to see if Max was really here and, if he was, whether he was alone or with someone. Scanning the room, I found him leaning against the far counter with a beer in his hand. Of course he was staring straight at me.

Busted
.

Trying to play it cool, I smiled and lifted my hand in a half wave.

He winked and gave me a two finger salute.

I felt my shoulders instantly relax.

He’s alone
.

Forcing myself not to dwell, I announced my arrival. “Hi guys.”

The Garth look alike jumped as if he had been shocked by a thousand amps of electricity and then bolted straight toward me with his hand out.

“Hi, I’m Kurt’s cousin, Harry Greenfield,” he quickly said.

“Hi Harry, I’m Ellie.” I felt strange shaking his hand. Normally I just nodded when I met someone new…especially when they were my own age.

At least Garth has nice manners
.

“Eelllieeee,” he cooed. “I know who
you
are.”

“You do?” I looked over at Max.

“Harry,” Max’s deep voice warned.

“Whaaaaat? I
have
heard a lot about her,” he replied.

“Be cool,” Max warned again.

Hmmmm interesting
….So Max had been talking about me and it seems that ‘ole Harry is lacking a filter. I bet that if I stuck Piper on him she could find out what Max had said about me. Pulling my eyes off of Max, I checked to see if Piper had managed to pry herself off of Kurt, yet.

Nope…still attached
.

It was definitely time to intervene. I did not want my two best friends at odds with each other and especially not over a guy.

“Piper, uh…can I talk to you for a minute, please?” I was trying not to be too obvious but by the looks on Max and Kurt’s faces, I was failing miserably.

She rolled her eyes at me. “Sure, go for it.”

“In private?” I stressed.

“Fine,” she huffed.

“Third door on your right is an office you can use,” Joss offered.

“Thanks.” I gave her what I hoped was a sympathetic smile. Then, oh so maturely, I stuck my tongue out at Kurt and Max. I could hear them laughing all the way down the hall.

I closed the door behind me before laying into her. “That was not cool. You have to back off.”

“Back off? Moi?”

Sometimes I really wanted to slap her. “I love you Piper but sometimes you are a serious pain in the ass. Kurt is into Joss and you know this. Joss is your friend. Whatever happened between you and Kurt at Matt’s house was a one-time deal. So, before you ruin important friendships, you need to back off.”

She gave me her vintage screw you look and when she realized that I wasn’t going to back down, she huffed. “Oh, all right. It’s not like anything happened between us that night anyway. I was just messing with him and it really pisses me off that Joss is hiding their relationship from her two best friends.”

“You know how private Joss is. She’ll tell us when she wants us to know. Not to change the subject or anything, I was wondering if you noticed Kurt’s cousin? He’s cute in a boy-next-door kind of way. Why don’t you see what he’s all about?”

I can’t believe I actually said that with a straight face and didn’t get struck by lightning
.

She made a funny noise. “Boy-next-door, my ass, he looks like a jacked up Garth from Wayne’s World and, thanks but no thanks, I can get my own guy. By the way, what is up with you and luscious lips? He couldn’t take his blue orbs off of you in the kitchen.”

“Nothing is up. I don’t even know why he’s here. I’m sure he has a million other places he’d rather be right now. For goodness sakes, he just graduated from high-school. Shouldn’t he be out partying or something?” My mouth was like a runaway train and I needed to catch it before it did some serious damage.

Not about to let me off the hook, she said, “It’s pretty obvious why he’s here Ellie, don’t you think?”

Piper prowled around the room. When she settled behind the huge antique looking desk, I took a cleansing breath and answered. “Nothing is obvious with Max, Piper, It never has been.”

“Well then you are blind but I’ve always known this.”

Arching my eyebrow at her, I asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”

I could see she was gearing up for a fight. Normally when this happened I appeased her by agreeing with whatever she had to say, but this was Max that we were talking about.

“What that means is that you don’t see yourself the way everyone else does. You never have and, because your aunt is a critical old biddy who never told you how out of this world beautiful you are, you never will. Clearly, Max…wants…you,” she slowly enunciated. “Believe it.”

“
If
Max wanted me, he could have had me years ago.
Years
…Piper,” I stressed. “You haven’t been around for the past three months.” She opened her mouth to interrupt and I held up my hand to stop her. “More like you haven’t been around for the past
year
. You haven’t seen how he watches me in the halls, winks at me whenever I catch his eye or brushes up against me every chance he gets.” Placing both hands on the desk, I leaned forward, my face inches away from hers and whispered, “After the best kiss of my whole life, I got scared and bolted. Instead of talking to me about it, he acted like it never happened. Like that,” I snapped, “I stopped existing. No more staring, winking or brushing. Just. Like. That. What kind of guy does that?”

She gave me a hurt look. “You never told me he kissed you.”

Crap, crapity, crap!
I didn’t tell Piper or Joss about the kiss because it was special and it was mine. I hated that she was hurt but that didn’t change the way I felt about it.

“Let me finish and then I’ll explain.” I was on a roll now and, by golly, I had a point to make. I was so wrapped up in doing this that I failed to see her eyes bugging as she stared at the doorway behind me. “I have been reminded every day since Max kissed me that I will never have what I want. God, why did he have to do that Piper? All it did was complicate things.” I could feel my eyes welling, which pissed me off. My aunt had taught me long ago that tears were weak and pointless. I hated feeling weak. “He got me where he wanted, tried me out and,” I threw up my hands, “I…failed. You told me that I wasn’t going to be enough for him and you were right. I wasn’t.” There, I was done. It took about two seconds for me to notice that she was staring at the door behind me.

Dropping my head, I sighed deeply and asked, “Is he standing behind me?”

“Yep,” she said and stood up. “I’ll just leave you two here to hash this out.” Quickly skirting around the desk, she squeezed my shoulder and whispered, “Good luck,” as she passed by me.

Traitor
.

I heard the door click shut and slowly turned around to face Max. He had his arms crossed and was leaning against the frame with a scowl on his face. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to wipe it off, kiss it away or run. Running would probably be the smartest of the three, but when it came to Max McLellan I was far from smart.

“I got you where I wanted you?” he asked. The tone of his voice was intimidating.

I just stood there, frozen.

“You think you weren’t enough for me?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I was mired in all that was Max and Max was
not
a happy camper. In fact, this version of Max was a little scary.

“You think you failed?”

I managed to nod my head. I could deal with anger and I could deal with hurt. What Max was, I didn’t know what to do with.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, running his hands through his hair.

This made me flinch.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking and it bothered me. In a deceptively soft voice, he asked, “So, you think I was playing some kind of game?”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t
know
him. Yes, I had spent the last three years obsessing over him, but in all reality I had no clue who he
really
was. We had one brief encounter,
in a closet
, which obviously meant less to him than it did to me. He was my fantasy guy…the one by whom all others were judged. I couldn’t tell him that it hurt watching him with Jennifer or that it hurt
even more knowing that he was no longer with her but didn’t want me. I had no right. He wasn’t mine and never had been.

“You aren’t mine,” I blurted, making absolutely no sense. “I have no right to feel anything about you.”

“
What
?” He was staring at me like I was insane. I felt totally out of my depth and instead of shutting my mouth, I dug deeper.

“At Matt’s party…I thought…I thought that we….connected. But then nothing happened, so I figured that it was all in my head. Then Joss told me that you had broken up with Jennifer….” I knew that I was making a mess of this but kept on going. “When you pulled me into the closet and kissed me like I’ve dreamed about a million times over it scared me, so I ran and you…let me go, thus proving me right all along. You didn’t want me. I was just a fun distraction.”

“You must be shitting me,” he whispered, pushing off of the door frame and taking a step toward me. “You are all I have thought about for the past three months, Ellison.”

Completely confused, I said, “I don’t understand.”

“Clearly,” he replied.

Sarcastic ass
.

“Well, why don’t you explain it to me then and, by the way,” I snapped, “my name is Ellie, not Ellison.”

His eyes flashed and his mouth thinned.

Angry Max is back
.

“No it’s not,” he corrected.

“Yes it is,” I shot back.

“Tough,” he stated.

Apparently Max could be a huge horse’s ass
.

Max didn’t know my history, so I decided to give him some clarity. “My aunt has raised me since birth. She gave me that name and wields it like a weapon. So now you get why I don’t like it.”

An undecipherable look appeared on his face. “We’ll have plenty of time to get all of the details later, but for right now whoever the hell gave you the name Ellison did a good job because that name is beautiful and different and so are you. So you’d best get used to hearing it.”

My eyes widened in surprise.

He thinks my name is beautiful and different, that I’m beautiful and different…

He opened his mouth to say something else when we heard a knock on the door.

“You guys want dinner?” Joss asked. “We have pizza.”

He glanced over at me. “You want to eat or do you want to keep talking?”

Without even having to think about it, I answered. “Keep talking.”

“Come,” he said and held out his hand. I placed my hand in his and felt butterflies break free throughout my body. He opened the door and informed Joss that we had “Things to discuss” and would see them all later. I had no idea where he was heading but nothing in the world was going to stop me from going with him…..absolutely nothing.

“Where are we going?” I asked, practically running to keep up with him.

“To the boat house. Watch your step,” he cautioned before heading up a narrow flight of stairs. When we reached the top, he pulled me through a doorway and into a large open room that was decorated in blue floral and garish nautical themes. The room was large enough to accommodate a queen sized bed, closet and small kitchen. Before I had the chance to take it all in, he was herding me across the room toward a sitting area. “It’s ugly but it’ll do,” he mumbled. I had to agree. The loveseat and club chairs were covered in a hideous yellow fabric. Dog vomit immediately came to mind. Sinking down into one of the overstuffed chairs, he pulled me sideways onto his lap.

I can’t believe I am sitting on Max McLellan’s lap right now
.

The pressure of his hand on the nape of my neck interrupted the mini fantasy playing in my head. I tilted my face so I could get a better look at him and tried not to gasp at the carnal glint in his eyes. It was both raw and intimate and for a split second, I wondered if I should cut bait and run.

His deep voice sent chills down my spine. “I want to see your face while we talk. I want to see your eyes and know that you understand what I am saying.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, not really understanding but willing to go along.

“I noticed you the first day of your freshman year. I was standing in the hallway, by the lockers, talking to Kurt and Adam. You walked through the door with Piper. I noticed the color of your hair, your unbelievable eyes and sweet smile. You were so beautiful but so young.”

His hand was rubbing up and down my thigh and was very distracting, making it hard to concentrate. “You are aware that you are only a year older than me?” I laughed.

“Yes, but I have seen more shit in my eighteen years than most people have in their whole lives, Ellison.”

All kinds of horrible images shot through my head when he said this. Shifting my shoulders so I could see his face better, I gave him a questioning look.