“No,” I said, shaking my head adamantly. “I’ll see you on Monday. I—"
“Maxwell!”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.NO!
Air was trapped in my lungs as I gaped at Laura, terrified as I listened to my father’s thundering footsteps clomping against the porch stairs.
She tried to look around me. “Is that your—"
“Shh,” I hissed, pressing my finger to my lips, but what was the point?
Dad was already coming. She couldn’t leave without him seeing her, and I wanted to cry at the thought of him ruining something else.
“Maxwell! Where the hell—” He came around the tree to find me standing there.
I turned to meet his eye, saw the anger and obvious disapproval there, and then his focus shifted to the girl beside me.
“Well, what do we have here?”
My stomach churned with disgust as my father’s head tipped and his gaze softened with interest.
“Aren’t you a pretty little thing? I can see why myson”—his eyes flicked back to mine for a split second—“would be distracted.”
I sidestepped in front of Laura, blocking his view. His glare widened with surprise, then dissatisfaction.
“Are you going to introduce your father to your little friend, Maxwell?” he asked with a curl of his lip.
I didn’t know what came over me as I sneered back and said, “I wasn’t planning on it.”
For a moment, he was taken aback. He stepped away, as if I’d just punched him in the gut, only to return with his face in mine, our noses nearly touching.
“Do you want her to see what happens when you speak out of line?” he warned, his voice low.
“You wouldn’t,” I said, curling my lips into a little smirk of my own.
Because that was one thing I understood about my father. He never liked his image to be sullied. He could scold me, but he’d never lay a hand on me. Not when others could see and know what a wicked man he was behind closed doors.
He held my glare for a second more before blowing out a hot stream of air through his nose. He stepped away again, this time putting more distance between us.
“Finish up your littlevisit,” he spit out. “I’m giving you a minute to say goodbye and get back to work. Any more than that, and I’ll show you what I’m willing to do.”
He stormed off without so much as a second glance at Laura or me. With him out of my sight, embarrassment flooded in. She had witnessed that.
God!
Not even Ricky had met my father.
What was she going to think of me now? Would she ever want to sit and read with me again?
“Max,” she whispered from behind me.
She laid her hand against my back, and emotion clotted in my throat. I needed to turn around and make her leave, but right at this moment, I didn’t want to lose the feeling of her touch. It grounded me. It pulled me in and held me closer to a place of relief than I’d ever been before.
“You gotta go,” I found myself saying, my voice gruff.
“I know,” she said. “I-I’m sorry. I—"
I turned on my heel to face her, and she dropped her hand from my back. My hands clasped her cheeks, and I pressed my lips to hers, all to keep her from apologizing for making my miserable life a little bit better.