Page 67 of Surviving the Break
I nodded.
“I won’t allow Hayden to take anything else from me. Certainly not my honesty. He’s staying at a hotel. He didn’t sound good; he said his life was over. He asked me to come by.” With a look, he stalled my reply. “More of his manipulations. I said no.”
“Good. You don’t owe him anything. Let him fix his own mess.”
Max had no response to that.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I could hear Jeremiah crying in the background.”
“Jacklyn allowed him to leave with the baby?”
“He wouldn’t tell me anything. I highly doubt it, though.”
“You think he kidnapped him?” I asked, appalled.
“Ash, if it were just Hayden, I wouldn’t ever consider going. I don’t know how to get in touch with Jacklyn—”
“So call the police. You don’t need to be the one to save him.” This was exactly what Hayden wanted. He’d get Max down to that hotel and make a last-ditch effort to persuade him. Using Jeremiah to do it. A cocktail of lingering fear and anger raced through my system. I didn’t want Max to go.
“Yeah, I know.” He rubbed his chin.
I sighed. “You need to see for yourself that he’s okay.”
“It doesn’t make sense, I know. If I call the cops, Jeremiah would end up in custody until this mess was sorted. Or until Jacklyn was tracked down.”
I understood. Even if the experience didn’t last longer than an hour at best, it would still be time Jeremiah spent in the hands of strangers. Scared. If Max could spare any child that, let alone one he loved as his own, he would. Having seen babies separated from their mothers and taken into custody myself, I could empathize. “Go,” I said. “But Max—”
“It’s over. Hayden will never be an issue again.”
ISTEWEDover whether or not Max going to the hotel alone was the best decision long after he’d left the cottage. After what Hayden pulled at the restaurant, and if he was now in fact a danger to Jeremiah, my presence could be of help.Screw it.
I dropped Pluto off with Ryan and borrowed one of the spare cars. I called Max, and it went straight to voicemail. A second call yielded the same results. I didn’t get the name of the hotel, but Max took the rental, so I opened the application on my phone that linked to the car’s GPS. With my heart in my throat, I headed south down Peachland Interstate.
The pulsing blue dot on the screen led me to a hotel with a bar and restaurant attached to the lobby. From the parking lot, I had a perfect view inside the glass-fronted establishment where Max and Hayden sat conversing at the bar. “What the hell?”Where’s Jeremiah?
I parked the car ass-first in between two trucks, killed the engine, and sat watching. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. There had to be a good explanation why Max would be having drinks with Hayden.
The bartender passed Hayden a drink, and Hayden gestured with a hand for him to not go anywhere. He downed it in one swig, winced, and then mimed for another.
Max looked around uncomfortably, rolling his untouched drink between his palms.
The bartender stepped away to start on Hayden’s refill, and Hayden’s attention turned on Max. Max sat face forward at the bar while Hayden faced his profile, canting his body to talk into Max’s ear. Max shook his head roughly for a spell before becoming impassioned and turning on Hayden. I should’ve gotten out and gone in. Sitting there felt untrusting of me when my initial motive was to ensure Max and Jeremiah’s wellbeing. My instincts now encouraged me to sit and wait.
What were they discussing? Whatever it was, Max didn’t seem happy to be there. One consolation.
Hayden downed his next drink, holding a finger up for another. Max said something to the bartender, who looked back and forth between the two before holding his hands up and walking off. Maybe Hayden had lied about having Jeremiah? No, but Max said he’d heard him crying over the line.
Another heated exchange between Max and Hayden, and just when I was about to chalk this up to a failed deception on Hayden’s part, he grabbed the back of Max’s nape and pulled him into a kiss.Motherfucker.
I sat frozen and uncomprehending, at first. When the shock cleared, the floor of my stomach dropped away, and my breathing fractured. Feeling around the car door, not able to take my eyes off the scene in front of me, I lowered the window to get air. The cold wind cut into me. Bringing some sense with it. This could be nothing.Max will push him away.
Except he didn't. And although his shoulders remained stiff, with each second that passed, in my mind, he became a willing participant. It may have only lasted three seconds, but when your world was crashing down before your eyes, a second could resemble an hour.
Hayden appeared consumed. I knew what it felt like to be consumed by Max.
The kill shot came when, after closing my eyes for the briefest of moments, I opened them to find Hayden staring at Max with an unabashed look of awe that saidwelcome home.And Max smiled up at him with a glassy-eyed look of serenity.
