Page 34 of Cream and Punishment
The passenger shouted something about Max being an… uh,buttguy before adding another vulgar insult and driving off. It was crude and obscene, but I couldn’t deny the cleverness of the heckler’s play on words.
Max didn’t even look in their direction, yet I had no doubt he was ready to act at a moment’s notice if things escalated. It was in the way hedidn’tlook directly at them, if anything. The subtle angling of his body to keep them in his periphery, his measured breathing and steady pace. No average civilian would react so nonchalantly. It was both intimidating and hotter than a pizza oven.
When a few seconds passed in tense silence, I patted his chest, my voice soft and my heart still racing. “You can put me down. I can make it the rest of the way.”
I most certainly couldnot—at least not any time this decade—but he didn’t need to know that.
He arched an eyebrow. “Because of what that knucklehead said?”
Again, all I could offer was a shrug. It was simpler than confessing my sins to him, than begging for his forgiveness before I did anything else.
“Their opinions don’t matter to me, okay?” he continued, the faintest ghost of a smile on his lips. “I learned a long time ago not to sweat the small stuff.”
I wrinkled my brow. “How did you do that?”
It seemed like one of those phrases people threw around as a substitute for wisdom without any advice onhowto implement it. Knowing I shouldn’t care about unimportant things didn’t stop me from caring—it only made me feel guilty for it.
He pursed his lips in thought, giving me the most insane urge to run my gloved donkey fingers over them. “You know, I’m going to have to think about that before I can give a good answer. I think a lot of it was innate for me, but some of it I learned from babysitting my younger siblings.”
I perked up at the mention of his family, like a puppy begging for scraps. And yet, the next words out of my mouth were, “What if you can’tnotcare?”
“About the small stuff?”
“About everything.” I frowned, resisting a yawn as his steady pace and warm body lulled me into a trance. “Sometimes I feelsomuchallthe timethat I think I’ll explode.” I laughed softly to myself. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
He hummed thoughtfully. “Just because others don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” His breathing was a touch heavier now. “It sounds really overwhelming, though.”
“It is,” I whispered.
Even when it became too much and numbness took over, I couldfeelthat numbness on a cellular level. That shouldn’t even be possible, right?
In an attempt to lighten the mood, despite the fact my pulse still raced, and my hands shook just from thethreatof confrontation with the heckler, I infused cheerfulness into my voice. “It’s not all bad, though. I can getreallypassionate about things.”
He chuckled, and a bead of sweat dripped down his temple. He adjusted his hold on me as we finally reached the parking lot next to our apartment building. Maybe he was more exhausted from carrying me than he’d let on.
Sure enough, when he spoke, his voice was a little strained. “What kinds of things?”
“Food.” I didn’t even have to think about it. “I think the world would be a much tastier, happier place if everyone was passionate about good food. You know some people don’t even care what their food tastes like? Eating is just something they do to stay alive. An item on a checklist.” I started shaking my head until the donkey ear smacked Max’s jaw. “Oops, sorry. But it blows my mind.”
“I can imagine,” he grunted. Veins popped in his neck in a way that was both attractive and alarming, lit by the parking lot streetlights. “Is that why you became a baker?”
Any levity I’d managed to stir up snuffed out, like he’d blown out the candle that kept my soul alight. My brother’s face came to mind, rapidly scrolling through different expressions. Frustrated. Sad. Happy. Encouraging. And the last one, pale and peaceful in a casket.
It was like Max had mentioned my old bakery again, but worse. A punch to the stomach completely out of the blue. He’d made me comfortable enough to open up, and then he’d pounced.
It could be completely unintentional. Kris and Annie would argue it was. Or it could be the ingenious machinations of a well-trained federal agent. Either way, I didn’t feel up to conversation anymore.
“It’s part of it,” I managed to say, though my voice was conspicuously strangled. We were nearly to the doors to our building. “Put me down, Max. We’re here now, anyway. I’m killing you.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted through heavy breaths. “I can at least get you to your door.”
I scoffed. He’d already carried me a block and a half—me, a fully grown adult who had never saidnoto dessert in her life—and he was going to push himself to make it through the lobby, up a flight of stairs, and down our hallway to my apartment? Even if I wasn’t suffocating in my guilt, my humanity prevented me from letting him hurt himself for my sake.
“I don’t think so, buddy.” I wiggled, loosening his hold on me. “We’re taking the elevator, and I’m walking the rest of the way.”
“Walking” was a generous term for the pitiful limping I had to do to get anywhere, but still.
He sighed but relented and set me down right outside the doors to the complex. I straightened the slightly too-large donkey head with as much dignity as I could muster. Which was approximately negative seven.
