Page 77 of Hellbent
I turn away, dismissing him. But then—his breath, too close.
“It’s Maxwell, right?”
The words land like a cold weight in my gut.
My breath catches. It’s just…off.
Creepy.
“Who are you?”
His smirk deepens, like he knows something I don’t. But then, just like that, Jake is stepping into my space, unaware of the man standing a bit too close. He kisses my forehead, presses a drink into my hand.
I glance back—
And the man is gone.
Swallowed by the crowd like he was never there at all.
A slow exhale, my shoulders rolling, shaking off the unease. I don’t want to let some random guy ruin my night. So I follow Jake back to the dance floor, where Damian is waiting, pretending to lasso me in until I’m sandwiched between them again, losing myself in the music, the heat, the weight of their bodies against mine.
For a while, everything else fades, my troubles a million miles away.
We leave about an hour later, stepping into the cold, the air crisp against my flushed skin. Damian’s truck is parked across the street, and we head toward it, Jake’s arm slung loosely around my shoulders.
And then…
That prickle. Again.
I glance back.
The same man stands near the entrance of the bar, watching.
But this time, he doesn’t disappear.
This time, he just smiles until I turn away and get into the truck, suddenly eager to drive away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WYATT COMES, AND Wyatt goes, and soon his absences stretch longer than his presence.
“Where is he going all the time?” I ask Jake and Damian, and their non-answers only make me angrier.
Damian, amused by my frustration, gives me nothing. Jake, more careful, just shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it, Max. He’s just got some work to take care of right now.”
But I do worry.
I miss him. His wry humor, his indulgent patience, our little routines. Waking up to the sound of him moving around in the kitchen, watching TV together upstairs in the evenings, the way silence could settle so easily between us.
And when he’s gone, I feel it.
He tells me to sleep upstairs in his bed when he’s away—a luxury compared to my bed downstairs. The mattress is firm, the bedding soft, carrying his scent in a way that makes my chest tighten. But I sleep restlessly, listening for footsteps that nevercome, for the door to open, for his familiar presence to fill the space again.
Little things remind me of him. The coffee mug still sitting in the drying rack, the leather jacket draped over the back of a chair like he’ll be back any second to grab it. A book on the genocide in Rwanda sitting on his nightstand, his place marked only halfway through.
And beneath it all, the gnawing fear that it’s my fault. That he can’t forgive me for what he saw in the garage that day. That it’s easier for him to be anywhere but here. That I drove him from his home.
He’d started going away for four or five days. Then a week. Now it’s weeks at a time. I feel like I’m permanently holding my breath, waiting for him to come back.
