Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 60309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
I’ve been getting acclimated to that “noise” as a bodyguard, then his boyfriend, and now his fiancé. And I whisper back, “You like the lack of noise?”
“Do you?”
He needs me to answer first. Okay. I smile a little bit, and I tilt my head from side-to-side. “No, not exactly. I like chaotic situations.” He knows that. And I still want to be in his messy, chaotic world.
Especially because he’s there.
Maximoff thinks hard, tough eyes planted on the door where Beckett just disappeared into with Charlie; Thatcher and Jane are already inside. “I think I miss the noise,” he tells me under his breath. “I miss Philly, and I think I prefer the kind of chaos back home. Where it’s us against the media and paparazzi. Not this doomsday.” He gestures to the door.
Where bad shit could happen. It’ll end with Maximoff, who’s sober, using cocaine. I’m not happy about it.
My jaw tics, and I pry my earpiece out of my ear. “Drugs are an asshole.”
His muscles stay flexed, but he rests his head back on the wall and watches my inked fingers move.
I smile again, and I splay the mic cord over my shoulder and reach for the radio on my waistband, increasing the volume. Just so he can hear if Thatcher radios me, to tell me that they need Maximoff to go use cocaine.
My smile fades fast.
If I were a deceptive fucker, I’d keep it in my ear and lie about what I hear, to protect him from that “doomsday”.
But that’s never been me.
I want to give Maximoff the truth, even when it hurts. We’re in this shit together.
He hones in on the mic cord over my shoulder, and then his forest-green eyes melt against mine. “Thanks, Farrow.”
“Anytime.” I comb a hand through my hair. His muscles are still strained. There’s not much we can do for Jane, and I’m guessing that’s what’s eating at him. “She’ll be okay.”
She’s not alone. She has Thatcher to lean on in that room. It makes waiting out here easier.
Maximoff checks the time on his cheap olive-green wristwatch. “Beckett won’t let her snort cocaine,” he tells me for the fourteenth time. “He’ll stop Janie and then agree to quit using.”
The first time he told me this—which is essentially “Plan Z”—he sounded firm and final. Now he definitely sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
This Hail Mary for this intervention is a bad idea. I’ve already told him that. I can’t see Beckett giving in that easily. Like I said, drugs are an asshole, and the asshole move is to let his family do shit they would never do.
But fuck…I hope he surprises me.
“She’ll be okay,” I repeat, seeing my breath in the frigid air. We’re on the highest, coldest level of the house, heaters broken.
I cup my hands and blow on my palms. As I bring them to my side, Maximoff grabs my right hand and encases it in both of his hands.
He rubs, warming my skin with friction.
My lips rise. I love this, but I’m about to love it that much more. “So this is how you earned your Fire Making merit badge.”
He groans against a growing smile, then feigns confusion. “Because you were with me in Wolf Scouts and I was rubbing your hand—wait, yeah, I totally remember that now. You were shorter than me, not as smart as me, and when we ran laps, you were two behind me.”
Shit, I’m grinning. “Your teenage fantasies are conceited as fuck.”
He tries not to smile. “Did I say it was a fantasy? I don’t think I did.”
“Okay.” I smile more.
He stops rubbing my palm, and before he lets go, I clasp his hand and thread our fingers. Our arms are touching as we stand side-by-side. My eyes stroke his eyes.
And his gaze just drowns into me, and we’re both more serious in each passing second.
“She’s okay,” I whisper.
Maximoff blinks, his chest taut. He’s used to being a pillar, and I’m the only person he’ll rest against. I want to ease him. To hold him.
Carefully, I slide down the wall, and with my hand in his hand, Maximoff matches my action, sliding down with me. Until we’re both sitting on the floorboards. So close that I rest my forearm across his bent knee.
He unlaces our hands, slowly, and I watch him trace the inked sparrow near my thumb. I focus on the only ring he wears. A black wedding band that one day he’ll slip on my finger.
I’m wearing the one that I’ll slip on his.
It wells up in me. My unwavering, constant love for Maximoff.
He eases more against the wall, and as our eyes meet, he whispers, “You have this weird effect on me.”
“Relaxed?” I smile.
He laces our fingers again. “This is a doomsday scenario; I shouldn’t be sitting on the damn ground.”
I raise my brows. “But you like it here.”