Nicole

 

I watched Maxwell for a long time. Part of me was still in shock. Not just from my ordeal, which was probably to be expected. After all, I’d just been kidnapped, and before that I’d been shot at and before that I’d nearly been raped. There was no question I’d been through more in the last week than most normal people go through in their entire lives. I figured it was pretty normal to deal with some anxiety or shock or whatever over the whole thing.

 

But that wasn’t why I was in shock.

 

When I’d left Maxwell, I had been terrified. Worried he was the same kind of man Ben was, exhibiting the same sort of behaviors that were indicators of abuse and control and all the things I definitely didn’t need in my life, much less a second time around. I had thought—or maybe was just willing to believe because I was scared—that Maxwell was a monster, but I’d seen real monsters now and I was pretty sure I could tell the difference.

 

He had come to save me. There was no question in my mind about that. There was no reason for him to be driving around aimlessly in Malibu houses, searching these massive mansions as he trundled slowly along in this beat up car. None at all. Not unless he was here for me.

 

And that was the part that shocked me.

 

I’d been a real bitch to him, too terrified and angry to be thinking clearly and, as a result, I’d run from the man who was the only one interested in protecting me these days. How could I have been so stupid?

 

Now Maxwell was here, saving me and risking his life and telling me to go, to get to safety, only thinking about me. He didn’t seem to care what happened to himself so long as I was safe—and there was little in this world that I found more attractive than a man who would put me first.

 

That being said, it also had me a little panicked. Under normal situations, being put first meant opening the door for me or paying for my meal. Here it meant Maxwell might die. Still, what could I do for him? So I accepted the keys when he pressed them tightly, insistently into my palm. And then I got into the car, though I desperately wished he would come with me. And I started that car, though our eyes were locked together and I was terrified for him. When I set the car into drive and pulled away from the curb, it took everything I had to gently push my foot down on the gas pedal. I knew I needed to leave, but it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Harder than leaving Ben had ever been.

 

As I drove away, I kept Maxwell in the rearview mirror for as long as I could, watching as he got smaller and smaller against the backdrop of the ridiculously large mansion that I’d just escaped from. Finally, I rounded a corner and he disappeared.

 

Once he was gone, I thought it would be easier to keep going. It didn’t. I made it out of the Malibu neighborhood and onto the highway, pulling into traffic, which at least wasn’t near as bad as it had been the last day or so of driving, but I couldn’t really muster up a lot of enthusiasm about even that. Not with Maxwell still back there.

 

Road signs for LAX were big, noticeable, and easily directed me towards the airport. He had told me to meet him there, to get myself out of trouble and to safety, but there was something about the way he’d said it that had me on edge. He’d told me to go to the airport and to safety, but really, was home safe anymore? I wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel safe, not without Maxwell there to protect me against those awful men—Martin’s men, hadn’t he called them?—and I wasn’t sure if it ever would. There were other places I could probably go. If I went to Nevada, I’d fly into Vegas anyway, since there wasn’t a direct flight to the little sublet outside of the much larger Sin City. If I wanted to, I knew Mom would gladly welcome me and let me stay for a while. As long as I wanted, really.

 

She’d been running through guys a lot since Dad, but none of them ever made that spark in her flare up again. I wasn’t sure if it was a sexual spark or just some mystical spark that meant you were in love, not that that particular spark had done her any favors with Dad, but I had a feeling that was the one she was searching for. Maybe they were one and the same. I didn’t know if she had one staying with her now; she usually called me when they finally bailed on her, deciding her fading beauty, her alcoholism, and her drunken comparisons of them to this mythical creature that was the perfect man weren’t worth the effort. I hadn’t heard from her in a while, so I assumed she was either in a lulling period of having no man at all or she was still with the latest.

 

Either way, she’d kick him to the couch or the curb if I showed up and asked her to. She always told me, “You’re my baby. You’re the only one who’s ever loved me, even when I fucked up and didn’t deserve it.”

 

Most of the time I rolled my eyes at her and had to resist the urge to tell her she was a total fuck up of a mother, but today it had me tearing up. Her unconditional love, as useless as it so often seemed, was now the kind of lifeline. If I told her everything that was going on in my life, everything that had been so crazy and dangerous and confusing, she would still let me in. She’d make me a cup of hot chocolate with half of the mug filled with marshmallows and spiked with just a little bit of whiskey, then tell me

 

I was awesome and everything would be okay, even if it probably wouldn’t.

 

It had been a long time since I’d initiated contact with her. Part of that had been me trying to distance myself from her craziness and the stupid guys who thought being nice to me meant they were on solid ground with my mother. But most of that distance had actually been Ben’s doing.

 

I hadn’t realized it at the time, but Ben had made me lose touch with a lot of things. My mother, who had been so crazy that at the time he suggested I stop talking to her, it seemed like a wise decision. But other people, too. My old friends, the ones in Vegas and the ones in town. The women who were too independent and the men who were too attractive, too flirty, even though they weren’t interested in more than friendship with me. All of them had suddenly been “bad influences” for me, and Ben had demanded, subtly at first and then not so subtly later, I ditch them. All of them. And though I couldn’t say why now, I had done it. For love of him or something equally ridiculous, but at the time I had been desperate to keep him and was willing to do a lot to meet that end.

 

“I was such an idiot,” I said aloud to the empty car, watching as I moved closer towards LAX, the signs announcing it wouldn’t be more than a few miles now.

 

Thinking about how Ben was, I wondered how I had ever thought Maxwell was the same. Maybe it was just my own paranoia—okay, a lot of it had been my own paranoia. Or maybe I just didn’t know Maxwell well enough, but I could see now that the things Maxwell did were about protecting me, not controlling me. Maybe there was a fine line that was difficult for me to distinguish between, but Ben was the sort of person I didn’t need in my life in any capacity. I was too scared to admit that, so Maxwell did something drastic.

 

Maybe it wasn’t right, but I wasn’t so sure anymore that it was completely wrong.

 

I got closer to the exit lane, preparing to get off soon as I got closer to my destination. My palms became sweaty and I wiped them nervously on my jeans, one at a time so I could leave the other on the leather steering wheel that had grown hot from the sun.

 

There were a few things I was absolutely positive about in that moment. First, Ben was a terrible, awful man and I’d been a fool for staying with him as long as I had. The second was that Ben would never have risked his life for me like Maxwell was doing right now. It meant I was once again absolutely stupid and Maxwell couldn’t be anything like Ben.

 

As soon as I’d accepted this conclusion as fact, I took the next exit. It was well before LAX and I found myself in some little neighborhood. Santa something. I didn’t care. All I needed to do was turn around and get right back on the highway. Thankfully, the traffic wasn’t too bad going back the way I’d just come, so when I got on we were moving steadily along. It wasn’t as fast as I would have liked, but at least I was moving in the right direction now.

 

I’d been stupid for so long now that I couldn’t make yet another stupid decision when it came to Maxwell. I’d run from him. I’d yelled at him, said horrible things, and thought horrible things about him. And he’d still come to save me. Even when we first met I’d written him off, but Maxwell was the kind of man who would always be persistent. I felt like I owed him that same courtesy.

 

Sitting in traffic was horrible. I wanted us to move faster, to get back to that Malibu exit and drive through the neighborhood with all those stupid McMansions with their lavish, gaudy interiors and their haughty exteriors. I needed to get back there as soon as I could. I just prayed “as soon as I could” was soon enough.

 

“Please, let him be all right.”

 

Maxwell was risking his life for me and I finally decided that was both brave and absolutely not right. I already owed him so much; how many times was I going to let him save my life while I stared hopelessly? Not this time, I decided. This time, I was going to help, in whatever way I could, no matter what.

 

I just hoped I would get there in time.