Lo

“And he said he thought it could work?” I pushed open the door waiting for Maverick to catch me up.

“Yeah, he seemed positive, but I still don't know, Lo.”

“Maverick,” I sighed. “What's to think about, if it means—” My feet ground to a halt and he crashed straight into me, grunting with pain.

“Lo, sweetheart, I, hmm, I wasn't expecting you home.” Dad's eyes bulged as he glanced between me and Maverick and then back to Stella who sat quietly at his side.

“What's going on?” I immediately went on high alert. Papers were scattered over the coffee table and Stella's eyes were red-rimmed and sore. “Is everything okay?” I raised an eyebrow. 

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said shifting so that he sheltered Stella behind him. “Are you and Maverick staying?”

“We can study at the pool house. It's no problem, Uncle Rob,” Maverick said. He didn't come around often, and he especially didn't come around when Dad was home.

Stella sniffled, breaking the awkward silence that had descended over us, and Dad mumbled something that sounded a lot like we could stay and hang out. But I said, “I'll just grab my things and we'll get out of your hair.”

Whatever was wrong, it looked serious. Stella didn't meet my eyes, taking refuge behind my father’s broad stature. Nor did she speak. 

“Okay, kiddo.” His eyes flashed with appreciation. “Maybe it's for the best.” 

“Wait for me in the car?” I said to Maverick, and he nodded, excusing himself as I went to my room and grabbed the books I needed. Not that I anticipated much studying to happen when we got to the pool house, but Dad didn't need to know that.

“That's me,” I said when I returned to the living room. Dad glanced up, his arm tucked protectively around Stella's shoulder, and he offered me an apologetic smile. 

“I have my phone if you need me.” I hurried from the house, unsure of what to make of everything. Dad never brought Stella to the house. At least, not when I was around. If she was here, it could only mean whatever had happened wasn't good and my stomach hollowed.

“Everything okay?” Maverick said as I climbed inside the Audi. 

“I don't know.” I glanced over at the house. “That was weird, right? Did Stella seem like she'd been crying to you?”

He shrugged, backing the car out of the driveway. But my mind was already working overtime, imagining all the different scenarios that could lead to her sitting in my living room being consoled by my dad.

“Lo, stop over-thinking,” Maverick's voice reached a place inside of me and I looked over at him. 

“Things just settled down, what if—”

“You don't even know what's wrong yet. Don't jump to conclusions. It could be nothing.”

Or it could be something.

Something that would disrupt the strange level of normal Dad and I had found over the last few weeks. 

“Hey.” Maverick's hands reached for my knee. “I'm sure everything is fine.”

I gave him a little nod but didn't trust myself to reply. To say any of the things circling my mind. 

“You can't flake out on me now, not when I have a test to study for.”

“You mean…?”

A slow grin broke over his face. It was a rare sight. Infectious and blinding. Seeing Maverick happy was one of my favourite things. 

“I want it more than anything. The idea of sitting the SAT again makes me want to puke,” he admitted, unable to meet my gaze. “But I'll do it.”

I slid my hand to his cheek, forcing him to look at me. “This is good, Maverick. This could change everything, and I'll help you. We all will.” 

“No,” he said flatly. His face slipping back into its usual stone mask. “No one can know. If I want this to happen, he can't know, Lo. He can't—” His fists tightened on the wheel.

“Maverick,” I coaxed him back to me, but he was gone. Lost to his demons; the hold his father had on him. His breathing turned shallow, short and sharp rasps, as his body vibrated. The anger radiating around him like a forcefield. 

“Maverick, don't let him in. I'm here, I'm right here.” My voice was soft. Calm. I reached out and laid a hand on his arm, but he didn't flinch. Maverick didn't take his empty glare off the road. 

“I'm right here,” I whispered, trying to reach him, to bring him back.

This was why he fought. I understood now. Alec Prince had power over Maverick. The deep ingrained vicious kind. The kind that ate away at your soul until there was nothing left. Fighting made him feel strong again; for those few minutes when he was in the ring he was in control. I'd promised to be his anchor now. But what if I couldn't? What if he needed the pain and hurt? What if he needed the feel of his fist driving into bone and soft tissue?

Maverick had promised me no more fighting, but what if it was a promise he couldn't keep?

What if my plan didn’t work out?

What then?

~

“I can’t do this.” The book in Maverick’s hand flew across his room, landing with a thud, and he dragged a hand down his face. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure, it does,” I sighed shifting off the bed to retrieve the textbook. “You already sat the SAT twice. You can do it and remember Miss Tamson said to concentrate on your strengths. Focus on the math questions and then you won’t have to score so high on the critical reading section.”

“You don’t understand,” he ground out, tugging his hair with his fingers, his eyes darting around me but refusing to meet mine.

“So, tell me.” I sat back on the bed, crossing my legs in front of me and waited. I was learning that you couldn’t push Maverick. He had to do things in his own time. In his own way. And he was right; I knew nothing much about dyslexia. I knew it affected a person’s ability to read and write. That words got muddled. But that was it. I didn’t know what it was like to live with that.

Maverick scrubbed his hand over his hair again and then down his face. Finally, he met my intense gaze and said, “Dad refused to believe there was anything wrong. I was a bright kid. Eager to learn. But I struggled with reading and writing. I’d get so frustrated when I couldn’t spell a word or forgot a word’s meaning when I thought I had it locked down. Mom and Dad had only been divorced a year. It was rough, on everyone. I think my teachers thought I was rebelling or something. But eventually, they called my parents in. They wanted to have me assessed. Dad wouldn’t hear of it. No child of his had a learning disability. Mom tried to talk him around, but he wouldn’t listen.

“I was seven. My parents were divorced, my father, the man I idolized, had a new family, and I hated the man trying to replace him. I was in a bad place, Lo. I didn’t want something to be wrong with me and I couldn’t bear the thought of my dad being disappointed with me. So I promised to try harder. I was good at maths. Numbers came easy. Words not so much. And I already loved basketball. I applied myself. Studied harder. Played harder. I got Macey to help me with homework. It wasn’t the ideas I struggled with, it was writing them down. I’d get confused or forget what it was I wanted to write and then I’d get frustrated and the letters and words would blur together on the page. So, she became my scribe.”

“You covered it up.” I said, my heart breaking for the boy who had hidden this part of himself for so long.

“I tried. My grades suffered but by the time I got to junior high, I was breaking records on the court and people started paying less attention to my performance in class. Besides, I was Maverick Prince, son of the one of the richest, most powerful men in Wicked Bay, no one was going to question my intelligence. Or lack of it.”

“Maverick,” I scolded, hating the self-deprecation in his voice.

He reached for my leg, hooking it over his. “I wasn’t dumb, Lo. I answered questions in class. Did my homework. Copied notes from my friends. I scraped by. I think it was easier for my teachers to believe I was just another kid more interested in sport than learning. A lazy student unwilling to push himself. That they weren’t failing me; I was failing myself. But then everything changed.”

His walls slammed down.

“You found out the truth about your dad.”

“I’d always been a frustrated kid, but something changed that year, when I realized Alec Prince wasn’t who I thought he was. I mean, I wasn’t blind. I knew he was a cold-hearted business man, you didn’t get to where he was without it. But he loved me and Macey, Alex and Elle. And he raised Will, Maxine’s son, like his own. He was a good man, a good father. It was like finding out the truth opened this vortex in my chest. I had all this anger building inside of me. And I didn’t know what to do with it.

“Basketball was my safe place, the only time I felt free. And it showed. The more bitter I became about life, the more I resented my father, Gentry and myself, and the better I played. Coach started to talk about college scholarships and the future. But I had this dark cloud looming over my head.”

I uncurled my other leg and slipped it over his, shuffling forward until we were almost chest to chest. Maverick looked so pained. So defeated. I wanted to take it all away. To absorb the darkness that lingered over him. But I knew he needed this, to get it out in the open. Even if he disagreed. My mum always said a problem shared was a problem halved.

“When he called me into his office to talk about college, things were at breaking point between us and I could barely stand to be around him. He sat me down and presented me with an application to East Bay. We hadn’t talked about it since the day I agreed to date Caitlin. He just assumed it was a done deal, that he had me where he wanted me. Because that’s his MO, whatever Alec Prince wants, he gets. I laughed in his face, asked him how the hell he thought his dyslexic son was going to manage to major in business and administration and do you know what he said? He looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘Maverick, you are a Prince and Prince’s succeed.’ Like it was that fucking simple. Like that wasn’t all I’d been trying to do since fourth grade.

“When I didn’t answer, when I didn’t tell him I’d make it work, he slammed his fist down on the desk, straightened his tie, and said, ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s been taken care of’.” Maverick let out a bitter laugh. “Because that’s what I was to him, a problem to fix. I’m eighteen, Lo. Eleven years later, and he still won’t acknowledge it. He’d rather buy my way into college than accept the truth because in his eyes I’m a failure. Because my disability makes me weak.”

“Maverick,” my voice cracked, and I reached for him, but he caught my wrist, suspending it in the space between us.

“Don’t.” The vulnerability in his voice almost broke me. “I can’t. Not yet.”

“You are not a failure and you are not weak. You’re one of the strongest people I know. Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve shouldered. You have spent your whole life putting others first. But this is your future. Not his. Don’t let him take that from you. Promise me you won’t let him take that from you?”

I didn’t realise I was crying until Maverick’s thumb slid over my cheek catching the teardrop. “What did I do to deserve you?” he whispered, closing the space between us, his mouth hovering over mine.

I leaned into the kiss. Trying to show him that love wasn’t something deserved, it just was. I didn’t love Maverick because he was a Prince or a star basketball player or because the boys at Wicked Bay wanted to be him and the girls wanted to date him. I’d fallen in love with him because he was a good person. Underneath his hard exterior and high walls, he was just a boy fighting his own demons while putting those around him first.

And I wanted to tell him—God, did I want to tell him—but something held me back. Even now, after he’d told me everything, I was still holding back.