Chapter 25

Max

“You’ve used all the tokens.” Lee-Lee laid her head on my shoulder. She was my second biggest cheerleader next to Chloe.

I tossed a ball into the moving hoop. Beaner cheered again, reaching over the top of the glass barrier to grab me another ball. Chuck E. Cheese’s was not just a place for kids.

“So? Chloe Bean here’s doing a mighty fine job of getting us some free entertainment. Kid’s a natural.” I watched as she used her little hands and shoved the orange ball forward, missing the hoop by a mile.

Standing to my right, Lia looked at me with bright eyes and a smile tugging at her lips. This day—this entire weekend—with just her and Chloe and me had been fucking incredible. I didn’t want it to end. There was no hiding or sneaking around. I was free to touch her whenever I wanted, which was pretty much every second she was near me. Best part was that Lia wasn’t shy about touching me. It all felt so real, so domesticated. That probably should’ve scared me, but it didn’t, because it was exactly what I wanted most out of life. And whether she knew it or not, I wanted it with Lia.

“Fine.” She grinned and shoved her hands into my front shorts pockets. Chloe had her back to us, and because I couldn’t help myself, I turned and grabbed Lia around the waist.

“Go digging any deeper in there, and you’re gonna find all sorts of fun treasures.”

She licked her lips, her fingers stroking my dick through the pockets. “Maybe that’s the point.”

I shivered and shut my eyes, forgetting where we were, and kissed her, so hard I didn’t even see Beaner fall.

“Oh my God!” Lia shoved me away and dropped to the floor beside her.

Chloe lay on her side, crying so hard she’d gathered a crowd. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even speak. She held her arm to her chest, staring back at me with fear and pain in her blue eyes. The tears ran down her chubby cheeks, which were so red she looked like a swelling apple.

“Max!” Lia kicked my shin. “Her arm…”

“Fuck.” Not thinking twice, I knocked my ass into high gear and lifted Chloe’s shaking body to my chest. She clung to the front of my shirt with her good arm, snot and tears soaking the material in seconds. “We gotta get her to the hospital.”

Lia followed me as we raced out the door. A couple of workers tried to stop us, asking if we needed an ambulance, but I told them all to fuck off. Getting pissed when I wanted to cry was my natural reaction.

The hospital was only a few blocks away, but I didn’t want to have to put her in a car seat, and her little arm—swollen and already changing colors—wouldn’t let it happen. So I tossed Lia my keys and sat in the backseat with Beaner on my lap, praying to every holy entity out there that my favorite little girl would be okay.

My eyes never found Lia’s in the rearview mirror as we drove, too focused on Chloe as I tried to soothe her with a song. But that only made her cry harder. Never in my life had I felt so helpless.

Somewhere during the five-minute drive, Chloe had finally stopped crying. How the fuck that happened, I didn’t have a clue. She had to be in pain because her arm was a swollen mess. Her dad was gonna kill me. Jesus, what had I done?

When we got to the hospital, Lia opened the car door. I froze for a second, not sure what to do. “Take her inside, Max.” Eyes watering, she searched my face as I stepped out, her reaction calm, unlike mine. “I’ll be right behind you.”

In the main emergency room lobby, I raced toward the receptionist, barely holding it together as I stepped in front of her desk. I’d seen so much bad in my life, but I’d never been this scared.

By the time the nurses came out to get Chloe, Lia had explained the whole situation, like the grown-up I apparently was not. The girl who’d always needed me to guide her through tough shit was leading the charge. Insurance cards were handed over, forms were signed, and by the time we got Chloe settled into a room, I was restless and ready to jump out of my own skin.

“Max.” Lia kneeled in front of me, her hands on my knees. “I have to go with her for an X-ray.”

I nodded, barely able to hear her. She looked into my eyes, looked back at Chloe, then to me once more. Swallowing hard, I watched the easy effort with which Lia moved back to her niece’s bedside. She was a natural, whether she knew it or not.

“Has anybody called the parents?”

At the nurse’s words, a switch flipped inside me. I was a fucking idiot. I needed to call Colly and Addie ASAP.

“I’m her aunt. I’ve been given permission to watch out for her this weekend. Her father is in Minnesota with his girlfriend,” I heard Lia say.

The doctor, probably a young resident, looked Lia over with unguarded disgust. But Lia took it in stride, too busy cooing and loving over her crying niece to care what anyone thought of her.

So what if she was wearing shorts that barely covered her ass and lace stockings that looked like something straight out of Pretty Woman? Didn’t matter that she had hair made of rainbows and more piercings in her nose and face than in her ears. She was a fucking rock star, my rock star, and that made me stand up and finally step into action.

The doc stepped back at seeing me, blinking as though I’d just appeared in the room. She took in my khaki shorts and polo shirt and said, “And you are…?” There was no disgust in her eyes this time. Instead, I recognized the telltale sign of interest as she tapped her pen against her lips.

“I’m this little girl’s uncle.” I puffed my chest out and wrapped my arm around Lia, who immediately relaxed against me. As selfish as it sounded, I felt a hell of a lot better knowing Lia needed me more than she’d let on. “And I plan on calling her daddy as soon as you get her out of here for an X-ray.”

Eyes wide, the doctor nodded before wheeling Chloe out of the room, a nurse trailing behind her. I pressed my lips to the side of Lia’s head. “I’m so fucking sorry I put her up on that damn game.”

Lee-Lee squeezed me against her side and pulled back, meeting my gaze. “And I’m sorry I didn’t stop you from doing it.” She shrugged, but the sadness in her eyes wasn’t directed at me. I knew this because she leaned in close and kissed my lips before she slipped out of the room to follow Chloe.

Seconds later, I had my phone out, dialing. After three rings, Addison picked up, giggling right before she said, “Hello?”

Collin grumbled something about hurrying up, which had me sucking in a breath. They were obviously loving all their free time.

“Hey, Short Stuff. Colly around?”

“Of course. Everything okay?”

I cringed. “Not really. But I gotta talk to Collin first.”

She spoke some rushed words to my buddy just as he got on the line. “What’s wrong?”

I told him. Not just about how fucking careless and stupid I’d been, but also how sorry I was and how I’d never be that big of a dumb-ass again. I went on and on and on, pacing the room and pulling at my hair, until I realized he hadn’t said shit.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” And then he was gone, the phone clicking dead. I sat on a chair, one hand on my forehead as I called Gavin.

Unlike with Collin, I told Gavin every detail, including how I’d gotten distracted by Lia. “Better hope it was fucking worth it,” he said, only to ask, “Does Chloe need anything?” Which made me feel like an ass because I hadn’t been thinking about that.

Ten minutes later, when I was thinking the damn worst, they came back into the room. Lia sat on the bed, a bottle of water in one hand and Chloe on her lap with an ice-cream sandwich. Her little face was a mess of red skin, wet tears, and chocolate.

“Aww, Beaner, I’m so sorry.” I moved to stand by her side, only to see her arm strapped to her tummy in some sort of sling.

A new voice piped up behind me. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Max. She’s a tough kid.” McKenna, dressed in a pair of nursing scrubs, popped into the room. Her blue eyes narrowed as she whispered something into Lia’s ear.

She works here? How did I not know this?

Just then, the doctor stepped into the room, avoiding eye contact with Kenna and Lia and focusing only on me. “From what we can tell, Chloe likely will need to have surgery. Not right now, since there’s too much swelling, but eventually.” She cleared her throat, chin up, and stared down her pointy nose. The tension rolling off the stuffy lady about suffocated me. I snuck a quick look at Lia and found her eyes rolling as she glanced at Kenna.

“Fine, thanks,” I said, distracted as I stared back at Beaner, nearly asleep in Lia’s arms.

The doctor eventually left the room, taking with her the stench of bitch. Still, nothing about this night could make me feel better, knowing my sweet little Chloe Bean would need surgery.

“I’m not working peds tonight, which sucks because I would’ve loved to stay with this little miss.” Kenna reached over and ran the back of her hand down Chloe’s messy cheek, a strange look of awe passing over her features as she did.

“Thank you, McKenna. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t walked by.” Lia’s voice cracked as she laid her head against Chloe’s.

“Addie’s my best friend. When she tells me the girl she loves like her daughter is laid up in the hospital where I work, I’m going to go looking for her.” Kenna smiled at Lia and then frowned at me. “And you, asshole…”

I jerked my head back. “What’d I do?”

Her frown slipped into a sly smirk as she said, “If I’d known you and Lia were together, I never would’ve dry humped your ass at Jimney’s. Way to make me look like a skank.”

Lia snorted and shook her head.

I glared back and forth between the two of them. What had I missed?

Once Kenna was gone and it was just the three of us, I motioned for Lia to move so I could hold Chloe. Lee-Lee looked like she was about to fall asleep sitting up. Without arguing, she switched seats with me. Beaner was out cold, probably from pain meds, so she didn’t seem to care where she went, as long as she had a body to lie on.

“You good?” I whispered, swiping the remainder of Chloe’s ice cream from her now-lax fingers. Sticky gunk stuck to my hands, so I ate the rest of the thing and licked my fingers clean.

“As good as I can be.” Lia shrugged, avoiding my stare.

“Liar.”

I wanted to tug her onto the bed and hold her close too. Instead, she sat at end of the mattress, peeling off the water bottle’s label. “I let that stupid doctor get to me though. Something I never do.”

“What’d she say?” I frowned.

“She asked if I wouldn’t mind waiting outside the X-ray room. Said since I wasn’t the parent—”

“You’re her aunt, and she’s only fifteen months old. She needed you there.”

Lia sighed and met my stare. “I know. I told her that. Then she mumbled something under her breath that sounded like ‘white trash,’ but I couldn’t tell. So, I called her some names, just in case. Then Chloe started crying, and we hadn’t even gotten the X-ray taken yet. That’s when Kenna showed and—”

“Hey, shhh…” Because I needed to hold my other girl, I settled sleeping Chloe against the pillows on the bed, her head falling to the side. As quickly as I could, I jumped up and grabbed Lia’s trembling hand, then pulled her onto my lap, falling back into a crappy recliner. She cried against me, her shoulders shaking. “Don’t let her get to you.”

“I couldn’t help it.” She sniffed. “I was already on the verge of cracking, worried about Beaner, worried about you having to call my brother. I just…lost it. Got stupid and cracked.”

I rubbed her back and kissed her cheek, inhaling the scent of her strawberry shampoo. “Baby, we all gotta freak out sometimes. The important thing is you had a good reason. And that doc needed to be dealt with.”

Lia’s body shook with laughter this time, the noise so soft I could barely hear it over my thundering heart. I should’ve gone with them. I knew that lady was a coldhearted bitch the second she sneered at the beautiful girl in my arms. Yet I’d been too freaked to do anything then.

Why was that? How could I get through two years of fighting insurgents in the desert, yet I couldn’t handle seeing Chloe get hurt?

“I’m sorry I spaced out when we got here.”

Lia sat up straighter, eyes watering as she searched my face. “You were scared. So was I. It was a natural reaction. When something bad happens, I either get bitchy or take charge. You, on the other hand, go catatonic.” She shrugged. “It’s called dealing with our demons. We all have ways of doing it. Some are active; some are not.”

I leaned forward, kissing her lips this time. “I still don’t like it. I’ll work on that for you. You need a man who can be strong for you.”

“Oh, come on, Maxwell. I don’t need that. If anything, I just need a partner to be strong at my side, not for me.” She brought my hand to her lips, kissing the backs of my fingers. “We’re not expected to know what to do at every waking moment in our lives, you know.”

“Not what I’ve been taught. Growing up, I had to be on defense all the time with my father. Then when me and Ma finally left him, we were still on defense, trying to make it through life. I had to be the man she needed.”

Lia yawned and toyed with the neckline of my shirt. “You’re not on the frontline anymore, and I’m not your mom. It’s okay to let someone else be the hero once in a while.”

She snuggled against my chest, and I draped my arms over her legs. I pulled her as close as I could, trying to get into that mind-set—the non-heroic kind. Love made me into that man, the one wanting to be her protector and the man she was in love with.

Still, I was okay with doing things her way, even if that meant sharing a little weakness with her. Not sure what that said about me as a man, but as Lia’s boyfriend, things were different.

Silence stretched between us, our chests rising and falling at an almost identical pace. At one point I thought she’d gone to sleep, until she finally whispered, “If you and I had gotten together earlier in life, do you think we’d be where we are now?”

“Fuck yes.” No doubt in my mind. I knew Lia was someone different from day one. It’d just taken me a while to get off my lazy ass and do something about it.

“Don’t be mad.” She toyed with the back of my hair, her breath a whisper against my neck. “But I don’t think we would’ve.”

My jaw locked, but I concentrated on keeping the rest of my body relaxed. I didn’t like thinking like that. If I wanted something, I got it and then kept it. Sure, we would have been a hell of a lot younger and were going through some bad shit then, but everything in me believed our relationship would’ve panned out in the end.

“Doesn’t matter.” She cuddled in closer, her lips grazing my neck as she spoke. “I’m here, you’re here… We’re right where we belong now.” She yawned again.

I held her closer. “Yes, we are.” That was the one thing I knew for certain.