Chapter 22 Ella

Chapter 22

Ella

It makes sense that we'd end the night tossing sticks over a bridge with moonlight glinting off the water. Silver ripples stare up at us as we lean over, side by side, then race to the opposite railing.

Laughing, I point down at the stream. "I win again. You suck at this."

"I didn't realize there was any strategy involved."

"There must be. I've never seen anyone lose every single time."

Max sighs, shaking his head as he bends over the rail. "The water is cursed."

"Not from my perspective." I match his stance against the railing and our elbows bump together. Even the slightest brush has a shot of heat zipping through me. Glancing at him, I trail my eyes over his profile peeking out from his black hoodie. "Your father was…unexpected," I murmur. "He's not who I thought he'd be."

His jaw tics as he stares down at the glimmering stream. "Yeah. I haven't seen him so clearheaded in years." Max pulls his chin up and stares skyward. "I haven't noticed him drinking lately. He must be past the detox stage."

I twist around, my back to the rail. "He seems like a good man who just lost his way."

"That's what I've been saying," Max agrees. "McKay thinks he's a lost cause."

"Your brother was notably absent at dinner tonight," I note, fiddling with my long, baggy sleeve. I'm wearing Max's hoodie over my black cocktail dress—the one he let me borrow at the festival. It still smells like him. "I'm sorry he's not more supportive."

My knees knock together when a bitter wind whips us in the face and the chill travels down my bare legs.

Pivoting to the same position beside me, Max folds his arms and glances down at the bridge. "Yeah. I keep trying to pull him back and he keeps running farther away. But he's my family, so I won't give up. Blood is thicker than water, you know?"

I gnaw on my lip as his statement slithers through me like tar. "Funny enough, that phrase was intended to mean the opposite of how we say it these days."

Max frowns, looking over at me. "How do you figure?"

"The original passage is actually, ‘The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,'" I tell him, meeting his eyes. "Contrary to popular belief, it emphasizes that the relationships we choose can be stronger than our family ties. It highlights the value of bonds formed by choice over those we were born into."

"That's interesting."

"Yep. Whenever I want to hate Jonah a little extra, I try to remind myself of that. He's blood but he's no longer my family. He lost the title when he pulled that trigger." I shrug, inspecting my fingernails. "It doesn't really work. I still love him, so it only makes me hate myself."

The human mind is a reckless beast. It clings to memories and bonds, no matter how much logic tells us otherwise. Trying to separate love from resentment, especially for family, is like attempting to untangle intertwined threads. One always follows the other.

"You're freezing."

My legs are bobbing up and down and my teeth are chattering. "It's cold out."

"Michigan is colder," he says.

I can't help but smile as I glance up at him. Max Manning's memory is a steel trap. "I'd rather be cold there."

"Why's that?" His face falls as he moves to fully look at me, his brows creasing.

"It's far away from here."

That's what I keep telling myself, anyway. Miles away from these soul-sucking memories, this judgmental town, and the high-security prison that's a mere three hours away—a place I'm inexplicably drawn to. Far from my mother who poured every ounce of love and savings into her murderous son and left her daughter to deteriorate in the aftermath.

But as I swivel back around to stare out at the open sky, I feel a hand curl around my bicep to pull me back.

Max whispers softly, "It's far away from me."

My heart skips as a shot of sadness rolls through me and our gazes tangle beneath the moonlight. "Max…"

He drops his hand and pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, then begins to scroll. Moments later, a song starts to play.

I grind my teeth together to keep the emotions at bay. "What's this one called?"

"‘Atoms to Atoms' by Eyes on the Shore," he tells me, setting the phone atop the bridge rail. "Do you want to dance?"

"Yes."

The answer falls out so easily.

I plan to leave Tennessee behind for good next summer and begin my horse-farm dream. I'll save up for a cut-rate car, or maybe Chevy will hook me up with something cheap yet reliable. Hell, I'll hitchhike if I have to.

But if Max asked me to stay…

I can't help but wonder if that same answer would fall out just as easily.

Hey, Sunny.

Stay.

That's what he said when he pulled me from the lake, and those words still skate across my mind. But I'm in his arms before I can think about them too long. He pulls me close, snuffing out the chill in my bones. He wraps two strong arms around me and props his chin to the top of my head. My face is smashed against the front of his chest as we begin to sway to the music, and visions of a snow-dusted Michigan backdrop melt into images of a future just like this. Dancing on bridges until the end of time. I wonder if he sees that. I wonder if he wants that.

I wonder if I want that.

I lift my head to gaze up at him, my hands dipping lower and clinging to his hips. "If money, time, and distance were off the table and you could do anything…what would you be doing right now?" I ask. I want to know his dreams. Would he be here with me? Would he be somewhere far away from here, chasing a different life? Would he be scaling a mountain, diving deep beneath the wave-spun sea, or writing stories in a secluded cabin in the woods?

Maybe he wants to see the world. Maybe he wants to change the world.

"Anything?" he whispers back.

"Yes. Anything at all."

"I'd be kissing you, Ella."

My heart slams to a full stop inside my chest. It's like a stoplight switched from green to red and forgot about the yellow. I inch backward, hardly able to catch my breath. "What?"

"I'd be kissing you."

"I heard you."

He smiles and ducks his head, lifting only his eyes to my face as his arms drop to his sides. "Want me to clarify better?"

I take another step back, then another. Terror grips me, even though I knew this was coming. That's how these things start. That's how it started with Jonah and Erin.

Friendship.

Hand-holding.

A kiss.

Love.

Everyone dies bloody.

The end.

Panic and terror fuse as one as I swing my head back and forth and swallow hard. "I–I already told you… I'm not looking for romance. I don't want that."

"But you want to lose your virginity to me."

I swallow again. Harder. I try to swallow down that confession in my bedroom yesterday and rip it from his mind. From the universe. It was a stupid thing to say, honest or not, and now Max will never let me live it down. "I didn't mean it like that. It wouldn't be about intimacy or, God forbid, love . It would just be about—"

"Getting laid?" He frowns. "That doesn't sound like you."

"An experience. An experience with someone I trust."

"Kissing is an experience, too. Have you ever been kissed before?"

I close my eyes and keep shaking my head, ignoring the burning ball of heat blooming in my lower belly as I envision Max's lips on mine. "Kissing is different. It's more."

He takes a step closer to me. "Your logic is flawed, Sunny. If you think you can only have meaningless, experience-driven sex with me and not feel more , I'd be willing to call your bluff."

The feeling blossoms into fireworks and I squeeze my thighs together. "Are you implying you want more?"

"What I want is beside the point. It would be more. That's just a fact."

"Because you're so masterful in the bedroom," I say, forcing out a chuckle. "I'd have no choice but to fall madly in love with you?"

My attempt at levity falls flat. The look in Max's eyes is light years away from anything resembling humor.

He takes a slow step forward, his gaze boring into me. And when we're toe-to-toe and face-to-face on this old bridge beneath the stars, he lifts a hand and grazes his knuckles along my jaw. "I wouldn't know."

His words are overridden by the feel of his skin against my jaw. A rough thumb brushes over my bottom lip and I choke on a small gasp, my eyes fluttering closed. His scent invades me, pure and clean. His touch unravels me. My legs quiver and my heart thumps, and after a few dazzled beats, his statement finally registers. "You wouldn't know what?" I murmur.

"If I'm a master in the bedroom or not."

My eyes slowly open. "I'm sure you're well aware."

All he offers is a stiff headshake.

A frown forms between my brows as implication unfurls inside my chest and I murmur, "What are you saying?"

Max lets out a tapered breath and leans in close, his lips dusting my ear and sending shivers up my spine. Then he confesses gently, "I'm a virgin, too, Ella."

The world stops.

My world stops.

Never once did I ever consider the notion that Max Manning was a virgin at eighteen years old, with a face like his, with a heart like his, with the silent power to take my bleak, loathsome stance on romance, shred it into tiny bits, and toss those pieces to the wind.

Max is a virgin.

When he pulls back, he's staring at my stunned, parted lips. His palm cups my jaw, fingers sliding into my loosening curls. "I didn't want this either," he admits, his throat working, eyes still fixed on my mouth. "There's been no place for girls or relationships in my life. I have too much baggage, too many responsibilities, too much of nothing good." His other hand reaches for my shaking palm and presses it against his chest. He holds it there, his dizzied heartbeats vibrating into my fingertips. "But there's a place for you, Ella," he says. "I have all the room for you if this is where you want to be."

Tears rush to my eyes.

It's too much. This moment, his words, my fingers splayed over his beautiful heart.

I wrench my hand from his grip and run.

"Ella."

He calls after me as my sneakers smack the bridge planks in time with my heartbeats. Crisp air bites at my skin. Want nibbles away at my resolve. Indecision chews me up and spits me out until I don't want to run anymore.

I slow to a stop, out of breath.

When I spin around to face him, I see that he's still standing in the same place. Not running after me. He hasn't moved, but his face is equal parts torture and hope. His hood is pulled back and his hands are balled at his sides like it's taking all of his self-control to keep his feet glued to that spot on the bridge.

"Stay," he says, so softly I almost don't hear him over the howl of the wind.

But I do.

I hear him.

I start running again.

This time I run toward him. I run to him. The jaded part of me sprints alongside me with heaving lungs and an achy chest, and I try to beat her in this heartrending race I've never been able to outrun before.

She's a worthy competitor, but I leave her in the dust.

I run until I catch him.

I run until I throw my arms around his neck, lift up on my toes, and pull his face to mine as the song reaches its climax and my heart bottoms out of me.

I win.

My trophy is in the way his hands fly out and cup my face. The gold medal lies within the first brush of his lips against mine.

Max's breath hitches and his mouth instinctively parts to let me in. Our tongues touch, gentle at first. The first note of a song or a single raindrop escaping the clouds. I make a whimpering sound to match the hitch of his breath, not expecting the heat that funnels through me from a single swoop of his tongue.

His tongue flicks mine one more time, then pulls away, and we both go still, waiting, breathless. He inches back slightly, his eyes closed, grazing only our lips together. "This is my first kiss," he murmurs against my mouth as one hand curls around the back of my head and he draws our foreheads together.

"Mine, too," I whisper back, the words shaky, my legs shakier.

My first kiss.

Our first kiss.

His eyes open briefly before he moves back in and presses our lips together. My hands dive into his hair, and I fist the night-dark strands while he parts my lips with his tongue. I open for him. I let him in entirely, and it's no longer a first note or a wayward raindrop. It's a crescendo. A storm. Lightning, thunder, a heart-stopping orchestra.

I moan when our tongues tangle hotly.

All hesitation is snuffed out.

Everything feels perfectly, magically right .

I've never felt anything like it before.

Max spins me around and braces me against the guardrail, one hand on my jaw, the other sliding into my mess of loose curls as he squeezes his fist and holds me to him. His tongue strokes against mine, hungry as it explores my mouth. The taste of peppermint gum sets my senses ablaze, fusing with the smell of his earthy cologne and a trace of pine in the air. Our faces angle, tasting deeper, and my leg draws up to link around his upper thigh. A groan rumbles in his throat as we lick and seek and savor. I pull at his hair and he pulls at mine. I grind against him, feeling his erection dig into the juncture between my legs. My head falls back with a gasp, and he trails open-mouthed kisses down the side of my throat. I press further into him, chasing the feeling. Tingles bloom and climb, lighting me up. Wetness slicks my underwear as my dress rides up my thighs.

I'm weightless and floating. Nothing else exists. My whole body trembles as his tongue slides up my neck and he nicks my jaw with his teeth on a ragged exhale.

I want to keep kissing him. I never want to stop.

"Max," I rasp, my grip loosening on his hair as my fingers sift and touch.

His lips are pink and swollen, glistening under the starlight from our kisses. Drowsy, half-lidded eyes stare back at me as he trails his hands down to my hips and tugs me closer. "You taste so good."

"I like kissing you."

"We don't have to stop."

My mind is dizzy, my eyelids fluttering closed as I drag my hands to his shoulders and hang on to him. "I don't want to."

He kisses my forehead. "Come here."

Max lowers himself to sit on the bridge and pulls me into his lap, his back against the railing and my chest flush with his. I cradle his stubbled cheeks in my palms as I straddle him, the hardness between his legs setting me on fire.

We kiss again. We kiss until time freezes, the earth stops spinning, and his tongue in my mouth is all that exists.

I'm breathless when I pull back, buzzing all over. Achy for more. I graze my fingertips down his cheek, the bristles tickling my skin. When his light-blue eyes lift, a vision flashes through my mind. I see a glimpse of a future so different from the one I always imagined. Stargazing in open fields, dancing under the moon, and magical kisses above a slow-gliding stream as music fills the air. "Your eyes," I murmur, cupping his cheek with one hand. "They make me feel seen."

He smiles, blinking slowly like he's drunk on my words, my touch.

Sighing, I press my lips to his hairline and banish the strange new thoughts away. All I want to think about is this moment. "Your smile makes me feel cherished." Then I snuggle closer to him and finish, "And your arms make me feel safe."

Max leans in to press a soft kiss to the side of my head, and I feel his lips bloom with a grin as he whispers back, "I always knew you had a thing for my arms."