And for once you let go

Of your fears and your ghosts

Chapter 16 ~ You Are In Love

Max Caldwell

There was nothing quite fulfilling as the feeling of love.

I thought I had been in love before - plenty of times, actually. Now that I was wrapped up in Liam's arms and nuzzling my head into his warm chest, I knew I couldn't have been anymore wrong. Those other boys couldn't even compare to how special Liam was. With his toned arms snaked around me in a tight embrace, his dark lashes fluttering as his eyes moved behind his lids, and the soft snores falling from his mouth, he couldn't be more perfect.

He stirred in his sleep, eyes slowly flickering open. Letting out a loud groan, he ran his hand through his hair and looked down at me. "How long was I out for?"

"Not long," I lied, pretending as though we haven't been glued together on my bed for hours.

His shoulders slouched forward as he tried to think. "How did I fall asleep?"

"I was talking about how cows were weird animals and you just started snoring."

His eyes shot open at that instant, clearing away any remnant of sleep. "Max, I'm sorry," he apologized quickly. "I didn't mean to."

I smiled back at him. "It's okay."

Liam didn't respond right away. Instead, his eyes flicked to my bedroom window and he dragged a lazy hand down his face, sighing heavily. Immediately, I thought he was starting to get into his mood again, but he proved me wrong by tightening his arms around my body. "Okay, continue, what about cows are weird?"

He turned onto his side to look at me. His eyes clouded over as the sleepiness seeped through his body, but he quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand in an attempt to stay awake.

My insides were starting to ache at how beautiful he was. "Never mind," I said softly as I reached over and brushed a wisp of stray hair away from his face.

Liam's eyes fluttered shut and he released a soft groan.

Letting my feelings take control over my brain, I quickly pressed my lips against his in a chaste kiss, but pulled away just as quickly when the bruise on my bottom lip began to sting. "Ow."

His sea green eyes were on me again, staring intently. "I'm going to kill her," he managed to say through soft groans.

The memories of the past stirred heavily inside me when the image of Liam crushing Matt's nose came to mind. As much as I wanted all this torture to stop, I didn't want Liam to get involved. If there was anything I knew about his previous encounter with Matt, it was that he was capable of violence and I didn't want to solve my problems with violence.

"Liam, please don't-"

"Don't what? She hurt you."

"Well, technically she didn't hurt me. It was Matt."

"Then I'll kill him too and I'll make sure his nose actually falls off this time." There was no mercy in his words. Just the thought of Liam seriously hurting someone made me sick to my stomach. My concern must have shown because he looked at me, eyes slightly wide and surprised. "What?"

"No killing anyone," I stated in a tone that showed I wasn't messing around. "We're just going to hope that it doesn't happen again."

Liam's thick brows furrowed. "Hope it doesn't happen again? Max, she's fucking batshit crazy! If I don't do something, she'll continue to hurt you and I'm not going to let that happen."

I could feel my chest clench tightly at his words as I tried not to smile at how amazing he was. No one had ever showed this much concern about my well-being before and I was internally grateful it was coming from Liam.

I didn't respond. I didn't know how to. I didn't trust myself to speak because I knew something would come out. I had already told him I love him, which couldn't have been any more dumb.

Liam broke the silence. "Max, I-" He grew quiet, his gaze falling to my Captain America sheets. He seemed to be having some sort of internal conflict. It wasn't until a minute later when he let out a defeated sigh and continued, "I-I want you to be..." Another sigh, "...I want you to be my boyfriend."

My heart stopped. "What?"

Liam's cheeks reddened. "I said I want you to be my boyfriend."

I sat up straight and gazed down at him. "No, no, I heard you, but are you sure?"

He paused for a moment, but eventually nodded. "I think I am, yes."

No one had ever asked me to be their boyfriend before. Funny how I had sex with so many guys, but never really dated any of them.

But Liam wanted to date me.

Me.

Allowing all of my excitement to overwhelm me, I threw my arms around his neck and crawled on top of him. "Yes!" I shrieked. "Yes, I want to be your boyfriend, too!"

Liam let out a low chuckle as his arms circled around my waist. "'Kay, awesome," he said with a smile, before gently tugging me closer to him so that we were only centimeters apart, barely breathing.

His turquoise orbs burned into mine as he stared back at me in silence. The corners of his lips continued to twitch into a full-on grin as one of his hands crawled up my back and rested on the nape of my neck, bringing me down to capture me in another kiss.

The bedroom door creaked open and our attention trained on my mother in the doorway. She didn't notice us right away. "Max, honey, do you and your friend want-" She looked up then, eyes growing wide and lips falling open.

I practically tore myself away from Liam's grasp in fear of my mother getting the wrong idea. "Mom!"

Her skeptical gaze switched between the both of us. "I thought ... He is .... He was, wait, did you lie to your father? This boy ... He's ... Max! We clearly stated that you are not allowed to see any other boys until further notice, especially since you're grounded! Wait until Carl hears about this."

"No!" I shouted. "Please don't tell dad. He'll kill me."

I didn't think it was possible for her dark eyes to look scarier than they did now. "You broke the rules, Max. There are always consequences for breaking the rules."

I wanted nothing more than to shrink into myself and completely disappear from existence. I had finally gotten my first boyfriend and my mom was already trying to take him away from me. "But at least get to know him! He's really nice, mom."

She took one quick look at Liam who shared the same worried facial expression as me. "I'm not getting to know someone who isn't going to be around for long," she spat.

Liam's brows furrowed and I could tell he wanted to say something, but I beat him to it. "He's my boyfriend," I blurted out.

My mother's deep brown eyes snapped to mine and she tilted her head to the side. "He's what?"

"My boyfriend," I clarified. "He's not like those other guys, mom. We haven't even had sex!"

Her face softened and her shoulders slumped, relaxing. She kept a trained eye on the both of us, but any previous anger had completely faded away. "Your boyfriend?" She shrieked as her rosy lips curled into a smile. "Maxxie, you have a boyfriend!" Before I could prepare myself for it, she ran over to me and wrapped her arms around me.

As much as I loved that my mother wasn't mad, I didn't really appreciate all this affection in front of Liam. "Mom..." I whined.

"Your first boyfriend!" She continued to freak out, her grip on me tightening by the second. "This is so exciting!"

I snuck a quick peek at Liam, whose lips had twisted into a sly smirk. Leave it to my mother to embarrass me. "Mom, stop it."

Finally getting the hint, she pulled away from the overwhelming hug and directed her affection towards Liam, throwing her arms around him. "This is so great," she voiced her thoughts. "We have to have you over for dinner sometime. It'll take a whole lot of convincing to get Carl to agree, but he will. I'll make sure of it ... wow, a boyfriend! And you're such a cutie, too."

Liam's eyes remained fixed on me and his smug grin grew cockier. "Why, thank you."

"Mom!" I shouted at her. "You're embarrassing me."

She flipped her brown curls over her shoulder and scoffed. "I am not the one embarrassing you, sweetheart. Look at this room."

I scanned the room from the red and blue color blocked walls, to the band posters and handmade sketches stretched across them, to the Captain America sheets, and all the way down to the case of staged action figures. I had insisted on decorating my room with all of my favorite things like superheroes and rock bands, but I never stopped to think how childish it must've looked. The last thing I wanted Liam to think was that I was still a little kid.

Liam, as though sensing my concern, placed his hand on mine. "I like it," he told me. "It's very you."

I could feel my heart start to melt on the spot, and I knew for certain that my mother's did, because she released a series of "awws".

She eventually left, though, and I couldn't have been any more relieved.

"I apologize for her behavior. She's kinda like that."

He shrugged. "She's better than mine."

He said it with such contempt and malice that I became genuinely concerned. "Don't say that. I'm sure your mother loves you."

"Yeah," he said, sulking and staring blankly at his hands, "until she finds out what I am."

He wasn't smiling anymore and there was a distant look clouding his eyes. I really didn't want him to slip into another episode, so I touched his shoulder. "Hey, I-"

"She can't know about us," he hissed as he snapped his eyes to me. "Do you understand?"

Swallowing a frightened lump in my throat, I slowly nodded. "Yes."

Liam released a relieved sigh. "Okay."

We sat in silence for a full minute. I wanted to say something, but I was scared it would rub him the wrong way, so I remained quiet.

Liam cleared his throat and nodded his head in the direction of my Marvel backpack. "Aren't you going to work?"

Shit, I had completely forgotten. "Yeah," was my simple response as I inched off the bed and snatched my backpack from the floor, rummaging through it in search of my uniform.

I slid my current shirt over my head and tossed it to the floor. Just as I was about to shrug the ugly, dark green, collared shirt on, I caught Liam's stare. "What?"

He tore his eyes away from my bare torso and looked me in the eye. "Nothing."

I raised a brow. "You sure?"

Liam laughed quietly to himself. "I'm sure."

Keeping my wary gaze on him, I pulled my shirt over my head and started to unbutton my jeans, only to see Liam staring at me again. "You're not watching me undress, are you?"

His eyes widened. "Me? Of course not."

"Then why are you staring?"

"How could I not stare?" He questioned. "You're nice to look at."

Heat rushed to my cheeks almost instantly and I had to turn around to hide it as I pushed my jeans to my ankles and replaced them with the khaki uniform pants. When I turned back around, Liam was still staring.

"Your butt is nice to look at, too," he commented.

"Liam!"

He grinned. "I never knew Batman underwear could look so ... hot."

My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. "Liam!"

He continued to chuckle as he reached into his pocket and retrieved his car keys, teasingly dangling them in the air. "Come on. I'll drive you."

**

Today was worth celebrating.

I hated working at The Busy Bean for all intents and purposes and I would never think of trying extra hard at a job that I hated, but I was in a good mood. I was so happy that not even Robin's antics could get me down.

Due to my heightened interpersonal skills and my cheery voice, the shop gained a few more extra tips than it would have had I been in my normal mood. I had thought I felt strongly about Jamie, but he never asked me to be my boyfriend. Liam did.

If this what love felt like, then I wouldn't mind being in love every single day of my life.

"Your total is twenty one dollars and sixty two cents," I recited to the current customer behind the counter.

"Dammit," the blonde teenage customer cursed under her breath. "I only have twenty dollars. Maybe I'll cancel the pound cake, because I don't think I really need it."

"No worries," I told her as I fished out a five dollar bill from my wallet and handed it to her. "Feel free to add another order of the pound cake. I must agree, they are really good."

The blonde frowned in confusion. "Wow, thanks. That's very nice of you."

I offered her a friendly smile. "It's no problem. Would you like to add another pound cake?" She nodded and I typed the new order into the keypad. "Your new total is twenty four dollars and forty one cents."

The girl handed me the cash and I entered the amount into the register. Finishing the transaction, I handed her the change which she immediately placed in the tip jar. "Thanks again."

I gave her a small wave as she walked away and fixed my attention on Robin, who had been standing beside me for the longest time. "Yes, how may I help you? Your hair looks great today, by the way."

Robin opened her mouth to respond, but quickly shut it with her brows furrowing in confusion. "What?"

"It's pretty," I clarified with a smile. I knew complimenting Robin was not something I normally did, but I couldn't help myself.

She lifted a curious brow. "Thank you? Hey, what's going on with you? You're acting weird."

I breathed out a dreamy sigh. "It's not weird. It's love!"

This caught Robin's interest. "What? With who?"

"Double caramel macchiato guy."

She gasped. "No way!"

I nodded excitedly.

"Why are all the good ones gay?"

I shrugged. "Gay is the way."

We burst into laughter at the same time, doubling over when it became too unbearable to breathe.

My laughter quickly died down when I noticed who had just walked in. Matt strolled through the store with his eyes scanning every single table. His eyes eventually met mine and I felt chills run down my spine. Believing he was here to knock the crap out of me again, I ducked behind the counter, silently hoping he didn't recognize me.

To my luck, I felt someone's presence peering over the counter just a few seconds later. I looked right into his cold ice blue eyes and felt my heart stop in my chest. He smiled at me. "You okay, there?"

I held my hands up to my face. "Don't hurt me."

He frowned. "I'm not going to hurt you, but damn ... you look awful!"

With all the rage building up inside me, I stood to my feet and slammed my hands on the counter. "You did this to me!"

He held his hands up in surrender. "I know, but I didn't think I hit you that hard."

"You didn't think you hit me that hard?" I repeated in a ridiculously incredulous voice. "What the hell? Why'd you even hit me at all? You
promised! I saved your fucking life!"

Matt's gaze narrowed, but he showed no other signs of emotion other than his scary nonchalant facial expression. "I know and I'm thankful for that, really. If it had been up to me, I wouldn't have laid a hand on you, but Marcy made a compelling offer."

"An offer?" I couldn't believe what I was wearing. "Let me guess. She offered to give you unlimited sex."

He cocked his head to the side. "Funny, but no. She offered me money, which is something that I lack."

Money. He broke his promise because of money. Could he be any more of a walking cliché?

"Really?"

He sighed. "I don't expect you to understand, rainbow, because you have money. My mom and I aren't very fortunate in that area of life. We're going to lose our house and I'm sorry if I wanted to stop that from happening."

My mouth fell open in shock. I really hadn't expect that to come from him. Now all of those days that he asked me for lunch money made sense. "Matt, I'm-"

"Don't need your sympathy," he interrupted before I could finish. "The point is, I'm sorry. To make it easier for the both of us, why don't you just stay away from that guy, huh? It's not that hard."

I gritted my teeth. "I can't stay away from him, because we're together."

Matt's eyes widened and his nose crinkled in disgust. "Ew."

Even though I felt sorry for his unfortunate circumstances, I wanted to punch the hell out of him so he would know how I felt. Those thoughts were short-lived, though, because I reminded myself that he was much stronger than me.

"That sounds like your problem, not mine, so," he cleared his throat and placed a five dollar bill on the counter, "I'd like a pumpkin spice latte."

Holding back a sigh, I snatched the money from his hands and began to type his order in the keypad. I thought Matt had my back, but it was clear he only had his own self-interests in mind. If I was going to stop any further harm to my face, it wasn't going to be through the help of Matt.

I would need to find another way to deal with this before Liam lost his cool and did something stupid.

**

The cool, spring breeze smacked me in the face as I exited the shop and locked the door behind me. I really wasn't fond of closing late at night, because of all the potential things that could go wrong - like someone kidnapping me. On top of that, my only transportation back home were my two feet, which didn't seem to be reliable.

I knew I could always call Liam and he wouldn't have a problem giving me a lift back to my house. Which is why, after a few minutes of walking, I tugged out my phone and dialed his number.

After he agreed to meet me outside the shop in ten minutes, I started to walk back in that direction while being extra cautious of my surroundings. Summer Hill's crime rate was very low, but it only took one person to kidnap a boy dressed in uniform and scared out of his mind to make the town grow frantic.

When I got back to The Busy Bean I propped myself up against the door and waited patiently for Liam to arrive. The streets were empty for the most part because everyone was getting ready for school tomorrow and the shops were already closed. If anyone was still lingering around, it meant they were up to no good.

Which is exactly what came to mind when I saw someone approach me with a black hoodie.

I balled my hands into fists as the figure drew closer. It wasn't like I actually thought I'd be able to fight whoever it was, but it was better than standing there and doing nothing. Besides, Liam would be here any minute now.

I prepared myself to attack when the figure was only a few feet away, but my suspicions were proven wrong when the hooded person continued to walk past me - but not quickly enough to hinder me from seeing the face behind the hoodie.

"Trey?"

He turned around almost quickly, eyes wide.

"What are you doing here so late?" I questioned him.

He continued to look at me, unmoving.

Growing concerned, I took a step closer to him. "Trey."

As though my voice was the trigger, he took off running in the opposite direction. Instinctively, I picked up my feet and ran after him. I wasn't quite the linebacker like he was, but it was the adrenaline and my determination to find out what was happening that allowed me to catch up to him and tackle him to the concrete.

"What's going on?" I interrogated him. "Why are you running away from me?"

He let out a slight grunt and fought against my hold on him. "Leave me alone!"

I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. I was surprised to see that his eyes were bloodshot red. "Trey."

He tried to push me away from him, but he failed miserably. He wasn't nearly as strong as he should have been and his hands were trembling, even though it wasn't cold. "Fuck off!"

I didn't know what was going on, but I knew I didn't like it. "Trey, what the hell did you do? What did you take?"

"Why the fuck do you care?" He fired back at me, continuing to fight against me.

"Because I care about you," I responded with a silly smile.

He scoffed. "Yeah, fucking, right! You don't care about me."

"Shut up," I spat as I pinned him down with one hand and searched his clothes with the other. Even if I didn't like him in the way he liked me, he was stupid to think I didn't care about him. Of course I did.

After a while, Trey stopped resisting me and laid still on the cement. He stared blankly at the night sky. I continued to search him, eventually finding a plastic baggie in his back pocket. I didn't need to examine its contents to know what it was.

"Dammit, Trey! Where did you get this?"

He continued to stare at the sky, not replying.

A pair of bright headlights blinded me momentarily and I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Liam getting out of the car. As soon as he was at my side, he knelt down to the ground and assessed Trey. "Who's this?"

"Trey," I replied weakly. His attention remained focused on the sky.

"Oh," was Liam's response. He didn't ask much about what had happened, and I took that to be because he already knew. "Get in the car. I got him."

I nodded and quickly scrambled to my feet, rushing to his red Audi and watching as Liam scooped his arms under Trey's body and lifted him up with ease. Trey continued to be unresponsive as Liam opened the car door and gently positioned him in the backseat. He circled around the car and slid into the driver's seat, sighing as he closed the door.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you."

He gave me a small smile. "It's no problem."

My heart warmed at the realization that Liam was truly amazing. He was perfect in my eyes, and I was so glad to call him mine.

Halfway through the drive, Trey seemed to have snapped out of whatever trance-like state he was in. When he made note of his new surroundings, he stuck his head in between Liam and I.

"So this is Liam, huh?"

I rolled my eyes. "Shut up, Trey."

He didn't listen. "You know..." He tapped Liam's shoulder, "...after you decided to break Maxxie's precious little heart, I fucked him right outside of your house and you know what? His ass felt so fucking good."

Liam's grip on the steering wheel tightened and he snuck a quick questioning glance at me.

Fuck.

**

a/n: Is Trey a party pooper, or what? Haha he's still my baby.

So, how do you guys think Liam will react to this bombshell?

This story has reached 100k reads and that's really freaking amazing. Thank you guys so much for taking time out of your day to read these crazy ideas that float in my mind. You're awesome.

If you liked this chapter, then don't forget to vote and comment.

Until next time,
Lara <3