Max’s unflinching gaze never left that house.
“What do you think’s going to happen?” Jules asked him quietly, “if you let yourself peel that giant S off your shirt and take a nap? If you let yourself spend an hour, an evening, screw it, a whole weekend doing nothing more than breaking and taking enjoyment from living in the moment? What’s going to happen, Max, if—after this is over—you give yourself permission to actually enjoy Gina’s company? To sit with her arms around you and let yourself be happy. You don’t have to be happy forever—just for that short amount of time.”
Max didn’t say anything.
So Jules went on. “And then maybe you could let yourself be happy again the next weekend. Not too happy,” he added quickly. “We wouldn’t want that. But just happy in a small way, because this amazing woman is part of your life, because she makes you smile and probably fucks like a dream and yeah—see? You are listening. Don’t kill me, I was just making sure you hadn’t checked out.”
Max was giving him that look. “Are you done?”
“Oh, sweetie, we have nowhere to go and hours til dawn. I’m just getting started.”
Shit, Max said with his body language. But he didn’t stand up and walk away. He just sat there.
Across the street, nothing moved. And then it still didn’t move. But once again, Max was back to watching it not move.
Jules let the silence go for an entire minute and a half. “Just in case I didn’t make myself clear,” he said, “I believe with all my heart that you deserve—completely—whatever happiness you can grab. I don’t know what damage your father did to you but—”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Max interrupted. “You know, what you said. Just go home from work and . . .”
Holy shit, Max was actually talking. About this. Or at least he had been talking. Jules waited for more, but Max just shook his head.
“You know what happens when you work your ass off?” Jules finally asked, and then answered the question for him. “There’s no ass there the next time. So then you have to work off some other vital body part. You have to give yourself time to regrow, recharge. When was the last time you took a vacation? Was it nineteen ninety-one or ninety-two?”
“You know damn well that I took a really long vacation just—”
“No, sir, you did not. Hospitalization and recovery from a near-fatal gunshot wound is not a vacation,” Jules blasted him. “Didn’t you spend any of that time in ICU considering exactly why you made that stupid mistake that resulted in a bullet in your chest? Might it have been severe fatigue caused by asslessness, caused by working said ass off too many 24-7’s in a row?”
Max sighed. Then nodded. “I know I fucked up. No doubt about that.” He was silent for a moment. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately.” He glanced over to where Jones was pretending to sleep, arm up and over his eyes. “I’ve been playing God too often, too. I don’t know, maybe I’m starting to believe my own spin, and it’s coming back to bite me.”
“Not in the ass,” Jules said.
He spent two years running a hospital for Chai.” Molly put her arm around the younger woman. “Which was the equivalent of working the ER in a city like New York or Chicago. He saved a lot of lives.” She made sure Max was paying attention, too. “And before you say, ‘Yeah, of drug runners, killers, and thieves,’ you should also know that his patients were just regular people who worked for Chai because he was the only steady employer in the area. Or because they knew they’d end up in some mass grave if they refused his offer of employment. Before Grady came in, if they were injured in some battle with a rival gang, they were just left for dead.”
Jones looked up to find Max watching him as he sterilized a particularly sharp knife. “Me and Jesus,” he said. “So much alike, people often get us confused.
Jules had listened in on nearly every word exchanged while they’d been back there together, and it was more than obvious that Max had yet to pull Gina into his arms and do his imitation of the Han Solo and Princess Leia big-moment kiss from The Empire Strikes Back.
Maybe when Jules and the E-man walked out of the garage and climbed into that ancient Escort—which turned out to be part of the Testa fleet-Max would take the opportunity to plant a big, wet one on this woman that he still so obviously adored.
Or maybe not.
“Sweetie, I love the haircut,” Jules told Gina as he gave Max back his cell phone. “You look fabulous for a woman who’s been dead for five days.”
“What?” she said, but it was time to go.
“Max’ll fill you in,” he said. There. There was no way Max was going to be table to tell Gina about receiving the report of her death without getting a little misty-eyed. At which point Gina would, at the very least, throw her arms around him. If Max couldn’t manage to turn that into a truth-revealing kiss, he didn’t deserve the woman. “Ow,” he added as Emilio pressed his weapon into Jules’s kidney.
“Sorry,” Emilio managed to put the right amount of apology into his voice, but he was obviously so stressed that he didn’t quite get the right facial expression to match. It was pretty odd. Particularly when he jabbed Jules again. “Let’s go.”
Wow, wasn’t this going to be fun?
Max, meanwhile, had stepped protectively in front of Gina. He caught and held Jules’s gaze. “We’ll wait for your call.” Silently, he sent another message entirely. If Emilio gave Jules any trouble, he should shoot him.
Never mind the fact that Emilio was the one with the drawn weapon. Never mind that Jules’s hands were out and empty, and that he’d have a major bullet hole in his body if he so much as put said hands near his pockets.
He spent two years running a hospital for Chai.” Molly put her arm around the younger woman. “Which was the equivalent of working the ER in a city like New York or Chicago. He saved a lot of lives.” She made sure Max was paying attention, too. “And before you say, ‘Yeah, of drug runners, killers, and thieves,’ you should also know that his patients were just regular people who worked for Chai because he was the only steady employer in the area. Or because they knew they’d end up in some mass grave if they refused his offer of employment. Before Grady came in, if they were injured in some battle with a rival gang, they were just left for dead.”
Jones looked up to find Max watching him as he sterilized a particularly sharp knife. “Me and Jesus,” he said. “So much alike, people often get us confused.”
“Mock me all you want—I’m just saying.” Molly had on her Hurt Feelings Face. It may have fooled Max, but Jones knew it was only there to mask her Relentless Crusader. She was lobbying hard for Max to be on Jones’s side if they made it out of here alive. And she wasn’t done. “Yes, Grady Morant worked for Chair for a few years—after the U.S. left him to die in some torture chamber. He’s so evil, except what was he doing during those two years? Oh, he was saving lives . . .?”
“I was practicing medicine without a license,” Jones pointed out. “You just gave Max something else to charge me with when we get home.”
When, not if. Even though he wasn’t convinced that they weren’t in if territory, he’d used the word on purpose. The look Molly shot him was filled with gratitude.
He gave her a smoldering blast of his best “Yeah, you can thank me later in private, baby” look, and, as he’d hoped she would, she laughed.
What's better than loving and being loved?
Suzanne BrockmannHow do you know when you're in love?
. . .
When you look into his eyes, and you're more alive than you've ever felt," Annebet said. "When the very breath you take sends both fear and joy rushing through you, and you feel as if you might die if you can't see him again -- right now. When you want to shout and laugh and cry and curse all at once, when you burn for him to touch you, to make love to you, even though all your life you've been told that you mustn't, that you shouldn't, that you can't. It's when you feel yourself on the verge of becoming everything you've evre dreamed of being, when you can nearly touch your own potential because this other person gives you all of his strength and his power and you know he'd give you the very breath from his lungs if you asked. And you realize that you'll never be alone again because there's a piece of him that you'll carry with you, forever, in your heart. A heart that is infinitely bigger than it was just a week or two ago.
Love me unconditionally, so I can start learning to love myself, Senior Chief.
Expect only the best from me, and I'll give it to you, Senior Chief.
Give me shit when I slip and deserve shit because that's further proof that I matter to you, Senior Chief.
Be my hero, Senior chief, and never let me down.
In the past, it had been a burden at times -- his role of the infallible hero, the mighty senior chief -- but it had never been so heavy as it was right now.
Because he'd seen something else in Teri Howe's eyes, something different, something he'd never seen in all of the hopeful young faces that had come before.
Kiss me, Senior Chief.
She sorted through the clothes. “Do you mind wearing Emilio’s underwear?” She turned back to him with the two different styles that she’d found. “You’re about the same size. And they’re clean. They were wrapped in a paper package, like from a laundry service.”
Max gave her a look, because along with the very nice, very expensive pair of black silk boxers she’d pilfered from Emilio, she’d also borrowed one of his thongs.
“What?” Gina said. It was definitely a man-thong. It had all that extra room for various non-female body parts.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not,” she said, trying to play it as serious. “One, it’s been a while, maybe your tastes have changed. And two, these might actually be more comfortable, considering the placement of your bandage and—”
He took the boxers from her.
“Apparently I was wrong.” She turned away and started sorting through the pairs of pants and Bermuda shorts she’d grabbed, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. To make sure he didn’t fall over.
Right.
After he got the boxers on, he took off the bathrobe and . . .
Okay, he definitely wasn’t as skinny as he’d been after his lengthy stint in the hospital. Emilio’s pants probably weren’t going to fit him, after all. Although, there was one pair that looked like they’d be nice and loose . . . There they were. The Kelly green Bermuda shorts.
Max gave her another one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glances as he put the bathrobe over the back of another chair. “Do I really look as if I’ve ever worn shorts that color in my entire life?”
She tried not to smile. “I honestly don’t think you have much choice.” She let herself look at him. “You know, you could just go with the boxers. At least until your pants dry. You know what would really work with that, though? A bowtie.” She turned, as if to go back to the closet. “I’m sure Emilio has a tux. Judging from his other clothes, it’s probably polyester and chartreuse, but maybe the bowtie is—”
“Gina.” Max stopped her before she reached the door. He motioned for her to come back.
She held out the green shorts, but instead of taking them, he took her arm, pulled her close.
“I love you,” Max said, as if he were dispatching some terrible, dire news that somehow still managed to amuse him at least a little.
Gina had been hoping that he’d say it, praying even, but the fact that he’d managed to smile, even just a bit while he did, was a miracle.
And then, before her heart even had a chance to start beating again, he kissed her.
And oh, she was also beyond ready for that particular marvel, for the sweet softness of his mouth, for the solidness of his arms around her. There was more of him to hold her since he’d regained his fighting weight—and that was amazing, too. She skimmed her hands across the muscular smoothness of his back, his shoulders, as his kiss changed from tender to heated.
And, God. That was a miracle, too.
Except she couldn’t help but wonder about those words, wrenched from him, as if it cost him his soul to speak them aloud. Why tell her this right now?
Yes, she’d been waiting for years for him to say that he loved her, but . . .
Max laughed his surprise. “No. Why do you . . .?” He figured it out himself. “No, no, Gina, just . . . I should’ve said it before. I should have said it years ago, but I really should have said it, you know, instead of hi.” He laughed again, clearly disgusted with himself. “God, I’m an idiot. I mean, hi? I should have walked in and said, ‘Gina, I need you. I love you, don’t ever leave me again.’”
She stared at him. It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t said that at the time, because she might’ve fainted.
It was obvious that he wanted her to say something, but she was completely speechless.
Okay,” Max said. “Now I’m terrified that I, um, said it too late?”
His uncertainty turned his words into a question. “Am I too late?” he asked again, as if he actually thought . . .
As much as Gina enjoyed watching him squirm, she forced her lungs and vocal cords to start working again. “Are you . . .” She had to clear her throat, but then it really didn’t matter what she said, because the tears in her eyes surely told him everything he wanted to hear.
She saw his relief, and yes, he was still scared, she saw that, too, but mixed in with that was hope. And something that looked a heck of a lot like happiness.
Happiness—in Max’s eyes.
“Are you really asking me for a second chance?” she managed to get it all out in a breathless exhale.
He kissed her then, as if he couldn’t bear to stand so close and not kiss her. “Please,” he breathed, as he kissed her again, as he licked his way into her mouth and . . . God . . .
She could’ve stood there, kissing Max forever, but the man on the megaphone just shouldn’t shut up.
Besides, she wanted to be sure that this was about more than just sex.
“Do you want me in your life?” Gina asked him. “I mean, need is nice, but . . .” It implied a certain lack of free will. Want on the other hand . . .
“Want,” he said. “Yes. I want you. Very much. In my life. Gina, I was lost without you.” He caught himself. “More lost, or . . .” He shook his head. “Fuck it, I’m a mess, but if for some reason you still love me anyway . . . If you really meant what you said, about . . .” There it was gain, in his eyes. Hope. “Loving me anyway . . .”
“I don’t love you anyway,” she told him, her heart in her throat. “I love you because.” She touched his face, his smoothly shaven cheeks. “Although now that you mention it, you are something of a mess, and I’m probably entitled to . . . compensation in certain areas. I mean, in any relationship, you need to negotiate a certain amount of compromise, right?”
He actually thought she was serious. “Well, yeah.”
“So if, say, I were to point out how incredibly hot you’d look wearing that thong—”
Max laughed his relief. “Shit, I thought you were serious.”
“Shit,” Gina teased. “I am.”
He cupped her face between both of his hands, and the heat in his eyes made her knees weak. “I’ll wear one if you wear one . . .
Some of the ideas were silly, thanks to Molly, who, despite being upset with Jones, was still trying to keep the mood upbeat.
They had boxes and boxes of copy paper. They could make thousands of paper airplanes with the message, “Help!” written on them and fly them out the windows.
Could they try to blast their way out of the tunnel? Maybe dig an alternative route to the surface? It seemed like a long shot, worth going back in there and taking a look at the construction—which Jones had done only to come back out, thumbs down.
Two of them could create a diversion, while the other to took the Impala and crashed their way out of the garage.
At which point the Impala—and everyone in it—would be hit by hundreds of bullets.
That one—along with taking their chances with the far fewer number of soldiers lying in wait at the end of the escape tunnel—went into the bad idea file.
Molly had thought that they could sing karaoke. Emilio had a Best of Whitney Houston karaoke CD. Their renditions of I Will Always Love you, she insisted, would cause the troops to break rank and run away screaming.
Except the karaoke machine was powered by electricity, which they were trying to use only for the computer and the security monitors, considering—at the time—that the generator was almost out of gasoline.
Yeah, that was why it was a silly idea.
It did, however, generate a lot of desperately needed laughter.
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