There’s a pause before Maxx responds, but I can hear the smile in his voice.
“No worries at all. I wasn’t bothered by it; I was just thinking.”
He continues onward as I frown against his back. Are he and Maxine already thinking babies? They better not be. Our grandparents always told us ‘thirty or bust’. They strongly believe in enjoying your twenties and saving that decade just for you. Maxine would never … would she?
“Do you use protection with my sister?” I blurt, and Maxx stumbles a bit over an exposed root, cursing as he catches himself on the trunk of a tree and turns to stare at me over his own shoulder.
“Really?” he asks, but not like he’s pissed off about it. More like he’s just surprised I had the audacity to say that aloud. I get that a lot, actually. Maxx snorts and drops his chin with a bit of a chuckle.
“I’m not sure Maxine would appreciate you telling me this …”
I gasp and almost lose my grip on his shoulders.
“You aren’t, are you?” I choke out, gagging on the idea of Maxx and my sister and … eww. Gross. Just … no. No way. “She isn’t pregnant, is she?”
“Pregnant?” Maxx echoes, and then he laughs again. “God, no. She couldn’t possibly be pregnant … unless you know something I don’t? We aren’t having sex, Kota.”
Oh.
Ooooooh.
Oh.
“You aren’t?” I repeat as Maxx starts walking again, this time at a slower pace. That, I did not expect. Maxine had sex with her first boyfriend when they were both sixteen, and then with her second boyfriend when she was eighteen. I’m surprised.
“I’m sort of … a save it until engagement guy?” he queries, almost like he’s asking himself a question. “Or at least I was going to try. Not for religious reasons or anything but just because it seemed like a good idea to wait.”
“You’re a virgin? Me, too.” The words pop out of my mouth before I can stop them, and I groan. “Okay, I’m being cringey as fuck. I’ll stop talking now.” He laughs at me yet again, but it doesn’t last long. Then he’s stopping on the path, his shoulders going tense as he surveys the switchbacks in front of us. “Did I say too much? The virgin thing was a lot …”
“That guy is keeping pace with us again,” he says, his voice as cold as iron. It’s in that moment that I can see past the brimming confidence and cocky smile. Maxx is completely serious and it’s freaking me out.
“The walking stick-hat guy?” I ask, because I’m most definitely not Tess Vanguard, and I can’t come up with any better explanation for the hiker that just passed by us. “He’s waiting for us?”
Maxx turns his face back toward me.
“Can I put you down for just a second?” he asks me, and I blink back at him in surprise before nodding. Carefully, he lowers me down to sit on the edge of the path, my butt half-buried in the bushes. Crouching low, he moves forward quickly, taking the path like a housecat searching for prey. It’s quite clear in that moment that Maxx isn’t the prey in this situation; the hiker is.
He bursts around the corner of the path, and I hear footsteps heading away from us.
“Hey man, can I talk to you for a second?” he calls out, and I hear a murmured response as the other hiker hurries away. I can see him walking the curving path that bends sharply to the right, and I swear, I get goose bumps again. That dude has bad vibes.
“What happened?” I ask as Maxx comes back and bends down to help me climb up again. He doesn’t answer, righting himself on the path and then scooting to the side as a couple with a dog comes around the corner. They smile and greet us before carrying on, proving to me what I’d already figured out from a bumper stick—You’re in Oregon now. Be nice.—people here are almost aggressively polite.
“I’m not really sure. He took off when I came around the corner, and then slipped past that couple. There wasn’t much I could do to chase after him without looking like a lunatic.” Maxx is staring down the path, too, like he’s as creeped out by the random hiker as I am. “Huh.” He shakes his head and then gives a shrug that has me bouncing slightly on his back. “There are creepers everywhere, I guess.”
He doesn’t sound convinced which bothers me a little.
Tightening my arms around his neck, I try to relax even though every fucking instinct in me says that I should be nervous. Maxx doesn’t loosen up any as we walk. If anything, he gets tenser with each curve in the path.
And, apparently, rightfully so.
The next turn we take ends with something—or somebody—knocking Maxx’s legs out from underneath him. We end up toppling down the side of the narrow path, right into the thick foliage that lines the slope. I fully expect to die in that moment. Or at least break a good thirty bones. Instead, Maxx actually catches himself on a low hanging branch. Mostly it’s his feet that go skidding before he releases the branch and ends up hitting his knees hard.
I have just enough time to see that hiker with the hat and the stick before I throw myself off of Maxx’s back and take off after the dude. Why I do that … I’m not really sure. There’s just some deeply buried instinct in me that whispers predator or prey, your choice. So, predator it is, I guess?
“Kota!” X is calling from behind me, but I don’t stop. I’m so pumped up with adrenaline that I don’t even notice my stupid ankle until … I do. The pain crashes into my skull as the brief rush of euphoria fades and I end up stumbling and crying out, sprawling hard on the ground just inches behind the hiker. My fingertips even brush his pantleg briefly before he stumbles to a stop, glancing back over his shoulder. He looks at me for a flicker of an instant—maybe less—but something cold snaps inside of me when I get a read on his expression.
Fortunately, Maxx skids around the corner just behind me, cursing as he struggles to come to a stop … and then falls right on freaking top of me. He’s warm and big and … “I can’t breathe,” I choke out as he scrambles to get off of me. The first thing he does is whip his head up, but the hiker is long gone.
“He hit you with his stick,” I groan as I fight to get into a sitting position and Maxx curses again, dropping into a squat to help me—even though I’m sure he’s hurting just as bad. Without asking permission, I push the leg of his pants up to inspect the front of his shin. Sure enough, there’s a red mark there. “He hit you on purpose.”
I sound incredulous, but when Maxx swings a look my way, I can see that he isn’t.
“Probably someone trying to rob us … or something.” He frowns and shakes his head, rising to his feet and holding out a hand to help me up. As soon as I’m standing—with serious help from Maxx—we make eye contact, and he lifts a single brow. When I pretend not to notice, he voices his silent question. “Did you really try to run down a violent robber with a bum ankle?”
“To be fair, it was more instinct than logical, coherent thought.”
“Mmhmm.” Maxx offers out his elbow to me. “Why don’t you hop as best you can, using me as much as you need?” He flicks that jewel-toned gaze of his toward the direction of our fleeing perp. “He could try to ambush us again, and I can’t let myself be caught off-guard again.”