“You need to get something straight.” He turns to face me with a dark, distant stare in his eyes. “In this, thing,” he says, waving his wrists between us. “I’m in charge. You don’t speak down to me ever. You don’t have the right to eve-”
“Oh get over yourself, Maverick,” I snap, cutting him off. “You’re always going on and on about how bloody important you are and how insignificant I am and how much God himself commissioned you vice fucking chancellor of the whole damn earth. Just shut the fuck up already and drive this damn car.”
“Excuse me.” His eyes widen marginally, and I turn to face him.
“I get it. You hate me. I’m not particularly thrilled about you either. But what just happened in there.” I pause, pointing behind me in the direction of the restaurant. “That will never happen again. Do you understand me? You want to threaten me with outing me to somebody that I care about? What kind of a monster are you? What the hell did I ever do to you?”
I can feel myself getting emotional and I’m trying my best to keep it together, but failing miserably.
“Don’t forget you have more to lose than I do,” I add.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he snaps.
“You could have told Tyler about me and I would have possibly lost a friend. A very special friend. And that’s just a maybe. But if I walk into your training rink and out you to your team, you lose everything. You lose the state game position. You lose the recruitment opportunity. You lose the possibility of getting your green card and you lose your dream of being drafted after high school. You want to call me a wild animal, Maverick? Go ahead. You see me as nothing? Fine! But if you back me into a corner, I will fight back. I’m not one of your plastic dolls or money grabbing lackeys. I may have no influence, but I will ruin you in the one way I know how, do you understand me?”
The car goes dead silent for a few minutes and I sit, stewing in my own annoyance, my arms crossed tightly across my chest as I wait for him to say or do something.
In true Maverick fashion, he does the complete opposite of anything I would have ever expected. He starts laughing. It’s a low, humorless laugh at first, but then it transforms into something bordering on insane and I wonder if he’s malfunctioning.
“You,” he starts laughing again, leaning his head against the steering wheel and I watch his shoulders vibrate until they stop suddenly, his entire body going rigid in an instant.
He turns to look at me, his laughter squeezing its way out of the car through the cracks in the window. The sudden shift sucks the air out of the vehicle and I feel like I’m suffocating under his intense glare.
“Do you think you can actually ruin me?” His words are glaciers, gliding slowly, chilling my skin, raising the hairs on my arms.
“I will not and cannot be ruined by you. I cannot be damaged by you. I cannot be affected by you in any way. And you seem to have forgotten a very important fact. Your entire future depends on this working out too. Your graduation from high school, matriculation into college and your tuition. It ALL depends on this.”
I smirk at him and he cocks an eyebrow.
“You don’t care?” he asks, his eyes squinting slightly as he examines the easy expression on my face and the truth behind my eyes.
“Just drive,” I whisper through gritted teeth and he holds my gaze for a few more seconds before starting the engine.
“Where am I taking you?”
I give him my address and turn to stare out the window.
This fight has fizzled out as quickly as it began, and it has me exhausted. We have resolved nothing. We have both hurled threats and now he’s driving me to my crummy apartment in a side of town I’m pretty sure he’s never been to in his entire life.
A Lamborghini in my neighborhood is sure to draw attention. My gold-digging landlady will probably want to raise the rent if she sees me coming out of a car like this.
When Maverick turns into my lane, my heart picks up speed. Why am I so nervous? It’s no secret that I’m broke as a joke, so why should I hide it from him? Still, everything in me wants him to stop the car so I can walk home.
“Umm...I can take it from here?” I mumble and he says nothing. When I glance over at him, he has a look of disbelief, crossed with disgust on his face.
“Is this where you live?” he asks, and I cringe at his tone.
“I’m further up, but I can walk from here.”
He keeps driving, so I repeat myself, but he’s in another world.
“Maverick,” I snap, and he finally turns to look at me. “You can stop driving.”
He turns, kills the engine and I spin around to stare at him. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before.” He opens his door and gets out.
“Get back inside the damn car Maverick,” I say because…where the hell does he think he’s going?
“Stop barking commands at me, Beth,” he snaps.
I scoff at him and stomp out of his car, glancing around to see if there are any visible eyes around. We enter the complex, and are immediately greeted by screeching cats - on their way up to Mrs. Jenkins, no doubt.
Maverick takes the lead and I roll my eyes at him as he stops before the elevator and pushes the up button. I quietly head for the stairs, knowing full well, that the elevator doors will never open. They haven’t for years and they won’t just magically do so because boy wonder over there decided to suddenly show up.
I clear the first flight before he realizes I’m gone, and I can hear him angrily bellowing my name.
“Beth! Bethany! Where the hell are you?” he screams before realizing the staircase adjacent to the elevator. I can hear his heavy foot falls as he mounts the stairs and I start to sprint up the winding staircase.
“Hey!” he calls after me and I look down to see him gaining on me at top speed.
“Hi Beth,” Mr. Brown from the apartment beneath ours waves at me.
“Hi,” I pant, trying to escape this mad man behind me.
“Everything alright?” he asks as I zip past. I glance back to see him craning his neck up towards me, and almost getting knocked over by Maverick.
“What the…Beth do I need to call the cops?” he calls after me.
I wish we could. God I wish we could, but I keep running, until I see my apartment door.
There’s a volcano erupting in my lungs when I reach the final step and my legs desperately need ice, but I keep moving, reaching around into my backpack for my keys, silently praying that somehow, no one is home tonight.
I jiggle the handle and kick the door, but before I can fully turn the keys I feel Maverick’s firm, angry fingers wrap around my elbow before he spins me around and pushes me against the door.
The keys fall from my fingers and land between us with a miserable jingle. Maverick is panting heavily, and his stormy blue eyes look like a tidal wave is about to crash into the surface and spill out, drowning me in the noisy rage, but he stays quiet. Staring into me, adamantly chastising me, challenging me, swearing at me and I feel something besides fatigue tumble through me as I stare back at him with the same resolve. My lips part slightly as the rise and fall of my chest slows down to match his and I can feel the blood returning to my cheeks.