Maximoff takes my hand into his, hard calluses on his palm against similar ones on mine. “It wasn’t that then?” he asks.
“It was that, but it was definitely something else, too.” I’m conflicted. I tell him that I am, and I explain how that same night I ran into a doctor who’d been in my first-year residency. Tristan MacNair. We talked for a few minutes in the hallway, and then he was paged.
My first thought should’ve been, I’m glad that’s not my call. But all I could think and feel was, I wish that were me. I watched him sprint away to aid a patient. Instinct told me, follow, go help.
And my hunger for medicine just pummeled me.
It’s been eating at me on-and-off since, and then seeing the doctor this morning, that hunger returned. I stop rehashing my story and feelings here, a pit in my stomach.
My actions will affect Maximoff. More than anyone. Even considering what I’m considering eviscerates me. Hacks up my organs and slices me in fucking two.
You selfish bastard.
I love him.
Fuck, I love him more than is comprehensible, more than anyone can possibly see, and I’ve always run towards what calls me.
Maximoff. He calls out to me every second of every minute of every day, and to willingly turn my back and race away from him is unfathomable. Because it’d tear me apart. I’d sooner drop to my knees and scream, and then I’d dig my way back into his arms.
If losing him is a consequence of what I choose to do next, I physically can’t do it. It’d hurt less to ignore this pull than to lose him.
My eyes burn. “I need to know what you think.” I tighten my hand in his. “I’m not sure what to do yet.”
I expected this conversation to surprise Maximoff. But he doesn’t look shocked.
He rests the back of his head on the rock wall, his eyes swimming through my eyes. “Choose the path where you’re not fighting yourself, don’t be afraid of change, don’t live for less than what you love—those are your words, Farrow. To me, it’s obvious what you need to do.”
I rub my jawline. “It’s not.”
“You love medicine—”
“I love you,” I tell Maximoff. “You are who I love, who I live for, and if I finish my residency to be a concierge doctor, it means quitting security. It means working in a hospital for three years before I can even be your family’s physician.” There’s no shortcut to being board-certified; I have to complete my three-year residency.
Maximoff is quietly thinking.
I’ve already drawn closer to him, my legs broken apart. His are spread open too, nearer. Fit together.
Our elbows balance on my kneecap like we’re about to arm wrestle, but our hands aren’t closed in a fist. In the silence, he threads our fingers, unthreads them, and then traces the ink on my hand. Like the tiny blue sparrow along my thumb.
“Maybe we were wrong,” Maximoff says, brows scrunched in deep contemplation. “When we thought we only worked because you were my bodyguard—maybe we were wrong. Maybe it’s just what brought us together. Because I wanted you way before that damn day.”
I watch him watch our interlacing hands. I’ve recalled my past with him, every moment, a hundred-and-five times and more. “I can believe that,” I say, voice husky.
He licks his lips. “Because you knew I may’ve been somewhat-attracted to you for a while?”
“Somewhat-attracted,” I repeat with a small burgeoning smile. “That’s where you’re shelving your sixteen-year-old fantasies of me? In the ‘somewhat-attracted’ category?”
“The holy-fuck-I’m-coming category was full.”
I give him a look. “Of who?”
“Some guy.” He’s lying. It was definitely full of me. He tries to hook our fingers, but I pull back slightly, teasingly.
He glares.
“I’m just some guy,” I remind him.
“No,” Maximoff says, firm and final. “You’re the guy.”
It hits me hard, and I inhale.
Damn. I let him hook our fingers, and I have to tell him this… “I can believe that me being your bodyguard is just what brought us together, not why we’re good together, because I wanted you before that day too.”
His mouth parts, and his elbow almost slips off my knee.
I clasp his hand. “Maximoff—”
“You never said a fucking thing.” He looks a little bit hurt.
My chest ignites on fire. “Because I didn’t think it mattered, and I’m going to be honest here, I didn’t even realize the extent of how much I wanted you back then until after we got together.” It’s only in hindsight.
Just like for him, it’s in hindsight. He never let himself dream about love or what he was looking for in a relationship until he seized it for the first time. Until me.
And yeah, he had a crush on me. Because he allowed himself to fantasize about me. Sex is uncomplicated to him. Love is messy.
I didn’t know these private things about him back then, not completely, but I knew that he had one-night stands. I knew that I didn’t. I knew that I needed the prospect of more if I sleep with a guy.
And I always, always believed he’d never act on anything. Moral, good-natured Maximoff Hale would never get with a friend of the family’s and definitely not his mom’s bodyguard.
I look at Maximoff now and try to wrangle these thoughts.
“I don’t dwell on what I can’t have,” I clarify, “and in my mind, I couldn’t have you for the longest time. I went on with my life, but whenever I saw you, I wanted to be around you. So it’s only in hindsight that I realize how fucking much I was hooked on you.”
Maximoff tries his absolute worst not to smile. “You liked me.”
I smile wider and tilt my head. “You going to write this in your diary tonight? Edit out all the parts about your unrequited teenage love?”
He holds my hand in a tight fist. “You’ve been reading someone else’s diary, man. Mine just talks about fucking you.”
I laugh. “Let me read it.”
“Let me read yours.” His tone is serious.
I nod a few times, understanding that he wants more. “In retrospect, if I could pinpoint a day that I’d say I felt an…” I suck in a breath, searching for the word “…intense chemistry, I’d say it was when I went to Harvard and sutured your leg. I couldn’t stop looking at you, and I fucking craved to know you even better. If you had asked me to spend the entire day there with you, I would’ve said yes.”
He dazes off.
Where’d you go, wolf scout? I snap my fingers until his focus is back on me. I’m smiling. “You can masturbate to that later,” I tease.
“No thanks,” he says dryly, and then he takes a breath. “I was just thinking about which day that I felt we’d be good together. In hindsight.”
“What day?” I ask, curious.
He releases my hand from our stronghold and then outlines the inked letters k.n.o.t. on my fingers. “The day on the yacht,” he says, assured. “The summer bash when I was nineteen. You threw me your shirt after I fought with Charlie, and you made one of the worst days of my life easier. Better. Just being around you…” He threads our fingers again, thinking for a short beat. “You had a boyfriend that day, didn’t you?”
I nod. “Yeah. But it was close to being over by then.”
I replay that memory in my head where Maximoff was frozen next to a cooler on the yacht deck. When I caught his attention, he revived. And he looked up at me.
My lips lift because I’ve remembered that moment before. That one part where he reawakens always floods back and breaks my face into a smile. I remember the salt in the air and how his dark brown hair blew in the wind.
And those tough forest-greens that said I can handle everything.
Now years later, I’m at a crossroads with him. I’ve been vacillating between security and finishing my residency because neither feels one-hundred percent right. If I could speed through residency and just be his doctor right now, it’d be an
easier choice. But there’ll be three years where I’m not around him that much.
I do believe what Maximoff said. Being his bodyguard isn’t what binds us.
It never has been.
And hell, if anything feels right, it’s him and me. We’re better than good together. Better than perfect. Gradually, I start envisioning what’ll happen if I choose medicine. “If I’m not your bodyguard,” I tell him, “that means some other prick is on your detail.”
“Yeah,” Maximoff says. “You’ll have to be okay with that.”
My eyes almost roll around the world because I’m not that excited about it. Somewhat for territorial reasons. Mostly because this’ll upheave his life. He hates big change, and he’s been bulldozed with it recently.
I shake my head. “I can’t do this to you right now. I’ll wait—”
“No,” he cuts me off. “I can take a lot. And a new bodyguard isn’t even that hard to handle. Unless you have an annoying clone, I’ll live.”
I could easily make a joke back, but I contemplate something else. And then I watch him skim his palm down my palm, our hands almost the same exact size.
His fondness for my hands ropes me in. And warms me.