It was 2 a.m. when the first call. Damian Spinelli was deep into a REM cycle when he heard his trusty cell phone ringing across the room from the depths of his coveted black backpack. He thought about letting it just go to voicemail, but he hadn't heard from Stone Cold since he'd left just after sunset. Spinelli knew that his mentor would be working well into the night waiting for a "coffee shipment" to come in, but it was possible that something might have gone wrong and the computer hacker's presence could be needed. It had gotten the point where the guys down at PCPD knew to call him whenever Jason was brought in for questioning. He was usually the second call after Carly or Diane, whichever person Jason managed to get a hold of first.
Shoving back the white down comforter in his regrettably pink bedroom, a bleary-eyed young man padded across the room and dug through his bag until he found the tiny silver contraption tucked between a half-eaten bag of barbeque chips and the latest issue of Wired magazine. He was surprised to see her name flashing on the screen. Sure, they talked all the time, but he knew that she was supposed to be hanging out with some of her fashion friends tonight. "Maxamista?" he answered, hoping that his nervous energy wasn't apparent over the phone. "How may I be of service to you this fine evening?"
On the other end of the line, Maxie Jones bit down on her bottom lip in frustration. She could tell from his throaty voice that she had woken him up. She had been doing that a lot since… "I just couldn't sleep so I thought I would call and tell you about the party," she lied. Leaning back on the stack of pillows leaning against her headboard, Maxie pulled her knees up to her chin. She could imagine her adorable best friend with his mussed hair and wide eyes. "You should have been there, Spinelli! It was amazing."
Spinelli tried to listen as the love of his very short life waxed poetic about her fabulous evening surrounded by the beautiful people. He couldn't help but admire the people that she had spent her Saturday night with. There was a name here and there that he recognized, but for the most part, the entire fashion scene was unknown to him. Still, he was interested because the stories were hers. They were apart of her life, apart of her. "It sounds like you had quite a night," he agreed when she had finished describing the new shoes she had worn out in detail. "It was a lot more eventful than my night of orange soda and a stack of DVDs."
As she ran her slender fingers through her choppy blonde hair, Maxie couldn't think of anything she would have rather done than curled up on the sofa with Spinelli. He always made her laugh and had an uncanny ability to make her forget everything. It was a trait that she clung to tightly, coming back to it time and time again like a trusted friend. After Georgie, after Cooper, after Logan, he was her safe haven. It didn't matter that she had once been the Bad Blonde One. Spinelli now only saw her as the beautiful and funny Maxamista capable of anything she put her mind to. Maxie admired his ability to see the best in everyone. She was his best friend, and Jason Morgan was his role model after all. They weren't really the type of people that most would chose to have in their lives.
Faking a yawn, Maxie made an excuse to hang up and made a vague promise to stop by the penthouse in the morning. Spinelli reluctantly agreed to hang up before tossing his phone back onto the carpet. He was suddenly awake after talking to Maxie, feeling the familiar nervous butterflies that always fluttered through his body at the mere mention of her name. No one had ever captured him so completely like the beautiful Maxamista, not even the Blonde One. Maxie was on an entirely different level. Sure, he had a habit of falling in love with his best friends – Lulu, Georgie without realizing it and now Maxie – but he knew that she was different. No matter what was going on in her life, she was there for him. Other than Stone Cold and his granny, no one had ever been that for Spinelli. He was fortunate to find that quality in a woman that he also loved madly.
He contemplated putting in a few hours in the cyber world but decided against it. If he got online now, he would never get any sleep. Tumbling back to his bed, he flipped off the light and fell asleep much more quickly than he would have expected. As he fell away from the world, his dreams inevitably turned to her. His dreams were just as vivid as his daytime fantasies where he was the detective hero to Maxamista in a 1940s tale of romance. Just when he was getting to his favorite part of the dream, the part where she confesses her undying love for the witty private eye, a ringing phone woke him again.
Eyeing the alarm clock, he was surprised to see that he had been out for more than an hour. He didn't even bother to turn on the light this time as he crawled across the carpet in the dark to find his phone. As soon as he flipped it open, he could already hear her talking a mile a minute. He tried to keep up with her or get a word in, but she was too wrapped up inside her own head to acknowledge that he was listening. Finally, when she paused for a much-needed breath, Spinelli managed a quick greeting and a question. "Where are you at? It sounds like you're in a car."
"I'm just pulling into the underground parking lot at Harborview Towers," she told him as she pulled into a parking spot assigned to Jason's visitors. One of the usual guards was posted at the armored door. He recognized her immediately and permitted her to enter the private elevator that led her straight to the pair of penthouses on the top floor. "I still couldn't sleep, so I thought I would come over so that you could keep me company. Mac is still out of town meeting with the FBI about a case, so I didn't really have anyone to talk to in the middle of the night. I knew you wouldn't mind."
Maxie had just hung up without another word when Spinelli was sent into a panic. Looking down at his plaid boxers and plain white tee, he was hardly the image of suave and sophisticated. He didn't want her to see him like this, but it didn't really sound like he had a choice. Just as he was contemplating changing, he heard a curt knock come from the front door down stairs. With a slightly frustrated shrug, he dropped his phone back on his bed and jogged down the stairs two at a time. Maxie was poised to knock again when he pulled the door open. Brushing past him, she tossed her keys and purse on the desk before flopping on the sofa.
As soon as she turned to look at him, Spinelli knew that Maxamista was hiding something. She rarely went out in public without looking absolutely perfect, but this version of Maxie was decidedly disheveled. She looked cute with her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and her face freshly scrubbed of the day's cosmetics. Dressed in a pair of pink striped pajama pants and a matching camisole, she didn't seem to care that he was seeing her like this. Causal, raw, open – it was another side of her he had never seen before tonight. However, that wasn't what bothered him the most. It was the look in her beautiful olive eyes that haunted him. Gone was the vivacious sparkle that dominated her confident gaze. Instead, he saw only a hallow emptiness that left him feeling lonely. It was the same look she'd had a few days ago when she'd showed up to talk to him after her fight with the Blonde One at Kelly's.
"What is wrong, Maxamista?" he asked carefully. She looked at him as if he was crazy, but he could still see right through her guise. He crossed the room and sat down silently opposite her on the sofa. He wanted to reach for her hand and reassure that she could trust him. That would have worked with most people, but he knew that it would only spook Maxie. She was a lot like Stone Cold in that way. You just had to wait until they were ready to talk before they would open up to you. After a few minutes of neither of them saying anything, Maxie brought her perfectly toned legs up and propped her bare feet in his lap. He had to let her know that he was there. "Whenever you are ready to tell me, the Jackal would be very happy to listen."
Maxie hated lying to Spinelli when he was always so honest and open with him, but she had promised that she wouldn't say anything. She wanted so much to be able to forget what had happened the night Logan Hayes died, but every time she closed her eyes, flashes of the nightmare come back to her. She can feel his hands wrapped around her neck. She can feel the way his body hovered over hers, the stale scent of that day's lunch still on his breath. She can feel her head cracking against the hard floor as he threw her across the room like a rag doll. She can smell the scent of his fresh blood when she came into the apartment with Johnny. There isn't a single detail that she wouldn't be able to recall if prompted, but for now, she just had to keep her mouth shut.
"I'm fine, I just got bored," she lied again. She knew that he knew she was lying, but Maxie didn't care. He would never call her out on it. She liked that someone knew her so well. She liked a lot about the guy she now considered her best friend, her only friend, in the world, but she didn't love him. No, love would only cost her. She couldn't help loving Robin and Mac because they had been in her life long before the many tragedies that had plagued her over the past several years, but she had decided not to love anyone else. Love only lead to loss. The people that she loved ended up dead. "Do you have a movie we could watch?"
Spinelli knew that he could give her what she wanted, a temporary escape from whatever was bothering her, or he could push the issue. He was tired of watching herself ride round and round on this sick cycle carousel. More than anything, he wanted to be able to help her, but he couldn't do that if she wouldn't let him in. "I'm actually pretty tired. If you don't feel like going home, you can just crash here. You can take my bed, and I will sleep on the couch."
She immediately shook her head at his selfless gesture. "I could never do that. I can just sleep down here," she countered, knowing full well that Spinelli would never let her take the sofa. After they lightly bantered about the sleeping arrangements, Maxie pretended to be frustrated and exhaled loudly. "Fine, Spinelli, why don't we just both sleep upstairs? We slept together that one night after you got the concussion. It's no big deal, right?"
"Right," Spinelli gulped, hoping that his tone didn't sound too strained under the sudden anxiety. He had dreamed many times of spending the night with Maxamista in bed, but never like this. With a bright smile, Maxie reached for his hand and pulled him toward the stairs. He followed her willingly, happy to be in her presence. If he could just get her in the dark where she couldn't see him, he was sure that her defenses would fall. He could convince her to tell him everything.
She didn't even bother to turn on the lamp when she came into his bedroom. In the time that they had been friends, she had come to know the cotton candy room as well as her own. She crawled across the bed until she was next to the wall and slid under the covers. A polite Spinelli arranged himself on top of the comforter on the other edge of the mattress. Murmuring a goodnight, Maxie found herself disappointed when he rolled away from her.
A comfortable silence fell over the room. They were both left alone with their own thoughts. While Maxie was retracing the events of the last week for the hundredth time, Spinelli was running through a mental list of possibilities. Their thoughts never intersected, and neither of them was any closer to an answer. Maxie would never be able to undo time and change what had happened that horrible night. Spinelli would never be able to figure it out if she couldn't say the words. It was a hard place for them to be, and only the surprisingly lackluster blonde could get them out.
Maxie felt herself reaching out for Spinelli in the dark, resting her hand on his shoulder to turn him around. When he rolled over to face her, she finally said something. "Do you ever think of me, Spinelli?"
"Of course, Maxamista," he answered automatically. She could tell that he didn't even have to think about it. "I think about you all the time. You are my best friend and one of the most important people in my life."
An unseen smile passed over her pert lips from the safety of the dark. "And how do you think about me?"
"Fondly," Spinelli told her, happy that she wouldn't be able to see the fierce blush that had crept up his throat. "Whenever I think of the beautiful and tenacious Maxamista, I think of her fondly."
"Aw, Spinelli," she gushed, reaching out to throw her arms around him in the dark. Maxie knew exactly what she was doing as she started her little dance of seduction. Pressing her entire body to his, she buried her face in the soft cotton of his shirt so that her hair would be just below his nose. On cue, she felt him inhale deeply to take in her scent. Pulling back slightly, she leaned up timidly to press her forehead to his. "I think very fondly of you, too." The way that Maxie dropped her voice sent noticeable shivers through Spinelli's body. He found his arms wrapping around her slim waist as she cuddled up next to him. Her hands played with the soft wisps of hair as the nape of his neck. "And I like knowing that you think about me."
Placing her hands on either side of his face, Maxie cradled Spinelli's cheeks in her cool palms. He could feel the faint tickle of her breath against his mouth. He could feel the way she turned her hips into his. He could feel her toes raking up and down his legs suggestively. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest. He could feel her, and it felt great. "What are you doing?" he croaked out. This was all so unexpected. All she had talked about for weeks was what great friends they were, and now, she was intimately close to him. He felt her raise her shoulders in a shrug before rolling her body fully on his. Her arms threaded behind his neck and just before it happened, Spinelli knew that it was going to come.
Closing her doe eyes, Maxie smiled devilishly to herself before taking Spinelli's mouth for her own. There was little that Maxie excelled at, but she knew that she was good at this. She started the kiss slowly, pressing her slightly wet lips over his and running her fingers through his dark locks. Before too long, she was running her tongue across his bottom lip, begging for entrance. When he obliged, she took it up a notch and turned her head to grant him better access. He groaned lustfully against her mouth while his hands roamed over her back. Maxie showed her appreciation by allowing a moan of her own before reaching down to yank at the hem of his shirt. Just as she was getting into it, Spinelli suddenly pulled away and shifted her body away from him.
An embarrassed, angry Maxie rolled away to stare at the wall while Spinelli leapt from the bed. She heard the door open and then slam loudly. Maxie was shocked at his reaction. She had thought that he was embarrassed or overwhelmed about what was happening. She never for a minute thought that he was angry. She actually thought that she was the one who should be angry the way that he had just rejected her. Deciding to tell him this, she jumped from the bed and stomped down the stairs. But when she reached the living room and was about to lay into him, she stopped short when she found him doubled over with his head in his hands.
He wouldn't even look at her. "I can't believe you would to this to me." Gone was his unusual way of speaking or the happy-go-lucky personality that drew so many people to him. He was someone else completely, so serious and mature. "I have seen you push so many people away. I have seen you use them and throw them away like it meant nothing. But I always told myself that you and I were more than that. I told myself that you would never do this to me. Upstairs, what you were trying to do, that was using me, Maxie. I thought I meant more than that."
A tear trickled down her cheek as Maxie took in his harsh words. She walked over to the couch and knelt down on the floor in front of him. Taking his hand in hers, she tilted his chin so that his eyes locked with hers. "You do," she promised. "I wasn't using you, Spinelli, I wanted to be with you. You're the only person that I want to be with. You would never hurt me."
"You're right, I would never hurt you," he agreed bitterly. "I just wish that I could say the same from you." He hated that she recoiled at his words, withdrawing her hand from his to cover her mouth. Still, neither of them looked away from the other. "Look, Maxie, I don't know what you are going through, and it's clear that you want it that way. I still can't let you just use me to get over your pain. I want to help you get through it, but I don't think that us sleeping together is what you're looking for. When you wake up in the morning and hate me for being just like every other guy in your life, both of us will be lonelier when this thing started."
She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that he didn't know anything, but it would have been a lie. Part of her only wanted to use Spinelli so she could prove that all guys were alike. She wanted to make herself hate him so that it wouldn't hurt so damn bad when she lost him. "It's the only way," she whispered before another tear escaped down her porcelain face and she pulled even further away.
"Only way for what, Maxie?" he asked, reaching again for her hand. She allowed him to hold it this time, and he traced soothing circles across her knuckles.
Looking into his chocolate eyes, Maxie wanted to confess everything. She wanted to believe that this wonderful, trusting man could make everything okay for her again. "Not to lose you," she answered finally. He shook his head in confusion, but she had already known that he wouldn't understand. A kind soul like him never would. He wasn't as jaded or tortured as Maxie was. He still had that naïve innocence about love that she longed for. He hadn't been tainted by heartache and loss. He still believed in the good of the world, even her.
Sinking to the floor, Spinelli pulled a now sobbing Maxie into his lap. Under ordinary circumstances he would never be so brazen, but she needed him. He could put aside all his nervous awkwardness and be the unabashed source of support that she craved. Stroking her blonde hair, he rocked her gently until her gut-wrenching cries subsided. "You won't lose me, you won't lose me," he repeated softly into her ear. Every time he said it, she only held onto him tighter. He had never felt as physically and emotionally strong as he did there in the living room with her in his arms.
"I will lose you," she yelled tearfully. "I lose everything that I love." Her tears were quickly turning into anger. She was tired of feeling helpless. "Do you want me to show you how many people I have lost? Well, let's count, shall we? My birth father never bothered to stay around more than a week or two throughout my entire life, and I haven't seen him in years. My mom was always too busy taking care of my grandmother or working on some caper or pretending to be a spy to manage raising her two kids. I lost the first man that ever really loved me that afternoon when Jesse was shot at the park. The first guy that thought I was ever worth taking a chance on was gunned down at a kid's carnival. Then, my baby sister, the one person who really believed in me, was murdered by some psychopath out for revenge. See, I was supposed to die that night, but she showed up instead to protect me. A few weeks after that, some other maniac hung my boyfriend, another cop that I was sure I was going to marry. They made Cooper look like a suicidal murderer. Logan and I weren't exactly the best of friends, but we did care about each other at one point in our own weird way. Oh, and did I mention my cousin, B.J.? She was just a little girl when she died. She had to die so that I could live. I have her heart beating in my chest. That's how many people, Spinelli? Five dead and two that might as well be?"
"We've all lost people that we care about, but that doesn't make it your fault," he told her. "There is no way you can hold yourself accountable for this, Maxie. You didn't choose two selfish parents. You didn't pull the trigger that killed Jesse. You were just a little girl when B.J. was in the accident. You didn't put that noose around Coop's neck. You didn't hurt your sister. These things happened to you, but you didn't cause them."
"The people around me die, Spinelli, don't you see that? I am bad luck. If you stay around, I am going to get you killed, too."
"First of all, Maxie, I live with Stone Cold. I risk my life every single day just by going out into the open anywhere near him. He is my mentor, but even I know that," he pointed out. "Second, this is not your fault. You are not bad lunch. You are not going to get me killed. Is that why you were doing this? Did you think that you could just use me so that I would hate you? I could never not have you in my life, Maxie, not even if you did that."
Many others had tried to be a superhero for the blonde before, and each of them had failed. She had believed that Jesse and then Cooper could save her, but now Maxie knew that she had to save herself. She wouldn't let another man she loved die trying to protect her. "You'd be better off if you just left now. If I don't kill you, I'll break your heart."
"Then break it, dammit," he dared her. She couldn't believe that this was the same computer hacker who lived on orange soda and barbeque chips. He was so much stronger and brave than she would have ever imagined. "Let me make the choice about whether or not I want my heart broken, Maxie. At least that would be real. This is just a fake version of the way you think things should go. What about me? Don't I get a say? I love you, and I'm not going to walk away without a fight."
"Don't say that!" she demanded harshly. The last thing she needed was for him to admit that he loved her. She didn't need to know that he felt the same as she did. She didn't want to know. As she studied his stony stare, she felt her angry resolve melting away. "There are things about me that you don't know, Spinelli. I don't want you to get wrapped up in this."
Finally, Spinelli felt like he was getting somewhere. He had known that something was going on, and hearing her confess her worries left him feeling justified. "Why don't you tell me everything from the beginning and let me be the judge of that," he offered. She shook her head and refused. "I won't judge you, I promise. I just want us to find a way to get through this together."
"You can't be involved. I will not drag you in the middle of this."
"The middle of what, Maxie?" he asked again, frustrated. "What do you know?" She noticed that he asked what she knew and not what she had done. The good man that Spinelli was automatically assumed that she was hiding a secret for someone else. "I know what you look like when you have done something. That's not the way you are looking at me now. You are looking at me like you're afraid I am going to figure this out. Why don't you just save us both the trouble and tell me now?"
He had quit calling her Maxamista a long time ago, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by her. She longed for him to use her nickname so that she could just blow him off as some gawky computer geek. However, with his reserved demeanor, she was unnerved by his calmness. "Logan."
Spinelli hadn't been surprised to hear that Logan Hayes was dead. There were a lot of people out there that would be happy to kill him, and at times, he would have counted himself among that growing list. However, the former soldier had been noticeably absent over the past few months other than the occasional run-in at Kelly's or random mentioning in the handful of conversations he'd had with Lulu all summer. He knew that Maxie hadn't killed Logan, but she clearly knew who did. "Did you see the Zacharras dump his body or something?" he questioned. When she shook her head, he tried another question. "Do you know who killed him?"
Maxie stood up and walked over to the window. Staring down at the dark harbor below, she watched the dancing light of a small boat coming in. With her back to him, she finally felt the courage she needed to tell her story. Crossing her arms over her body, she searched for a good beginning and jumped in. "It was really hot when I ran into him at the docks that afternoon. I was feeling more irritable that usual, so when I came across him talking to that new doctor from GH, I really laid into him. I made him look like the loser that he was and then went on my way after a few snaky comments. I really didn't think much about it because we were always fighting like that. It was the way we were together from the beginning, and it only got worse after we slept together."
"I can't really blame him, I guess. I would have hated me for doing it too," she confessed. "Anyhow, something must have snapped in him because he showed up at Crimson, going on and on to Lulu about how they were meant to be together. He was blaming me yet again for ruining their relationship. I did have a part in their demise, you know. Anyhow, Lulu finally got fed up with him and she told him that she was glad we slept together because that led her to Johnny. You could see the pain in his eyes when she said that. I must have said something, I don't remember, because he started going off on me. Kate came in, and I threatened to call security. I thought that would be the end of it."
"But it wasn't?"
Lifting the window, Maxie felt the relief of cold air whipping around her. She felt stifled by stillness in the room and shivered gratefully when the breeze swept through her body. "Lulu went to go meet with Johnny and Kate had to leave for a benefit with Jax. I was about to head out when someone called. I went into Kate's office to get some paperwork or something when he came back in. I should have been more careful and gave the security downstairs a description or maybe I should have been listening. Before I knew it, he was in her office. I've never seen somebody so dead. He was a completely different person. I tried to negotiate with him or get him to calm down, but it only fueled his fire. We started to struggle…"
Maxie choked on her words as the sobs escaped once again from her chest. She felt Spinelli's arms wrap around her from behind as she sunk to the ground. "I was so scared that he was going to rape me or kill me. He was so angry that he didn't care what happened to me. He pushed me over the desk and said these horrible things. I tried to fight back but I wasn't strong enough. It felt like it was in slow motion and sped up all at once. I managed to get away a few times, but he kept pursuing me. Finally, he must have got fed up or something because he grabbed me and threw me to the ground. I hit my head pretty hard and passed out. I can't remember anything else until Johnny found me passed out on the floor."
Spinelli could hardly believe what he was hearing. He had always known Logan was volatile but he had never thought that he would hurt a woman. There were still gaping holes in this story. "What happened next, Maxie?" She shook her head in refute again, but Spinelli wouldn't relent this time. Tightening his embrace on her, he rested his chin on her shoulder. "It's okay, Baby, you can trust me. Tell me what happened next."
Taking a deep breath, Maxie tried to decide if this would make him see her differently. She wanted so desperately for the answer to be no. "I started telling him what happened and he realized that Lulu must have seen him from across the street. We ran over there as quickly as we could and when we arrived, Logan was already dead."
Lesley Lu Spencer had killed Logan Hayes. The Blonde One had murdered the Unworthy One. "What did you do next?"
"Johnny started pulling all the details out of Lulu, and I tried to listen," Maxie retorted. She carefully but quickly recounted the details of Lulu's attack on Logan and the actions that ensued after. "I kept staring down at him, you know, trying to figure out how we had gotten there. There was blood everywhere, and I felt my stomach turning. I had to cover him up. Then Claudia arrived and they took care of the rest."
Relaxing his grip on the blonde slightly, Spinelli mulled the sordid details of Logan's demise very carefully. "That fight at Kelly's was your attempt to get an alibi," he realized. He had known that it was strange, but it made sense now. "That's why Victor saw Lulu at your house. I couldn't figure that one out, but I thought you were working on something for the magazine."
"Victor?" Maxie inquired. She didn't recognize that name. "Who's Victor?"
Spinelli had temporarily forgotten that Maxie didn't know about Victor. "Your guard," he admitted hesitantly. "I had Jason put one on you when we started hanging out just in case. All of the women in our lives have a protector. I knew that if I told you, you would refuse or your dad would get angry. He has been able to go undetected thus far."
Although she would never admit it, Maxie secretly loved that someone cared enough to put a guard on her. She knew that it meant she had a place in Spinelli's life and that Jason recognized that. "I can't sleep, Spinelli. Every time I close my eyes, I see Logan. I hear Logan. I smell Logan. I feel Logan. His ghost haunts me every minute of every day, and I don't know how to make this go away. I'm haunted by so many ghosts that you would think another wouldn't bother me. It's just getting to be a little much."
Not even Spinelli was naïve enough to promise that he would never die, but he wished that he could. He couldn't bear the thought of causing one moment of sadness for her, let alone adding to a lifetime of pain. "I can't fix all the stuff that has happened to you, Maxie. I wish that I could. If I could figure out a way, I would take all the bad stuff and make it my own. Since I can't, I can try to find a way to make it okay for you. I can help you deal with it. You don't have to go through this alone."
It was the second time tonight Maxie had heard that, but this time she actually believed him. She had laid all her cards out on the table, she had confessed her part in Logan's death, she had been everything bad thing to him that people said that she was. None of it shook his belief in her. Maxie had a lot to work through. There were a lot of things that she had to figure out, but one thing was clear to her. She didn't have to go through this alone. "I love you, Damian Spinelli," she whispered before hugging him tightly to her.
Spinelli knew that Maxie was still very far from who she needed to be, but this was a big step in the right direction. He would be by her side every minute, guiding and supporting her though it all. They would fight and she would try like hell to pull away, but he would be strong enough for both of them to hold on with all that he had. It wasn't an ideal beginning, but it was theirs. It was his vow to her. "And I love you, Mariah Maximilliana Jones," he promised her. For now, that promise was enough.