Chapter Two

Max realised, as pink dawn peeked through the blinds and she crept from Alec's bed, more concerned about her quiet escape than modesty, that this was the first time she had ever been inside his bedroom. She wasn't sure why it surprised her, but it did. She quickly located her jeans and underwear at the foot of the bed, and tugged them on. She kept one eye on Alec, trying to note any changes in his breathing and spot any indications that he was waking. It remained steady. She tried to remember where her shirt had been dropped, and spotted it on the floor by the door.

She had never been so stealthy on any mission in her whole damn life as she was crossing the short space between the bed and the door.

And the bastard was awake anyway.

She whirled on him as she tugged the vest top over her head, foregoing her bra until she could find it, and glared accusingly. It was a tiny thing really, just a second too short a gap in his breathing, but for Max it was a giveaway.

"Were you even asleep when I woke up?" She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him, and he opened his eyes sheepishly.

"No." he answered honestly. "But I sorta knew you would want to make a sneaky getaway. Thought I'd make it easy on you." Max didn't really know what to say to that.

"Oh." She said shortly. She crossed back over and sat on the edge of the bed beside him. "Um, thanks?"

"No problem." He pushed himself up with his elbows, and sat up to face her. His shirt was in the other room, somewhere near the sofa if she remembered correctly, and she felt her cheeks flush as the bed sheets fell to uncover his tanned chest and stomach.

It was as if her brain had short-circuited. She forgot what she was doing, and tried to school her expression to neutral as she remembered the feeling of those sun-kissed abs. Did he go to a damn tanning salon? Alec gave a tiny smile, too unsure to be his usual cocky grin.

"Unless you're rethinking the getaway part?"

She was.

Until she looked behind her and saw her leather jacket on the floor by the couch.

Jacket. Pocket. Diamond. Logan.

She went still.

"Alec." She stopped. Forced herself to breathe. She couldn't look at him. "Logan and I…"

"Don't." he cut her off quickly, like he had expected it. She could hear in his voice that the smile was gone. "I get it, okay? You and Logan are you and Logan. Don't hate yourself for this. Do you hear me? Don't do it."

"I..." Max knew he was trying to help, but she just couldn't take it. What she had done was catching up to her, and quickly. Because she did hate herself, and she hated him for not having the strength to reject her. But she didn't, too. She couldn't hate him for that. She hated that her willpower had failed her. It felt too much like weakness. And she hated that part of her wasn't sorry. Because it had been fantastic.

"This was not a... well thought through thing, granted. But it doesn't make you a terrible person, okay?" He was still trying to make her feel better, not knowing how much harder he was making it. "There are worse things you can do to a person than... this."

"Than cheating, you mean."

"I guess I do."

"I didn't think that I was this person." She said hollowly.

"Max, did you not hear me?"

She looked at him, sharply, distress and confusion etched in her features.

"I feel worse that I don't care, than about what I've done."

"What we've done." He corrected her.

"What did Manticore do to us? That I can't even feel guilt about such a huge thing? What did they do to us?"

"Max..." he wanted to argue with her. That she must feel guilt, or she wouldn't be so distressed. That she wouldn't be able to feel anything if she truly didn't care. Her next words stopped him.

"He proposed. Yesterday. Logan proposed to me. I said yes," Alec's eyes had gone wide. He felt like the air had been sucked from the room. Max nodded toward the living room and their shed clothes, "the ring is in my jacket pocket. Some kind of family heirloom."

"You're engaged." It was a statement. An enormous, grotesque statement. "You let this happen, knowing full well that... why did you have to tell me that, Max? That makes what I did, what we did, so much worse."

"I know. But you'd have found out anyway." He grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him.

"That's not the problem," he growled, "you know that. I'm not that guy. I don't do... you told him you would marry him. You know what means? You're promising to love him, and be with him, and be faithful to him until one of you is dead. You are promising him a home and a family and a wife. He's hardly my friend, but I don't mess with that. Promises, those kind of relationships. I am not that guy." Tears were stinging Max's eyes, but they were for Alec. She knew everything was unbelievably screwed up here. She felt more sorrow and guilt over this man, the semblance of her dead brother who was so different he was almost unrecognisable, than over her fiancé waiting for her. She reached out to him and laid a hand on his chest. Her eyes were so full of grief and pain that he let her.

"I don't think you are. But... we can't take this back. Don't hate yourself for this." The echoed words were sincere. "You didn't know. This is on me, not you. I'm the bitch here. You're a good guy, really."

"I'm not that good," he whispered. I still slept with you when I knew you were involved with someone else. Even now, I wish it could happen again. He couldn't bear to voice those words aloud. To make this worse with them.

Max didn't know what to say to that, and Alec could see it as clearly as if it was on a plaque around her neck.

"Just go." He said, his voice rasping slightly as he choked out the words.

"Alec, I…" he stopped her by cupping her face in his hands.

"Maxie, you need to go." He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, and Max couldn't begin to name the expressions warring for dominance there. He opened them and exhaled heavily, then leant his forehead against hers. "This never happened, okay? We can get over this, you don't need to let it affect your engagement." The last word was clipped. To Max it was a parting shot, and she didn't blame him for it at all. He gave her a brief kiss on the forehead and gently pushed her back. It was her dismissal, and she took it.

Max was impressed with how calmly she managed to leave Alec's apartment. That anyone watching her would never know how her brain was pounding against her skull as her conscience screamed like a banshee inside. She swung her leg over her motorcycle and felt the familiar rumble as she kicked it into life. Only when she had her helmet securely on, darkened visor obscuring her face, and only when she was four blocks away and knew that no one had followed her, did she let some of the emotion out. First a prickling behind her eyes, and then a wetness on her cheek, and then she was powering through a checkpoint and out onto a road heading out of Seattle. Away from men and life and civilization. Away from proposals and one night stands with a man who was too much a part of her life to ever only be a one night stand. He was her best friend, her support, her companion. The one who understood it all. The one who'd been through it too.

She pulled onto a dirt track that led into dense woodland, and when she was far enough in that she could sense only vegetation and forest creatures around, she stopped her bike, took off her helmet, and started to scream.

It was a feral, desperate sound. Punctuated with sharp gasps for breath and her voice breaking. She pulled her hands through her hair, tracing where Alec's fingers had been only a few hours earlier, hard enough that she had to consider whether she had pulled some out. She stumbled from her bike, onto her knees in the wet leaves and mud. She choked back another scream. It sounded like a sob.

Enough was enough.

She pulled herself to her feet, mud and leaves clinging to the front of her jeans. She didn't bother to wipe them away, but grabbed her bike and heaved it up from where it had fallen. She put her helmet on again, and climbed back onto her bike. As she brought the Ninja's engines to a dull rumble, she swore to herself that she wouldn't break like this again. That she would go back, and deal with the mess she had made.

She touched the pocket that still held the ring, but she couldn't bring herself to put it on yet.

First, she needed to do the first 'normal girl' thing of the night. The first right thing. The thing she should have done straight away.

She was going to see Cindy, and she was going to pray to the first god who would listen that she didn't lose two best friends over this.