Barely Breathing

Jay and Maxie entered his home almost ten minutes later. Maxie seemed to be taking everything in, looking over the apartment with roving eyes. "This reminds me of a place that this guy I used to know lived." She said softly.

Jay raised an eyebrow as he sat her suitcase down on his couch. "An old boyfriend?" He asked of her.

She laughed at that and crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head negatively. "No! Of course not. Just one of my self-destructing mistakes." She answered as she thought of Logan Hayes and how she ended up losing Cooper who'd been the best thing in her life at that time because she'd slept with him.

"Ahh." He replied, nodding his head briefly.

Maxie raised a manicured brow. "What do you mean ahh?" She asked in a defensive tone.

"Nothing." Jay said with a small laugh. "You're just beginning to remind me of myself a couple years ago." He told her carefully as he looked right at her. Amy, Emma, other girls from the Ravine. All things that caused him to lose Alex and give gonorreah to the girls he'd cheated on her with. Stealing, smoking, drinking, the prank that went so wrong with Rick Murray. Jay Hogart knew what it was like to be screwed up. He could understand her completely.

The blonde fashionista smiled bitterly and tilted her head to the side. "What? Did you feed someone pills too, to get them to love you?" She asked. Thinking of a few years ago when she'd fed Lucky's drug addiction right after Jesse had died.

"No. Not that. But I did convince this kid to steal Oxycodone from his convenience store job and sell it." He admitted guiltily. "He'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant and wanted to buy an apartment for all them to support her and their baby. I told him he could get a lot more money faster by selling drugs."

"Ooh." Maxie hissed, wincing at the thought as she took a seat on the couch, legs folding under her.

"Yeah, ooh. Anyway, his girlfriend found out and broke up with him and apparently he'd gotten in a fight with his friend. He ended up taking the Oxycodone himself and needed to get his stomach pumped." Jay said with a sigh and a shake of his head.

"That's pretty screwed up." She commented lightly.

"It is. But it is hardly the stupidest thing that I've ever done." He said with a laugh of regret.

"Tell me about it." Maxie whispered back, head lowered. She could write a novel about all those things she'd done. It would fill up a 1,000 pages, she was sure.

The two gave each other a smile of awkward understanding.

"I'm hungry," Maxie commented softly, looking up at him moments later.

"Well we could go to The Dot." Jay said to her as he grabbed his keys off of the coffee table.

She nodded in confirmation and the two left the apartment once more.

They arrived at The Dot and immediately took their seats. Maxie looked up to see a guy with brown hair and eyes and a strawberry blonde haired, blue-eyed girl look at them and then share a look from behind the counter.

The strawberry blonde came over with a pad of paper and a pen in her hand and stared at them for a few moments.

"Are you going to ask us what we want to order, Princess?" Jay asked of her, feeling a twinge of annoyance.

The girl in question put her hands on her hips and glowered at him. "Whatever grease monkey. Does Manny know that you're out with another girl?" She asked.

He gritted his teeth impatiently. "I'm not cheating on her with that's what you're implying." He shot back. "Maxie here is new in town. I'm showing her around."

She nodded her head and finally took their orders after introducing herself to Maxie as Holly J Sinclair and threatening to make Maxie's life miserable if she called her anything other than Holly J.

"Well that was interesting." Maxie commented after Holly J had brought them their drinks. She took a sip of her tea as she said this and then looked up at Jay.

Jay nodded. "That's how Holly J is with everyone. She's complicated." He explained.

TBC