It was some time in the middle of the night before Maxie woke up in the small and dingy room above Jake's. Johnny was beside her, propped up on an elbow as he watched her sleep. She smiled hazily under his watchful gaze before throwing her arms over her face sheepishly. She had never been a big fan of the intimacy that came in the afterglow of sex, even when it had come from a man who had loved her as wholly as Cooper had.

"Can you not stare at me?"

Under ordinary circumstances, Johnny knew that Maxie enjoyed the attention, but she always crawled back inside herself whenever they were together like this. She was completely open to him before they had sex, when they would just sit there and talk about nothing and everything. She was also a pretty willing participant during, but afterward, he always felt like he lost the biggest part of her. It was something he had never really experienced with another woman. Most girls were clingy after, but it wasn't Maxie's style at all. She wouldn't really let him hold her for too long, electing to crawl over to the other side of the bed before she fall asleep. It was a challenge to him now, a battle to have her in his arms afterwards. He felt like he had to overcome this to possess her completely. Maybe a girl like Maxie Jones was going to prove too wild to want to be tamed, even by likes of the dangerous Johnny Zacharra.

"I can't help it, you're just so damn beautiful and sexy."

While she doubted that she oozed sex appeal while she slept with her mouth half-open and her hair tangled around her face, she appreciated the compliment anyhow and awarded him with a long kiss. "We should probably get going pretty soon. Lulu is going to start wondering where we are if one of us doesn't show up at the apartment," she told him as she started to reach for the discarded clothes on the floor beside the bed. Johnny grabbed her wrist to stop her, rolling on top of her body so that she couldn't escape. Maxie giggled and pleaded for him to get off, feigning displeasure at having his taut body covering hers.

"I'm not buying it, Jones," he retorted with a mischievous chuckled before burying his face in her neck. Johnny laid a small trail of kisses over the top of her bare shoulder, eliciting a delicious shiver from her. "That's my girl."

Three little words were enough to send Maxie crashing back to reality. Just as she was about to give in and lose herself in him again, he had to go and remind her what the situation was really like. While it was all good fun to pretend that they were together while they were holed up in this dive, she would eventually have to return to her real life, one where she was betraying Spinelli and Johnny would go back to Lulu. "I mean it, get off me," she ordered him, pushing firmly on his shoulders until he fell to her side heavily.

"What the hell was that?" Johnny asked irritably as he watched Maxie spring from the bed and start to collect her various items of clothing around the room. He hated when she snapped like this, going from completely into him to the point where she can't stand for him to even touch her. The only thing he wanted to do was hold her in his arms but she couldn't seem to get far enough from him. Sliding from the bed, he didn't even attempt to cover his bare body as he reached for her. "Maxie, what's wrong? What did I do?"

Her eyes dropped to the ground as she threw her bra resolutely on the bed. "You called me your girl," she said sadly. The regret in her voice was so deep that Johnny physically recoiled. He could hear the pain in her tone and it killed him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, surprised that she would let him hold her. "Johnny, I'm not Lulu. She's your girl. We can't just pretend that's changed."

He finally understood what had kept the distance between him and Maxie all these weeks when they had been sleeping together behind Lulu and Spinelli's backs. Johnny had long thought that it was because she felt bad about hurting two people that they both cared about, but now he understood that it was because she was afraid to hurt herself. For all her talk about self-inflicted emotional wounds, Maxie was working really hard to protect her heart around him. That spoke volumes to Johnny. It was the first true indication that he had that she was starting to think of him as something more than just a hook-up.

"Oh, pretty girl," he sighed as he pressed his forehead to hers. Maxie looked up into his eyes, his dark orbs blurring together from their close proximity. "I know that the situation hasn't changed, but the way I feel about everything is completely different. The way I feel about you is so much more than I would have ever thought. You're who I want, Maxie. You're all I want and I don't just mean in my bed."

"Then why are you with her?"

"Because until this very moment, I never thought that you were going to want to give yourself to me," he admitted. He knew that it was wrong that he had kept Lulu around just because he didn't want to be alone, but when it came down to it, that's all his relationship with her had become. She was a placeholder for Maxie. "Maxie, don't you see it? You're my something real."

She was his something real. Maxie had been a lot of things to different guys – a fragile little girl, an easy lay, an object of affection, a challenge to overcome – but she had never been someone's something real. "I want you to break up with her. Maybe it's not fair of me to ask that but I am. I can't do this anymore. It's getting too dangerous. I feel more than I should feel for you, Johnny, and it scares the hell out of me."

He nodded understandably. He had known that the time was coming for awhile and had already committed himself to telling Lulu the truth whenever Maxie asked. "If I tell her, you have to tell him."

"I know," she nodded. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his chest. Maxie slipped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, wanting their embrace to be enough to drown out the pain she felt at having to break her best friend's heart. Spinelli was never going to be able to forgive her for this. She pulled back and looked up into his eyes. "I need you to understand something."

"What's that?"

Maxie took a deep breath before speaking. She was about to tell a guy more than she had ever said to a man before when it came to how she felt. "I need you to know that I am breaking Spinelli's heart for you. I need you to know how much that means to me, how much you mean to me. Spinelli has been really good to me, better than any man other than Mac has ever been to me in my life. He has loved me so selflessly and completely, and I haven't really deserved that love. While he was over there pining away for me, I was busy falling for you. I might be giving up my best friend in the world for you. Maybe it's not fair to put that kind of pressure on you but I need you to get what this means to me."

Johnny had known before she had even said the words what this meant. He knew how she had struggled with the subject of Spinelli and his heart went out to her. As much as she was okay with crashing her own life, her main objective had been to protect her best friend. "I get it," he vowed, kissing the top of her head. "I can't take his place, Maxie, I don't even want to try. But if you let me – really let me – I think I can create a place all my own. You're not the only one who has fallen here."

"What's that mean?"

"Well, what did you mean when you said that you'd fallen for me?"

Maxie giggled girlishly and shook her head. "No way, I am not saying it first."

"What?" he asked innocently, grinning at her like a Cheshire cat.

"You know what!"

"What's that?" he asked again as he wrapped his arms around her waist and smiled into her big blue eyes. The very definition of what he was about to say could be found in her gaze. It was so evident to him now that he wasn't sure how he had missed it before. "That I love you? 'Cause I do, you know." His tone changed from teasing to serious. "I love you, Maxie."

Even though she knew he was going to say it and that they had both been feeling it for awhile, it still surprised her slightly to finally hear him say the words. She had only ever loved Cooper and Jesse in this way, and it didn't even start to compare to how she felt about Johnny. Just like she was his something real, he was her something more. "I love you, too, Johnny."

After exchanging a long kiss, Johnny helped Maxie find the rest of her clothing and get dressed. They couldn't stay here all night, as much as he wanted nothing more to hold her. It was time that they both told the truth, something they would do together. He wouldn't let Maxie go through it alone, and she seemed bound and determined to be at his side when he told Lulu. He wanted her there. He felt so much stronger knowing that Maxie was on his side. It was nice to have someone there besides just Claudia.

"Do you want to go back and get your car before going home?"

Maxie was standing at the window, watching as the first rays of the morning sun came over the horizon. Despite their best efforts, they had stayed out all night. Lulu was going to be livid, not that it really mattered much anymore. The blonde Spencer girl was about to get her heart broken. "There's somewhere I want to take you first."

Johnny looked at her suspiciously. Once they had finished dressing, Johnny led Maxie down the stairs by the hand and out to the car. He followed her directions as they drove to the edge of town. He didn't realize where they were until he got out of the car and saw the rows of marble tombstones. Slipping his hand in Maxie's, he immediately understood where they were going and why they were here. She shivered next to him from the cold morning's breeze. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders before reaching for her hand again.

Stopping just outside the gate, Maxie turned and looked up at Johnny. "If Georgie was still here, she would be the first person I would want to tell about us," she explained. "She was always the one I told all my secrets to, even when I knew she wouldn't approve. She always loved me no matter what I did. I miss having someone who believed in me like she did. She would hate that I did this, but I also know that she would be happy to see me like this. She'd tell me that you were too dangerous and that you were going to break my heart, but she would also know that I was happily in love with you. In a way that only Georgie could pull off, she would be supportive of our relation ship. She might just be the only one who would have been on our side."

Holding the gate open for Maxie, Johnny followed her inside the small cemetery and toward the back to the Scorpio family plot where Mac had buried his youngest daughter. Maxie let go of his hand as she knelt to the ground in front of Georgie's grave. She wiped away dust from the engraved letters of her name and laid the bundle of daffodils she had picked at the cemetery entrance. "Hey, Georgie, sorry I haven't been here in a few weeks. I miss you," she murmured softly. "I came to tell you something. I guess you probably already know. I felt you the other day or at least what I like to think is you. I was wondering what I should do and just like that, you came to me. I listened, Georgie. I listened to my heart and told him the truth."

"I wanted you to be the first person to know because you might just be the only person who is going to be happy for us," she acknowledged. "I know it's not going to be easy, but it's what I have to do. It's time to tell the truth because I don't think I could bear the alternative. I either have to tell the truth or lose him. I can't lose someone else that I love, Georgie, not after you…"

Johnny heard the tears in her voice as he dropped to his knees behind her. He wrapped his arms around her small frame and prayed that he could bring her some kind of comfort. Maxie turned around in his embrace and clung to him. "You're not going to lose me."

"I'm going to lose them, though."

He nodded slightly, agreeing that there was a chance. "Maybe," he relented. He could lie to her, but Maxie would never believe him. "But if Spinelli really cares about you, he will find a way to forgive you. He'll want to keep you in his life. Mac and Robin will find a way to support you. These are the people that love you, Maxie. That kind of love doesn't just go away. Trust me, I've tried to stop loving people in my life. No matter how crazy my dad has been, he's still my father. It's been hard to love Claudia at times, but she is one of the two most important people in my life. God knows that I didn't want to love you. I think you'll find your family feels the same way given the chance."

"And if they don't?"

"Then you have me," he promised. "I'll be your family."

"It's you and me versus the world, huh?"

"Would you really have it any other way?"

Maxie shook her head as she settled back into his arms. "I'll be your family, too."

"That's my girl," he said again, but this time, Maxie smiled instead of pulling away.