Code Blue

Lexi vs. The Beach House

                  

He kept his fingers intertwined with mine for the entire drive. He didn't look at me, though. He didn't really speak to me either. He didn't really speak in general. The most I heard him say was telling me that I could choose the radio station and giving his order at the drive through window of a burger joint on the way. The rest of the one-and-a-half-hour ride, he kept his gaze intensely focused on the road, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing up and down the side of my wrist.

I understood. He was in the process of making a gigantic decision; one that would change his life in ways he couldn't even imagine. In ways that it made my heart ache to think about. Because although he thought that he was on the verge of baring his soul and hoping that the truth might actually set him free, he didn't realize that it was that honesty that would be his downfall.

But I couldn't stop him. I couldn't warn him that confessing the details of his family business to me was a bad idea without having to explain why. And then there was the fact that this was exactly the moment this entire mission had led up to; the moment where I get a firsthand account of the truth, which meant that if I stopped it from happening, I'd probably be pulled from fieldwork indefinitely.

The clock was ticking. Every second that passed was one less moment I would spend with Max still having positive feelings towards me, so I needed to cherish all of it. So I relished in the feeling of his fingers intertwined with mine and enjoyed the comfortable silence, even when we pulled off on the side of the road to scarf down our burgers and fries and sip our sodas.

It wasn't until we reached our destination – the Stafford family beach house – that he finally spoke.

"So," he said quietly once we were inside, sitting cross legged and facing each other on the large black leather couch in the living area. Under different circumstances, I probably would have enjoyed the space and the view of the beach through the glass doors a lot more. Right now all I wanted to do was run into the ocean and disappear. "We should probably talk."

I nodded, feeling my heartbeat becoming faster and faster with each passing second. "You said there was something you wanted to tell me."

"There is," he replied, though he paused, as though he wasn't sure how to continue. I'm sure he's spent the past couple hours mentally rehearsing exactly what he wanted to say, but in the moment, he couldn't remember any of it.

And that seemed like a blessing. Because if he couldn't say it, then maybe we could push this conversation to a later date.

"Max, it's okay," I assured him, reaching out to grab his hand, knowing that if Evan or the Director knew what I was doing, I'd be out of a job. "If you're not ready, you're not obligated to tell me anything."

"I know," he nodded, inhaling deeply, "but I want to."

"Why?" It was a fair question, I thought. I knew I was Max's girlfriend and that meant that I held some sort of power over the people in his father's organization, but it didn't mean that I deserved to know the details of said organization. Max was raised in a world of criminal activity, which meant that he was probably taught from a young age to be careful who he trusts. Although I knew that getting information out of him was my mission all along, it still made no sense that he would trust me, someone he'd known for only a few months, enough to reveal that kind of secret.

He placed his free hand on top of mine and spoke earnestly. "Because I care about you, Lexi. And if we're ever going to have a shot in hell of having a successful relationship, then we need to be honest with each other. So I want to tell you the truth."

A successful relationship. God I was an awful human being. He was on the verge of revealing a deep, dark secret to me because he thought that we stood a chance at being together for some time to come, because he thought it would bring us closer together. Little did he know that it would be this revelation that tore us apart.