Code Blue

Lexi vs. Parental Guidance

I couldn’t feel anything. Not my legs, not my arms, not the weight of my body sinking into the softest mattress ever. I felt weightless, like I was floating above the earth and my limbs were filled with butterflies, lifting me up and flying me away.

Until my eyes fluttered open and the sunlight blinded me and then suddenly, it was as though every muscle in my body was on fire. Groaning, I lifted my head from the pillow, squeezing my eyes shut and opening them once more to see that the other side of the bed was empty.

Flipping over, I pushed the covers off my body and slowly lowered my feet to the floor, wincing as I stood up straight and trudged towards the bathroom. Resting my hands on the counter top, I lifted my head to study my reflection in the mirror and immediately cringe in disgust. Despite having slept solidly for…well, I wasn’t actually sure how long, I looked like I’d just risen from the dead. Turning on the faucet, I splashed water in my face and dug through Max’s drawers to find a toothbrush so that I could brush my teeth and a few minutes later, I felt a little more human.

“Morning.”

I jumped at the sound of Max’s voice, but found myself smiling when I turned to see him emerging from his closet, buttoning up a white collared shirt, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “How’d you sleep?”

“Okay.” That probably was an accurate description. I’d tossed and turned a bit, but I’d had worse night sleeps. “Did you sleep at all?”

He had changed his clothes and his hair was shiny from being wet, indicating he’d already showered as well. Which meant he’d probably been up for a while, waiting for the arrival of his father.

“A little,” he shrugged, pushing himself off the doorframe and taking a step towards me, his lips kinking into a crooked smile. “I liked having you in my arms.”

“I liked being in your arms,” I replied automatically, though I realized about ten seconds later that it was actually true. It had been a long time since I’d been held the way Max held me last night; like I was the thing he cherished most in the world and he didn’t want to lose me. Stepping forward to meet him in the middle, I flattened my hands against his cotton covered chest and leaned in to press a soft kiss to his lips, wanting to kiss him as many times as I could before it was no longer an option. I couldn’t help the smile which brightened my face when we pulled apart, but it wasn’t long before it shifted to worry when I realized I’d been out of contact with Evan for far too long. “What time is it?”

Lifting one hand from my waist to dig his phone from his front pocket, he checked the time. “Almost ten-thirty.”

“s**t. I was supposed to meet Evan at 10 for breakfast,” I said, stepping around Max to go find my phone in the bedroom. That was a lie, but I had a habit of debriefing to Evan after every date with Max, so he had to be worried that he hadn’t heard from me in more than twelve hours. I found my phone on Max’s bedside table and checked the lock screen. “Yep, eight missed calls.”

“Call him back,” Max replied, pausing for a moment before continuing. “Can you do me a favor, though? Can you not tell him what happened? I just want all the facts.”

“You want me to lie to my brother?” Those words sounded extremely offended coming from the lips of someone who was going to end up telling Evan the truth either way. Not reporting the fact that I’d been tied up and interrogated was a serious breach of protocol.

“Just for now,” he pleaded. “For me.”

I supposed I could decide later how much to tell Evan. “Fine.”

“You’re the best,” he grinned, leaning forward to press a kiss to my cheek before turning towards the door. “I’m gonna go see if I can scrounge us up some breakfast. I’ll be right back.”

I waited until Max had turned down the hallway to sink onto the still unmade bed and call Evan, feeling super grimy from having been in the same clothes for so long.

“Allie, where the hell have you been?” Evan didn’t even bother greeting me when he answered the phone.

“It’s kind of a long story, but I’m alright,” I assured him.

“What happened?”

I knew that I should go into some sort of detail, because the agency would want to know everything that happened in that motel room, mostly to make sure I didn’t say anything to compromise the case. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything.

Max and I didn’t have much time together; I could feel it. The clock was running out and no matter how I explained myself, there wasn’t a version of this story where he wouldn’t end up feeling betrayed. So for however long we had left together, I wanted it to be real: I wanted something about our relationship to not be a complete lie.

So I said, “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” I could picture Evan tugging his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“I promised Max.”

I knew he wasn’t going to be happy with that answer. Sighing, he grumbled, “Lexi…”

“I know,” I scrunched up my nose apologetically, despite the fact that he couldn’t see me, “Just trust me, okay. I’m fine.”

“Fine.” He wasn’t fine with it, but he didn’t really have a choice. “Where are you?”

Another event I knew I’d have to be debriefed about eventually. “With Max. At his parents’ house.”

“Why?”

Considering he knew that I had a date with Max last night, it was perfectly natural that he was confused as to how I’d ended up at the Stafford mansion.

“I’m not sure, actually.” That wasn’t true. I knew Max wanted to confront his father about what happened to me, but I also knew that I couldn’t say that to Evan without going into further explanation about the motel room incident, so instead, I changed the subject. “Hey, what was your text last night about?”

Despite all the drama which had occurred in the past twenty-four hours, I did still remember the message I’d read from Evan right before everything went black. The numbers/letters mean something.

Of course, I already knew that, based purely on the fact that they were cryptic and handwritten and kept in Daniel’s personal office. The pictures I’d sent Evan from my second trip to Daniel’s office had consisted of papers with four digit numbers on them, also handwritten and obviously important. What I didn’t know was what it all meant.

“The numbers were dates, day and month, and the letters were designations for specific locations. It was a schedule for when and where shipments are being moved. We’re still working on specifying the wheres, but we think the second set of numbers might help narrow it down. And we’re sitting on the roller rink to see if we can find more concrete evidence that they’re holding a shipment there.”

“That’s great.” I wondered if he noticed that I didn’t sound nearly as enthusiastic about the mission being close to complete as I should have.

“Yeah, we’ve never been this close to catching Daniel Stafford in the act,” he continued. “Our intel suggests that he likes to oversee the movement of his shipments personally.”

He liked to be complete control. That explained why all of his orders were handwritten: there was less of a chance of it getting leaked. “If that’s the case, then nothing’s happening today, because he’s here right now.”

I actually wasn’t sure that was true. Claudia had mentioned Daniel would be back this morning, but she hadn’t specified a time. I just knew I had to wrap up this conversation before Max got back.

“Then why are you still on the phone with me?” Evan replied. “You should be doing spy stuff. Get to work.”

He hung up before I got the chance to respond and I sighed as I set my phone down on Max’s bedside table and wondered what to do next. Getting to work would mean actually leaving this room, but I didn’t want to leave if Max was on his way back, so I waited five minutes and when he still hadn’t returned, I tiptoed down the stairs, turning towards where I heard raised voices.

The hallway led up to a set of double doors, which opened into a dining room, but I paused and pressed my back against the wall when I recognized one of the voices as Max’s and the other as his father’s.

“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Daniel said calmly. I imagined him buttering a slice of toast as though nothing remotely traumatic had happened in the past few hours.

“Really?” Max countered, his tone seething with anger. “You had my girlfriend knocked unconscious, taken to a shitty ass motel, tied to a chair, and questioned by one of your thugs and you don’t see how that’s an issue?”

Daniel’s reply was completely nonchalant. “It comes with the territory.”

“What territory?” Max sputtered out, like me, unable to believe that his father could think nothing of having me abducted as I walked home. “Dating me? You’ve never done this before.”

“You’ve never called anyone your girlfriend before,” Daniel pointed out.

Krista had the same observation when I first met her at the ball and I wondered if maybe going the romantic route with Max had been a big mistake after all. Because apparently the change in the nature of his relationships was a huge cause for concern among his family.

“So you’re saying that you would do this to any girl I’d ever bring home?” Max asked, his voice quieter, but no less angry.

“No,” Daniel quipped, “just the ones that were caught snooping through my office and then claim they were just lost.”

I could practically hear Max rolling his eyes. “Did you ever consider that maybe, she was just lost? This house is gigantic.”

There was a moment of silence before Daniel responded. “You’re being awfully trusting of a girl you barely know.”

I hated to admit it, but Daniel was kind of right. Considering the Stafford family business, it was strange that Max was so willing to be open with me. Though, I guess he hadn’t been entirely open yet. He’d only talked about the family business vaguely, telling me no specifics about the empire he was about to inherit.

“And that’s a bad thing?” Max replied softly, as though attempting to quell my doubts as well, “You’re right, I haven’t known her long. But I like her. A lot. And I want to get to know her better. But that’s never gonna happen if she’s scared of getting kidnapped any time she opens the wrong door.”

His words hit me like a tidal wave as I realized, for the first time, that Max actually meant every single sweet thing he’d ever said to me. Up until this point, it was entirely possible that I was as much a pawn in his game as he was in mine, but one angry conversation with his father when he thought I wasn’t around proved that for him, everything that was happening between us was very much real.

My heart sang for a total of twelve seconds before I realized the how completely heartbreaking the ending of our story would now be and his father echoed the words I was repeating in my mind. “You should know better.”

Max let out a heavy sigh. “What I know is that I don’t want to turn out like you.”

“Be careful, son, you’re going to say something you regret,” Daniel’s tone was sharp and I imagined his gaze to be equally as pointed.

“I can’t imagine regretting saying any of this,” Max shot back, “I have to go.”

I took that as my cue to act as though I hadn’t been listening in on the conversation and sprinted back towards the staircase as quietly as I could. Inhaling deeply a couple times to control my breathing, I wandered towards the dining room, smiling brightly when Max stepped into the hallway, looking anything but pleased. “Hey, I was wondering where you went.”

His expression slowly shifted from frustration to guilt as he came to a stop in front of me, his hands immediately reaching out to grab ahold of mine. “Sorry, I got sidetracked. Do you mind if we get food on the road? I wanna get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Sure,” I nodded. After what I’d just overheard, actually seeing Daniel would be decidedly uncomfortable. But I was starving and I needed sustenance, so I made a suggestion as Max and I made our way up the stairs, back to his room. “There’s this great diner on the way back to campus.”

I figured he wouldn’t care where we went as long as it was far away from his father, but he paused in the doorway of his room, watching as I grabbed my purse and phone and shoes, reaching up with one hand to scratch the back of my head. “Actually, there’s somewhere I want to take you, if that’s alright with you. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Of course,” I replied immediately, smiling when he stepped forward to press a soft kiss to my lips before grabbing my hand and tugging me into the hallway.

I felt my heart drop as I allowed him to lead me down the stairs and out of the house to where his car was parked around back. I felt my heart ache when I knew I should be happy, feeling more conflicted than I’d felt thus far. Because I could read Max and I could feel the shifts in his emotions and I already knew what was coming next: he was going to tell me the truth about everything.