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Max doesn’t pretend he doesn’t understand what I’m asking. “Yes.”
“You fucking found me.”
“I did.”
I set my coffee down before I spill it. “You tracked me down in real life, walked up to me like we’d never met and then invited me to your studio.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds—”
“Fucking insane?”
“Yeah. A little.”
I stare at him, waiting for the rest, and for once Max doesn’t try to joke his way through the silence.
“I wasn’t trying to manipulate you into becoming my friend, Nash. By then, you’d already moved on from the first man you were investigating and were getting yourself into things I couldn’t protect you from behind a computer. I could show you how to hide your searches and keep someone from tracing you online, but once you closed the laptop, I had no idea where you went or what you were doing.”
“So you decided the reasonable solution was stalking me.”
“I prefer finding.”
“Of course you fucking do.”
His mouth twitches, but whatever he sees on my face keeps him from smiling. “I wanted to make sure you were okay without giving you Zee’s identity. The coffee shop gave me a way to meet you without explaining how I knew who you were.”
“And the studio?”
“That gave me a reason to see you again if you chose to come.”
I lean back against the couch and think about that first meeting. Max hadn’t pushed himself on me. He talked to me while we waited for our coffee, mentioned the studio and left me with the choice of whether I ever showed up. I did, and after that, our friendship developed so naturally that I’ve never had a reason to question how it started.
That doesn’t make finding out the truth three years later any less fucked up.
“How long were you planning to keep an eye on me?”
“I didn’t have a plan. I wanted to meet you and make sure the person I was helping online wasn’t going to get himself hurt doing something I couldn’t see.” Max leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “I wasn’t expecting you to show up at the studio and keep coming back. I definitely wasn’t expecting you to become my best friend.”
“But I did.”
“Yeah, you did. Everything after that was real, Nash. I need you to understand that.”
I do understand it. Max has been there for too much of my life for me to believe three years of friendship was some elaborate cover story, but understanding that doesn’t erase the fact that he knew exactly who I was from the first second we met, while I knew nothing about him.
“You still should’ve fucking told me.”
“I should have.”
At least he has enough sense not to argue with me about that.
There’s still one part I can’t make fit. “You could’ve helped me with that first target and walked away. Instead, you found me in person and spent three years making sure I didn’t get myself killed. Why?”
The humor disappears from Max’s face. He looks down at the mug between his hands, turning it slightly before he answers. “I told you before that I lost someone.”
I remember the few times he’s mentioned it, usually when something about Joey brought us too close to places neither of us likes spending much time. Max never gave me a name or told me what happened, and I never asked because he gave me the same space with Joey.
“My sister,” he says. “She was with someone who hurt her. I knew enough to hate the bastard, but not enough to understand how bad things had gotten until there was nothing I could do about it.”
Hearing that changes where my thoughts are going. “She died?”
