The Rampage MC #4: Max and Briony

Chapter 11 (Briony): That'd Be My Guess

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

Having Max follow me into the house was a bit unreal, not to mention completely disconcerting. It'd been a year since we'd spent any time together, and yet it hadn't seemed like that much time had passed. Honestly, I wasn't even sure why he was here after all this time. Simply to apologize? To let me work out my anger at him with a baseball bat? For whatever reason, his presence was throwing me off kilter since I wasn't even sure why I'd let him in my house or agreed to talk. How was it possible to be so angry at someone, so angry even a year after the fact, and still have such intense feelings for the man? He'd left me to go help fucking Wendie, left despite my begging him to stay with me and my heart still was doing strange things at the sight of him. This was the man who had ignored my pleas and walked out his front door, allowing the monster to take his chance and burst in not long after Max's taillights had disappeared. My mind was perfectly clear on how I should feel, but my heart was a different story.

I turned to him once we were inside, deciding not to offer him a seat or anything to drink since this wasn't that kind of visit. I wasn't sure if this was his forgiveness tour or what he could possibly want. All I knew was I needed to steel myself, get through this discussion and get him to leave. How I felt didn't matter. My feelings were my problem to control, and control them I would in front of this man.

"Go ahead, Max. Say what you came here to say."

Why, Max? Why couldn't you have loved me?

"I wanted you to go first," he said. "You deserve to get the emotions you've been holding onto the last year off your chest. You never had the chance, really."

"You're assuming I have any feelings left for you. You're assuming that, a year later, what happened is any more than a horrible memory. The moment you walked out your door to go to Wendie -- the very moment you chose her over me -- that one action alone killed any feelings I might have had for you."

I was actually hoping that would happen. Someday soon. But in the meantime, I didn't have to let him know I was pathetic. That was a secret I could keep to myself because the thought of anyone, other than Rie, knowing how I felt, humiliated me.

"You left me, Max. We'd just had sex, you were talking sweetly to me, and then Wendie called and you went running. I begged you to stay and you left me. You were in such a hurry to get to her you couldn't even wait for Darren to show up. All because you thought your ex-girlfriend was in danger. I didn't mean anything to you, and that became crystal clear in that moment. Wiped my blinders clean off. Maybe that was on me for letting it go on so long, for not saying something sooner about you constantly helping Wendie, for not giving you an ultimatum to choose one of us."

"Bri, this isn't on you at all in any way. You shouldn't have had to say anything or give me an ultimatum -- I should have stopped running to help Wendie on my own. And I'm sorry, Bri. I'm so sorry. Had I known --"

"You did know, Max!" I snapped out, then immediately told myself to dial it back. Getting all fired up would let him know I still had feelings. "Your MC was asked to protect me because I had a seriously crazy ex. I even told you I felt like I was being watched and you dismissed it."

"You were being watched -- by everyone on security detail in the MC. That's what I thought you were picking up on. Had I known we had a perimeter breach, I would have never left you. Never. I thought you were completely safe on the Rampage grounds. We had so many security measures in place, it never once occurred to me that anyone could get to you. I thought Wendie was the one in danger -- getting hit by another car, having to fight off some stranger who stopped to help. I thought she needed me."