LOGINShare
Chapter Two
publish date:
2026-07-29 08:53:53Chapter Two: Grounded
The flashing blue and red lights painted the brick walls of the convenience store parking lot in violent streaks of color.
Maximilian Elsher sat on the curb with his hands cuffed behind his back, his head hanging low. The cold metal bit into his wrists, but he barely noticed.
He'd been arrested before.
Just never like this.
A police officer stood over him, flipping through a small evidence bag. Inside were several pills in a clear plastic container and two tightly rolled joints.
"You know how old you are?" the officer asked.
Max didn't answer.
"I'm talking to you."
"Sixteen."
"So you know you're underage."
A shrug.
The officer sighed. "Whose drugs are these?"
Max stared at the pavement.
"They're mine."
"They're not yours, are they?"
Silence.
The truth was they belonged to one of his friends, but there wasn't a chance Max was going to snitch.
The officer shook his head.
"You kids think loyalty is taking the fall for someone who'd leave you behind without thinking twice."
Max laughed bitterly.
"What makes you think they left me behind?"
The officer looked toward the empty parking lot.
"There wasn't anyone here when we arrived, was there?"
That answer stung more than Max expected.
His friends had scattered the moment the police cruiser pulled in.
No one looked back.
No one called.
No one stayed.
Just like always.
---
The ride to the precinct was painfully quiet.
Max leaned against the window, watching city lights blur into streaks.
He wondered how long it would take before his mother found out.
Probably not long.
She always found out.
---
Nearly an hour later, the desk sergeant looked up from his paperwork.
"Your mother's here."
Max closed his eyes.
Great.
A few moments later, Sarah Elsher walked through the station doors.
She looked exhausted.
Her dark hair was hastily tied into a bun, and she still wore hospital scrubs beneath a long cardigan. One sleeve had a faint stain that looked like coffee. She'd obviously come straight from work.
She stopped when she saw him.
For a second, there was nothing on her face.
No anger.
No disappointment.
Just heartbreak.
Somehow...
That was worse.
She quietly signed the paperwork without speaking.
Paid the bail.
Thanked the officers.
Then turned to Max.
"Let's go."
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
---
The drive home was silent.
Sarah kept both hands on the steering wheel.
Max slouched in the passenger seat, staring out the window.
The silence stretched until it became unbearable.
Finally Sarah spoke.
"Drugs?"
"It wasn't a big deal."
She laughed once.
A short, humorless sound.
"You were arrested."
"I said it wasn't a big deal."
"You could have been charged."
"I wasn't."
"You could have overdosed."
"I didn't."
"You could have—"
"But I didn't!"
His shout filled the car.
Sarah's grip tightened on the steering wheel.
"You think this is a joke?"
"I think you're overreacting."
She slammed on the brakes at a red light and turned toward him.
"Overreacting?"
Her voice shook.
"I got a phone call in the middle of my shift telling me my sixteen-year-old son had been arrested."
People in nearby cars glanced over.
She didn't care.
"I spent the last twelve hours taking care of strangers, then left work wondering if my child was hurt, bleeding, or dead."
Max looked away.
Instead of softening, Sarah continued.
"And I find you sitting in a police station acting like this is an inconvenience."
"I said I'm fine."
"No."
She swallowed hard.
"You're not."
The light turned green.
She drove on.
Neither of them spoke again until they reached home.
---
The house felt unusually quiet.
Sarah tossed her keys onto the kitchen counter before turning to face him.
"Phone."
"What?"
"Give me your phone."
"No."
"Max."
"No."
She held out her hand.
"Now."
After several tense seconds, he pulled the phone from his hoodie pocket and dropped it into her palm.
"Your car keys."
"I need my car."
"You lost that privilege."
"I have plans, I've got school."
"You should have thought about those before getting arrested."
Max scoffed.
"This is ridiculous."
"So is getting arrested with drugs."
She held out her hand again.
He hesitated before fishing the keys from his pocket.
She placed them beside the phone.
"You're grounded."
He barked out a laugh.
"I'm sixteen."
"And you're acting six."
"You can't keep me here forever."
"No? Watch me."
Her eyes met his.
"For the next month, school and home. That's it."
"A month?"
"Six weeks."
"What?"
"You want to argue?"
He clenched his jaw.
"This is bullshit."
Sarah flinched.
Not because of the words.
Because of the venom behind them.
"I've done everything for you."
"I never asked you to."
The words landed like a slap.
For a moment neither of them moved.
Sarah blinked rapidly.
"Since your father left, I've worked two jobs."
Silence.
"I've missed birthdays."
Silence.
"I've missed holidays."
Silence.
"I've missed sleep."
Her voice cracked.
"So you could have a roof over your head."
Max folded his arms.
"I didn't ask for that either."
The room went deathly still.
Sarah looked at him for several long seconds.
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I know you're angry."
"I'm not angry."
"Then tell me what you are."
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Because he didn't know.
He wasn't angry.
Not really.
He was tired.
Lonely.
Lost.
But admitting that felt impossible.
So instead he shrugged.
"I don't know."
Sarah nodded slowly.
"I think you do."
She picked up his phone and keys.
"You'll get these back when you've earned my trust."
He rolled his eyes.
"Whatever."
He brushed past her, taking the stairs two at a time.
His bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the picture frames downstairs.
Sarah remained standing in the kitchen.
For a long time, she simply stared at the closed bedroom door.
Then she sank into one of the dining chairs, covered her face with both hands, and finally let herself cry.
Upstairs, Max lay flat on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
His room suddenly felt smaller than ever.
His phone was gone.
His keys were gone.
His freedom was gone.
And despite everything he'd said, he couldn't stop thinking about the moment the police lights had flashed across the parking lot.
His friends hadn't even hesitated.
They had run.
They hadn't called.
They hadn't come back.
For the first time in a long while, Max wondered if he had been trying so hard to belong to people who had never really wanted him there in the first place.
Latest chapter
Somewhere in the silence Chapter Fifty one
Nate had discovered that there was a difference between wanting someone and trusting them.Wanting Max had arrived slowly, inconveniently, and with enough denial to fill several lifetimes.Trust was different.Trust required surrender.Not the dramatic kind.Not the kind that belonged in movies or love songs.It was smaller than that.Trust was letting someone see you when you weren't trying to look composed.It was letting them touch your face when you were tired.It was falling asleep beside them without wondering what would happen if you closed your eyes.It was believing that when you said no, they would listen.And lately, Nate had been learning how much trust lived inside a simple touch.They had become almost impossible to keep apart when they were alone.A hand on Nate's knee while they watched television.Fingers brushing through his hair.Max's palm resting against the back of Nate's neck.Nate's fingers finding Max's almost automatically whenever they sat beside each other.
Somewhere in the silence Chapter Fifty
The problem with secrets, Nate discovered, was that they became easier to keep the longer you kept them.It definitely gets harder to reveal the longer you keep them.At least, that was what he had told himself.The first few days had been simple.He and Max had been careful.They had followed the rules.No obvious touching around Micah.No disappearing together for suspicious lengths of time.No messages that would look incriminating if someone happened to glance at a phone.No lingering looks across the dinner table.They had been cautious.Responsible.Almost professional.Then they had gotten comfortable.That was the problem.Comfort made people careless.And Nate was beginning to realize that happiness made him especially careless.It was impossible to hide happiness as easily as he had expected.He had spent months being miserable.Months dragging himself through mornings.Months waking up tired and going to bed exhausted, even when he had barely done anything.Months carrying
Somewhere in the silence Chapter Fourty nine
Nate had never expected his first date with Max to require a map.Not because the place was difficult to find.Because Nate needed to make sure nobody else could accidentally spot them.He sat in his car outside the house on Friday evening, engine running, staring at the navigation app on his phone.Too close.He zoomed out.Still too close.He searched again-The restaurant he had originally chosen was twenty minutes from home.Too risky.He deleted it.Another one.Thirty-five minutes.Better.He searched the movie theater next.Forty minutes away.Perfect.Nate stared at the screen.He felt ridiculous.He was a grown man. A doctor. A man who had spent years making decisions under pressure, standing in hospital corridors while families waited for news, walking into rooms where everyone expected him to know what to do.Yet he had spent the last fifteen minutes trying to determine how far from home he needed to drive to take his boyfriend to dinner without running into his best friend
Somewhere in the silence Chapter Fourty eight
That was how their evenings began to change.They would talk for hours.Sometimes about nothing.Sometimes about everything.Max told Nate stories from school.Nate complained about residency.Max teased him about how seriously he took his coffee.Nate mocked Max's music choices.They laughed quietly so Sarah wouldn't hear.Sometimes there were kisses.Sometimes there were long stretches of silence where Max rested against Nate and Nate ran his fingers absently through his hair.Sometimes the closeness became more difficult to ignore.That night, it happened slowly.They were sitting on Nate's bed, talking about the future.Max had asked where Nate wanted to live after residency.Nate had given some vague answer about whichever hospital offered him a position.Max had frowned."That's n
Somewhere in the silence Chapter Fourty seven
Nate had always believed that secrets were supposed to feel heavy.They were things you carried in the back of your mind, tucked beneath ordinary conversations and harmless smiles, waiting for the moment they became too heavy to hold.This one didn't.Not at first.At first, it felt almost absurdly light.It was sitting beside Max at breakfast while Sarah moved around the kitchen, humming under her breath.It was Max's knee touching his beneath the table.It was the brief pressure of fingers against his palm when Sarah turned toward the stove.It was looking across the table and seeing something nobody else in the room could see.Nate tried not to smile.He failed.Max noticed immediately.His mouth curved.You're smiling.Nate shook his head.I'm not.Max's eyes dropped deliberately to Nate's mouth.Then back up.You are.Nate kicked him lightly beneath the table.Max's grin widened.Sarah glanced over her shoulder."What's funny?""Nothing," Nate said too quickly.Max picked up his
Somewhere in the silence Chapter Fourty six
Nate woke before the alarm.For several seconds, he didn't know where he was.The room was dim, washed in the pale gray of early morning. Somewhere beyond the curtains, the world was beginning to stir. A bird called once from outside, followed by the distant sound of a car moving along the road.Then Nate felt the warmth beside him.He turned his head.Max was asleep.The sight of him brought everything back.Last night.The kissing.His decision.The things they had done to each others bodies.Nate stared at him.He had seen Max asleep countless times before.On the couch.In the back seat of Micah's car when they were younger.Curled beneath blankets during movie nights.But this was different.Everything about it felt different now.Nate remained still, afraid that moving too quickly might break something.Max's face was peaceful in sleep. Without the usual teasing smile or confident expression, he looked younger somehow—not like a child, Nate reminded himself, but simply softer. H
You May Also Like
My Rival My lover
glorypens24.5K viewsThe Brother I Shouldn’t Want
StarsTouch pen19.2K viewsKnot My Alpha
J. Tarr41.7K viewsA Different Kind of Alpha: Blood Oath
Quinn Montclair22.6K viewsMY FATHER’S STICK
T.Maryann163 viewsThe Hockey Captain Secret Crush
Author klaus115 viewsKnight's Sacred Burden
R.so563 viewsMy Rival Alpha Knows I'm an Omega
keery joe855 views
