Maple point mavericks, p.1
Maple Point Mavericks, page 1
MAPLE POINT MAVERICKS
BROTHERS OF MAPLE POINT
K.B. SAINT
CONTENTS
Trigger Warning
Playlist
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Maple Point Mavericks
Copyright © 2022 by K. B. Saint
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
TRIGGER WARNING
This book is dark romance, with bullying, dub con, forced proximity, lovers to enemies to lovers, and is an interracial romance. There are triggering topics dealing with sexual assault, mental health struggles, and miscarriage. It has a HEA ending.
To those who believe in second chances.
You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare. Either way, I don’t wanna wake up from you.
—Beyonce
PLAYLIST
1. Polygraph Eyes—YUNGBLUD
2. The Lighthouse—Halsey
3. Good Girl Gone Bad—Rihanna
4. Something to Someone—Dermot Kennedy
5. Control—Zoe Wees
6. Sweet Dreams––Beyoncé
7. Thousand Miles—The Kid LAROI
8. Until the Day I Die—Story of the Year
9. More—Halsey
10. Stay—Jordan Mitchell
11. Breakfast—Dove Cameron
12. Petty Too—Lil Durk, Future
13. Break My Soul––Beyoncé
14. Heart Games––HARLOR
To listen to the full playlist please head to Spotify.
PROLOGUE
ANALISE
I open my eyes and stare at the chipping white cinderblocks for a few seconds until I’m able to orient myself enough to recover from the dream I was having before I woke up. I’ve been here at Cronin Psychiatric Hospital for a while and my dreams have been overly vivid on a good night and downright terrible on bad ones. I never know what to expect as I fall asleep at night, but this morning I wish I’d never gone to sleep.
My dream was about him again, and it felt so real. I was in his arms and genuinely happy. I hate the dreams like this never make me feel better because I have no idea when I’ll be able to feel so at home again. The white paint in front of me is a giant fuck your feelings and only serves as a reminder I’m stuck here and not one person cares what I want right now.
They just want to fix me.
What if I don’t want to be fixed? I don’t care anything about any of it. I want him. I just want him.
So many things have happened to get me into the headspace I’m in but being away from Enzo has been one of the worst. The way we were wrapped into each other doesn’t make for an easy departure; it makes for a horrible life. After so many months away, I still long for his touch every day and I hate everyone here for the simple fact they aren’t him.
“Checks,” Yolanda says after opening the door. I roll to face her, and she smiles. “Good morning, Ana.”
I don’t respond but she nods and closes the door as if I did. I look over to the empty bed and wonder how much happier I’d be if I still had Delilah as a roommate. I’ve done everything she told me to do while she was here yet I’m still sitting in this room when she got out months ago. I think it’s mostly due to me spending so much time refusing to talk to anyone, but I don’t care, I just want to get the fuck out of this place.
They’ve been trying to make sure I’ll be okay if they let me leave. I know I will be, but they didn’t believe anything I said when I got here, so I’m sure they don’t believe me now. As soon as I can hold up the front of being okay, I’m hoping they’ll be happy to release me but I’m starting to think no matter what I do they’ll never let me out.
I hate it here.
After getting up, standing in line for my meds, and going to breakfast I find myself in the common room watching TV with three of the other girls. We don’t have group therapy for a while so we’re all just waiting around until then. No one talks but I guess sitting in here beats sitting in your room with nothing to watch.
“Analise,” Yolanda says when she walks into the common room. “The doc wants to see you, baby.”
The other girls look over at me, curious as ever, but their guess is as good as mine. I have no idea why Doctor Knox wants to see me. I don’t want to see him.
I get up and without a word follow Yolanda up the steps to Doc’s office. She leaves me in the waiting room with the new assistant and all I do is stare at her while I wait. I know it’s making her squirm in her seat because she keeps looking at me and then away quickly, but it’s been fun to keep her on edge every time I’ve come up here in the last week. I don’t care if she’s uncomfortable because I am perfectly comfortable staring at her.
When the door opens, I peer up at Doctor Knox and notice his eyebrows pulling together as his eyes narrow. I know he hates when I mess with people but I just grin and stand, before following him into his office. He shakes his head at me but doesn’t say anything. He’s always such a stiff dickhead.
“What’s up, Doc?”
“Please have a seat, Analise,” he tells me, pulling the chair to his desk out.
I sit down in one of the chairs on the wall directly in front of his desk and once he’s settled in his seat, he clasps his hands and begins to talk to me. “After an extensive meeting with your parents, we have decided that you are ready enough to leave our facility and seek outpatient services back in Maple Point. You’ve shown great improvement over the last few months, and we are confident the tools you’ve finally allowed yourself to learn will help you in your life going forward.”
“So… I’m going home?” I ask. I have been the same way for months; I don’t know why they’re just now approving me to leave.
He nods. “I’m very proud of you.”
I don’t believe him but none of my feelings about this place matter anymore because I’m finally going home.
“When?” I ask, with more questions in my brain than anything else.
“Your parents are headed here now,” he explains and I damn near leap out of my seat and run to pack my things. He notices. “You will head straight to discharge counseling from here and by the end of the day you should be back in your bed at home.”
————
On my first night back, I argued with my parents about giving me my phone back, but in the end, they agreed, and my mom brought me a new phone the next morning. Enzo was the first person I texted, but I didn’t quite get the welcome home I hoped for.
I’ve only been back in Maple Point for three days now and the number of hateful messages I’ve gotten from him is startling, to say the least. I don’t know why he’s so upset. If he would listen to me, maybe he would understand better, but I know one thing, he doesn’t seem very happy to have me back in his town.
Our senior year is already underway and the nerves I feel being back in Maple Point after leaving him high and dry last year are astronomical. I know he won’t want to hear why I had to leave the way I did, my mother and therapist warned me as such, but I am determined to get him to understand. I know it will be the only way I can get him back.
And I do want him back.
He was one of the only things I thought about while I was away at Cronin. He got me through the endless hours of pointless therapy every day and long sleepless nights I spent alone. I know he has no idea about any of it, my parents have made sure of it, but I must prove it to him somehow. I have to show him I’m nothing like his mother. I never wanted to leave him behind. I never wanted to do what she did to him.
But I did.
I left and no matter how many tantrums he threw, my mom never told him where I was. I could tell him now, but I don’t want him to know. I’m still not ready to tell anyone but I am sure they will find out at some point. Not much stays a secret for very long in Maple Point, especially when your family is connected to The Brotherhood.
I did learn a lot while I was gone, and nerves and hateful texts aside, I am happy to be home again. I have no idea how returning will be, but I’m ready to face the music with school too.
Will everyone welcome me back with open arms, no questions asked? Or will they act how Enzo has since I got home?
Enzo’s response doesn’t make me hopeful but there’s only one way to know and after all these months of wondering, I am ready to find out.
CHAPTER ONE
ANALISE
I should’ve expected nothing but the third degree from everyone. I should’ve known the looks I’d get coming back completely unannounced would be bad. I was hoping to slip in unnoticed, but deep in my mind, I knew I was only kidding myself. My mom’s family is one of the founding families of the school, so thinking I would be able to come back quietly was stupid. I know this now.
My first day back has been lonely. Except for my cousin, Ivy, and a few teachers, no one has spoken a word to me. While I’m thankful for them leaving me alone I can see the questions in the stares they’ve given me. I wouldn’t have an answer for their interrogations anyway. I prefer not to tell anyone what happened to me last summer and I don’t want to explain where I’ve been.
“So,” Ivy says as she walks up next to me. “How has your first day back been?”
I scoff as she tucks some of her dark hair behind her ear. Stares at me with a hopeful smile on her face but she knows the answer already.
“Ivy, you don’t have to keep checking on me,” I tell her. “I know my mother put you up to this.”
“She may have said something, but I’m checking on you because I care too,” she tells me, wrapping her arm around me. “And I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I tell her. And I did. “But you might want to watch where you talk to me. People seem to be steering clear.”
She sighs. “So, you’ve noticed?”
“Why are they avoiding me like I have the plague?” I ask. As soon as the words leave my lips, I want to retract them. I don’t say as much before she responds. “I just left for a little while and now I’m back.”
“Lorenzo…” She starts drawing his name out. “He may still be a little mad with how you left him last year.”
“Yeah, no shit,” I say more to myself than to her. “I had a few messages in my inbox this morning warning me not to come to school, but it’s not like I have a choice. My parents have no idea he’s mad and I honestly thought he would be happier to have me back.”
“He’s just being a dick,” she tells me, looking over at me apologetically. “I’m sorry, Ana.”
“It’s okay, I knew this wasn’t going to be easy in the slightest, but the whole time I was away I just wanted to see him and it’s clear he does not want to see me. You didn’t tell him where I went, right?” I ask, pleading with my eyes for her to tell me she didn’t slip up and say anything she shouldn’t have.
Ivy only knows where I went. She doesn’t know why, though, and she probably never will. I don’t plan on telling anyone because I’ve lived here my whole life and I know good and well how the social scene here works. Word travels faster than ever now with social media being a thing and secrets don’t stay hidden for long in Maple Point. I do not need my personal life spewed all over the internet. I trust Ivy a lot but she tends to let things slip a little too often for my comfort.
“I would never,” she says, releasing me. “Not like he hasn’t asked me a million times though. I’m pretty sure he hates me even more now, which is why I don’t care who sees me talking to you. Nothing will make him dislike me more than he already does.”
“Sorry,” I tell her, but she catches me.
“You will not be apologizing for anything, remember?” she asks, bumping into me. “You did what you had to do for yourself. Don’t forget.”
“I know, I just left you with a mess, and while I was away I never even thought about the effect my decisions to not cooperate may have had on you. Maybe I should’ve just stayed gone.”
“And missed our senior year? No way. I’m glad you’re back and all these people will soon see getting you back was the best thing to ever happen to us. The swim team hasn’t been the same since you left.”
I don’t know how much of her speech I believe, but I do my best to play along anyway. “Well, let’s see if I can even get back on the team before we go assuming everyone is going to love having me.”
I’ve contemplated not going to the dining hall to get lunch for the last ten minutes but as I continue to walk in the wrong direction my stomach growls louder and louder.
At Cronin our meals were served like clockwork, it was supposed to create a routine, but since being back, the routine they indoctrinated in us only seemed to create annoyance in me. I don’t always want to eat at the times they had us eat there, but my body does not care about what my stomach wants. I’m hungry on time, every time, and I wish I’d just brought my lunch today so I wouldn’t have to go to face all the stares in the dining hall.
I could’ve; I know mother would’ve had something made for me if I had asked, but I don’t want to feel like a burden, so I didn’t bother. I know going to get food really won’t be so bad, but I don’t want to face him at all. I’m sure he is waiting on me.
Ivy did warn me but the louder my stomach growls the less I care. I just want to eat.
Taking a left, I tell myself that seeing him won’t be so bad, but I’m startled when I look up and see him coming right for me. Olivia—my ex-best friend—and his twin brother Cash are a few steps behind him. I know he sees me, but Cash is the first to acknowledge me.
“Well, if it isn’t the girl who disappears,” Cash jokes. “Where you been, Ana?”
They stop in front of me, Olivia eyeing me with her lips turned down and her eyebrows pulled together like she isn’t standing in the very spot I used to stand between the two Akardi brothers.
I should be disgusted with her, but I do my best to remember I am the one who left. I’m the one who lost my place. Not her.
“I’ve been around, here and there,” I tell him, clearly lying. Everyone standing in front of me knows it.
“Why didn’t you just stay gone?” Olivia asks. “Would’ve been better than stirring up all of this trouble…again.”
“I could’ve,” I nod, seeming to think about the offer she’s so graciously given me. “But see, I have a family that actually wants me, Olivia, which is why I came back.”
“Well, no one here at school wants you anymore. Just so you know,” she says, the sweetness in her tone not matching her words at all.
I hear what she’s saying but I don’t want to believe her. I have to talk to Lorenzo and see if it’s the truth. I know what he said in his messages but when I look up at him, talking doesn’t seem like much of an option. The texts I got yesterday and this morning made things a little clearer, but I still had hope before now. I don’t think he’ll crack in front of others.
I’ll have to catch him alone.
“Cash,” he says, never taking his eyes off of me, “Take Olivia back to the dining hall.”
Perfect. It’s like he can read my mind.
Olivia acts offended, her mouth popping open and her hand going to her chest as she looks up at him. She’s never been one to take orders but surprisingly doesn’t protest.
They’re definitely fucking.
She’s never given me any reason to think she wouldn’t go after him the day I stepped away, but I can’t lie and say it being confirmed in my face like this doesn’t sting.
“Text me if you need me,” Cash says, eyeing me as he turns to go back in the direction they came from.
Lorenzo nods but his attention hasn’t left me since I came around the corner. I look past him at Olivia. She’s staring back at us as she walks with Cash. It’s like he knows the exact moment they go around the corner because as soon as I can no longer see them, he attacks. My back hits the wall hard and he’s in my face seconds later gripping the bottom of my face in one hand and holding me to the wall with his other.
