Max turned to Nina with a look of horror. He felt mortified. He rushed to apologize and explain, "I'm so sorry, Nina! I didn't mean to, you know, before we... you... had a chance to..."

Nina smiled, shrugged, and reached over him to her nightstand. She grabbed a handful of tissues and started cleaning them up. "It's okay, Max."

Nina's attempt to reassure him wasn't comforting at all. Failure gripped at him. Panic gushed out in a jumbled flurry of words, "No, it's not okay! I fucked it up. What just happened was completely my fault. You... deserve so much better! You deserve to be with someone who can... treat you way better than me!"

The world closed in on him. Max felt crushed.

What the hell had he been thinking?

He should've stayed in his own fucking lane and left well enough alone. A loser like him had no business sniffing around a Perfect Ten like Nina. She was probably beyond disappointed. He dropped the ball on the one thing that he should've been decent at—fucking. It was the one thing he could've done to make her feel good. He had to go and ruin it by nutting all over her before she even removed her panties. Max's head began to spin.

"Max? Max!"

Nina rested a hand on his cheek and guided his face back towards her. She stared deeply into his eyes. "Hey. Hey! What the fuck is going on with you?"

Max glanced over to Nina. Suddenly, his world refocused. For some reason, Nina was looking at him with genuine affection. She looked at him as though he wasn't a complete piece of shit. She was looking at him as though she didn't care that he ejaculated into her hand like a goddamn V-card holding noob before they even got to the main event.

"Can you please tell me what is going on with you? I swear, I don't care about what happened two minutes ago. I know you can make it up to me later. I just want to make sure that you're okay before we do anything else."

Her honey-brown eyes glistened with worry, but there was a soul-searing warmth in her gaze that called to him powerfully. Nina pulled Max into her arms and let him rest his head upon her bare chest. Her boobs felt pillowy and soft and warm against his cheek. Max's resolve began to crumble. He hesitated. "I..."

Nina started running her fingers through his light brown curls as she waited for him to continue. Her touch felt nice and soothing. Slowly, quietly, Max exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled again. Some of the anxiety he had been holding in dissipated through these very breaths.

Max started haltingly, "That night, in the parking lot—"

His voice caught again. Nina didn't say anything to prompt Max, but her attention was focused entirely on his person. The weight of her gaze felt intense as hell, but it wasn't unwelcome or off-putting. Not at all. If anything, Nina was giving Max the motivation to forge ahead with the ugly details of what he was about to reveal about his past.

"Something triggered me that night. I think... it might have been all the people in masks. I don't really like Halloween... because of this reason. Back in high school, there was this kid named Ryan. He... liked to give me a hard time. I'm not even 100% sure why he hated me so much. I guess something about me rubbed him the wrong way. Anyway, one night, on my way home from a football game... a bunch of guys in masks... jumped me. They left me in pretty bad shape. I needed stitches in the ER. I'm not even sure if Ryan and his buddies were the ones who did it. I never got to see their faces behind the masks, but, last night, when we went to the haunted house, I felt like I was reliving those moments all over again. I guess... I'm still shaken up about it."

Nina's arms tightened around him, hugging him close to her body, as her face crumpled with distress. "Oh, Max... I swear, sometimes, you're such an idiot! I wish you would've told me this sooner!"

"You're right," Max agreed in mumbly tones. "I am a fucking idiot. I don't know why you put up with me."

"I put up with you," Nina countered passionately, "because you're my fucking idiot."

Max's heart sped up. Joy fluttered through his veins. Nina's endearing declaration tugged at the corners of his mouth. Despite the mass of conflicting emotions he was wrestling with at the moment, a genuine, heartfelt smile spread across his face. "Hey, Nina?"

"Yes, Max?"

"I never want to go to a haunted house again."

She laughed. "Done! I promise I'll never drag you to another haunted house, or any other Halloween-inspired event, for that matter, like, ever again. As long as you promise to tell me whenever something is really bothering you. Okay?"

He nodded. "Okay. I think... I can do that."

Nina pecked him on the lips. She smiled shyly. "In case you haven't figured it out by now, Max... I like you. I like you when you're being an idiot. I like you when you're being a smartass. I like you when you're being a sweetheart. And I especially like you when you're just being yourself... and honest... around me."

The feelings that Nina's confession wrung from his heart felt so intense that Max didn't know quite what to do with them. It was like winning a billion-dollar lottery after living in poverty for his whole life.

Vaguely, he wondered if this was what it felt like to fall in love?

All of a sudden, Max couldn't seem to get close enough to Nina. Words couldn't seem to do justice to how Max felt about her. So, Max cupped Nina's face tenderly between his hands. He leaned over to kiss her. He kissed her with every speck of every particle of the thick, rich, heady emotion that he felt for this smart, kind, spirited, beautiful girl. He poured every ounce of his affection, his respect, his awe, his wonder for her into the kiss, and, to his utter surprise and delight, Nina kissed him back with more enthusiasm than he could've ever hoped for.

She made him feel like the luckiest man in the world.

Max didn't dare voice it out loud yet, but he suspected an emotion this deep and strong could only be called—love.