Chapter Twenty-Seven – Maddie

 

I smile absently to myself as I make my way out of class. I hug my books to my chest, and my hair falls to the side, hiding one side of my face. Ever since I spent the afternoon at the beach with Braden yesterday, I've felt better than I have in a long time. I'd like to believe it was the mix of sun, sea, and sand, but I'd be lying.

I'm pretty sure he is the main cause of my happiness.

“Hey, Maddie.” Kyle falls into step beside me.

“Hey. How are you?” I glance up at him, thinking – not for the first time – it's a shame I don't see him as anything other than a friend. Though he's not as built as Braden, his chestnut-brown, wavy hair and equally brown eyes are captivating, all the same. He's taller than me, shorter than Braden, but he has a good heart and I know he'll make someone a great boyfriend one day.

But why am I comparing him to Braden?

“Good. Look, I'm sorry if you guys ended up fighting on Friday. I never realized Braden was so.... So....”

“Protective?” I offer dryly, echoing Braden's word.

“Um, sure.”

“Don't worry about it.” I bump his shoulder. “He just.... I don't know.” I shrug.

“I have no doubt you put him straight, anyway.” He grins at me.

One side of my mouth curls up. “Of course I did. I conveniently reminded him I was wearing his shirt, not yours.”

“Yeah.” Kyle coughs and looks away. Is he blushing? Wait, what? “Well, gotta go. See you soon, Mads.”

“Uh, okay?” I frown as he walks off, waving over his shoulder.

“Okay, Angel?” Braden slides an arm around my waist.

“Yes. Just Kyle being weird.” I shake it off and smile up at him.

“Kyle's always weird.” He drops a quick kiss to my lips, and we leave the building, turning towards the road that will take us to Starbucks. Oh, yum.

“No, he blushed.” I tilt my head, and I realize. “Oh! Oh.”

“What?”

“He thinks we had sex on Saturday.” I giggle. “Oh. He must have felt really awkward.”

“Why would he?” Braden says in a tight voice.

“Don't start that.” I slap his chest. “Because I mentioned I was wearing your shirt, that's why. He must have assumed.”

“Good.” He laughs and tugs me a little closer. “He might back off now.”

“He was never coming onto me.” I roll my eyes. “He may have given you that impression, but we're just friends.”

“Sure you are, beautiful. Maybe it's a good thing he knows that now,” he says sarcastically.

“Why, Bray, are you jealous?” I raise an eyebrow, and he pulls Starbucks' door open, glancing at me.

“Of Kyle? No. Why would I be?”

“You sound jealous to me.”

“I'm not.”

“Then why do you sound it?”

“I don't!”

“Yes, you do.”

“I'm not arguing about this, Maddie.”

“I'm not arguing,” I respond. “I'm asking, and you're not answering. There's a difference.”

He reels off our usual order to the barista and tucks some hair behind my ear. “You are arguing.” He smirks. “And you don't even realize it.”

I narrow my eyes at him and realize he's right. Damn him!

“Fine. You're not jealous. Whatever.”

“Oh, shut up.” He tugs me towards him and kisses my temple. “You're cute when you're angry.”

“I'm not angry!”

“Of course not.” He grins and grabs our order.

I huff and walk over to a a table with a sofa and two chairs. I sit in one of the chairs and stare at him.

“Making a point, Angel?”

“Not at all.” I smile sweetly and take my coffee and muffin. “I just wanted to sit here.”

“Fine,” he says, sitting in the chair opposite me. He watches me as I sip my coffee and pick at my muffin the same way I always do. It's unnerving. He's eating and drinking, yet he's not even taking his eyes away from me for a second. I don't even know if he's blinking.

I don't know if I like it or not. But hey, at least I'm playing the game right, right?

Right.

It's almost funny how sometimes, just sometimes, it feels so real that I forget about the game.

“You're thinking again.”

“I'm thinking about how hard you're staring at me.”

“Maybe I like staring at you.”

“Maybe I don't like you staring at me.”

“I think you're in an argumentative mood today, Maddie.”

“I think you-” I stop and tilt my head to the side, finally meeting his searing gaze. “Huh. You could be right there. How about that?” I grin.

He fights to control his smile, his already bright eyes brightening even more. “It's been known to happen.”

“You being right?”

“Yep. In fact, it happens all the time.”

“Mr. Always Right?” I raise a skeptical eyebrow.

“I'm male. Of course I'm always right.”

I laugh. “Okay, sweetie,” I say with a smile. “Here's the thing - you're male, and even though you like to think you're always right, you're not. I'm female and it's naturally wired into my brain to be right. I'm sorry to burst your bubble.”

Braden looks at me slowly, stirring his coffee absently. “You say that, but every time I look at you I know you're beautiful, and I'm absolutely right on that one. So in this case, I'm Mr. Always Right, because you'll always be beautiful.”

I pull the corner of my top lip into my mouth, trapping it between my teeth. I can feel a faint blush rising up my cheeks, and I glance down, uncomfortable.

Just when I'm reminded of the game, he goes and says something like that, reminding me that to him, this is real.

“Hey.” He gets up and moves towards me, crouching down in front of me. “I didn't mean to embarrass you.”

“You didn't,” I say softly and look up, holding his gaze. “I just... I don't know.”

He cups my chin and runs his thumb across my cheek. “You're not used to being told you're beautiful, are you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“The first time I told you, you cried. And now you're hiding.”

“The only people who ever said it were my parents. And since Mom died, Dad doesn't have much of a mind for anything.”

He rests his forehead against mine, and I close my eyes, fighting the tears that seem to spring up every time my parents are strung together in one thought. I can think of them separately, but when one is dead and the other wants to be, it's hard to group them together.

Because, really, Dad is all I have left in my family.

“Believe it,” Braden whispers softly. “Believe it, Angel, because you are beautiful. I'm not blind, and I'm not stupid – okay, maybe I'm kinda stupid sometimes –” I smile. “But I know you're beautiful. I see it every day.”

I lick my lips. “I'll never believe it, Bray, but I'll let you win this one.”

“Oh, you'll let me, will you?” he murmurs, amused.

“Yep.” I take his free hand in one of mine, lacing my fingers through his. “I'll let you.”

“So kind of you.” He chuckles and rubs his nose against mine, his lips coming to rest softly on mine.

I tighten my grip on his hand and kiss him back, wondering what I'm doing.

 

~

 

“So, we're all heading to Vegas this weekend,” Megan says casually, picking some lint off her jeans.

“Why?” I look up from the laptop.

“Braden's birthday.”

“I'msorrywhat?” I slam the laptop shut. “You're kidding.”

“No.” She smiles. “Did I forget to tell you? Oops.”

I chuck a pillow at her head. “Yes, you freakin' did! Nothing like short notice, Megan. Sheesh!”

“Well, you don't have to worry. We've booked the rooms. You're sharing with Braden, Lila is with Ryan, I'm with Kay, and Aston is sharing with a couple of the guys from their house.”

“Are we the only girls going?”

“Braden's orders.” She smiles slyly.

“Who would have thought?” I play with a piece of my hair.

“Who would have thought what? That he's said no girls besides us, or that you had an electric shock type jolt of panic go through your body at the thought you didn't know it was his birthday?” Her eyes gleam with a knowing no one should have. No one.

“The girls,” I reply, averting my gaze from her. I only panicked that I didn't know because of the challenge, right? Right. Right. Yep.

“Mmhmm.” She hums it out and lies back on the bed. “I totally believe you.”

“Megan, I do not have feelings for Braden Carter.” Not discernible ones, anyway.

“I never said otherwise, Maddie.”

My phone buzzes under my pillow and I grab it, opening the incoming text without glancing at the screen.

I'll see you in two days.

I think my heart just stopped beating. What?

My hands begin to shake, and I close it down, tapping on my Messages and opening it. Yep.

Pearce: I'll see you in two days.

I drop my phone and stare at it as if it's burning a hole in the comforter on my bed. I push my hair away from my face and tilt my head back, trying to still my shaking hands.

“Maddie?” Megan asks, sitting up. “What's wrong?”

I shake my head, unable to form any words. It doesn't matter, I want to say. Maybe I can arrange to meet him somewhere away from campus where No one else will have to see him.

Where No one else will have to find out the truth about what happened to my Mom, my Dad and my brother. Because, ultimately, they will. Drug addicts like my brother aren't exactly commonplace around here.

Megan places her hand on top of mine. “Maddie, you have to calm down, honey.”

I blink and focus on her, and I realize I can't breathe. I'm breathing too hard. Too fast.

Fuck.

I close my eyes and focus on the techniques I learned in yoga last year. Yes, yoga. Relaxation. In, out. In, out.

When I feel like I can answer the inevitable questions, I open my eyes. Megan's eyes are full of concern, full of worry.

“You wanna tell me what that was about?” she says softly, handing me a glass of water she must have gotten sometime while I was calming down.

I accept the glass and sip it, looking down. “I guess I don't have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

“No, I don't. He's made sure of that.” I look out the window.

“Who has?”

“My brother.”

“What's he doing, Mads?”

“He's coming here. He wants money, and I won't give it to him. Not anymore.”

“So tell him that when he gets here, and he'll leave.”

I look at her, almost sadly, because compared to me, she's led a sheltered life.

“You don't tell my brother anything, Megs. He'll do whatever it takes to get the money he needs to feed his habit.”

“His habit? Oh, you mean, drugs?”

I nod.

“Then he can get his own damn money!” She squeezes my hand.

“I wish it was that easy. When I meet him, I'll have to hand it over. I know I will.”

“You're going to meet him alone?”

I nod again.

“Hell fucking no!” She explodes, standing up. “Do you hear me, Maddie? Hell. Fucking. No. I don't wanna know what you mean when you say 'he'll do whatever it takes to get the money he needs' so I ain't gonna find out! When you meet your brother, you ain't gonna be alone.”

“Thanks, Meg, but-”

“No goddamn buts!” She shakes her head vehemently. “No buts! I love you, Maddie, and I can see you're absolutely petrified of him. I don't know why that is either, but I'm not letting you walk in there alone. If you don't wanna give him your money, then you damn well don't, and if he lays one finger on you, Braden will break his legs.”

I sigh, focusing on a spot on the wall behind her. “It's not that simple-”

“No, it is. The bottom line is I'm not letting you see your brother alone, and if that means you're not left alone for the next fucking month, then you won't be alone, do you get that? You're one of my best friends, and I care about you, and that means you don't have to do anything alone. Friendship means never having to be alone, it means there's a constant wall of solidarity even when everything else is crumbling around you. If he's the crumble in your life, then I'll be the damn wall!”

Tears spring to my eyes unannounced, and I smile gratefully at her. “Thank you, Megan. Thank you.”

She wraps her arms around me, and I cry silently into her shoulder for five minutes.

Friendship. Never having to be alone.

For the first time since my Mom died, I don't feel alone.