Chapter 4 Mads #2
I stalk to the middle of the room, towel cinched tight, pointing furiously. “You went through my bag while I was out. Or you trained a raccoon to do it for you, because it was a pretty damn messy job.”
“That,” he says, “would be kind of impressive.”
“Mads.”
“I swear,” he says, actually looking serious for once. “I didn’t touch your bag. Look, I might be a lot of things, but I’m not some bloody creep. If there’s one thing you can count on while we’re stuck in this hellhole together, it’s that I’ll treat you with respect.”
We stare at each other. The room feels too still.
I don’t believe him.
I also don’t not believe him.
Then the corner of his mouth lifts—lazy, knowing, just shy of infuriating—as he adds, “Until you ask me not to.”
I roll my eyes, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response, until something else catches my attention.
Then I glance toward the beds.
My bed is now sagging in the middle. The legs are crooked, the frame bent like it went twelve rounds with a heavyweight. The mattress dips so badly it looks ready to swallow itself whole. “What the hell happened to my bed?”
I stare at the wreckage, my brain trying to line things up.
My bag was messed with. But if he tore into that, there’s no way he also had time to do this while I was in the shower.
Which means maybe the bag wasn’t him. Maybe.
But the bed? Yeah, the bed might as well have come with a signed confession.
This kind of sabotage has Mads written in bold, underlined, triple exclamation points.
Mads, currently lounging on his pristine bedding, is already back to scrolling on his phone. “Huh?”
“That”—I point accusingly—“was not broken when I left.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
“Am I—yes, I’m sure! I’ve known that bed for two hours. We had a connection. It was not broken before I left, and now it’s wrecked.”
I want to strangle him.
“So dramatic,” he mutters, but he’s smiling.
I cross my arms. “Stop calling me dramatic. You broke it.”
“Why would I break your bed?”
“Because you want me to share yours.” I realize how ridiculous that sounds, but I am frazzled.
He doesn’t even pretend to deny it. “Oh, I definitely want to sleep with you,” he says, stretching like a smug jungle cat. “But I didn’t break your bed.”
There’s a full five seconds of tense silence while my brain blue-screens. Then I point at him again, less sure of my life choices. “Okay, well, that’s not happening.”
“Just for tonight. We’ll get you a new one tomorrow.” He makes a show of scooting over to make room for me and pats his mattress.
The problem is, Mads is huge—easily a foot taller than me, all broad shoulders and long limbs that take up more space than he probably realizes. His bed isn’t built for that kind of body, let alone two people.
If I agreed to lie down beside him, there’d be no space left. Not a single inch. Every move would put me against him.
My brain knows this is a terrible idea, but for some reason, it still runs the math anyway, tracing exactly how close we’d be. And I hate myself for even entertaining it.
I eye him, giving him a dissatisfied look. “I’d rather sleep in the shower.”
“It’s clean now. You’re welcome.”
“Mads. We both have practice at the ass crack of dawn. I want to go to sleep.” I try to be reasonable. I really do.
But the whole practice in the morning thing is the exact reason I know he’s not going to offer to sleep on the couch, so I don’t even wait for him to respond.
I huff, march back into the bathroom to actually put clothes on now that I’ve moved on from the bag situation, then over to my traitorous, half-broken bed, and yank the mattress off the frame with the righteous fury of a woman scorned.
It flops to the floor and immediately curls at the edges, because, of course, it’s hitting the edge of the dresser on one side and the foot of Mads’s bed on the other, like the universe personally arranged this room to spite me.
The layout is trash. There’s literally nowhere for the mattress to lie flat unless it’s on the damn frame.
Behind me, Mads lets out the world’s most annoying laugh. I whip around, breathless, my wet hair sticking to my face, and he’s just lying there on his fully functional bed, arms folded behind his head.
“Don’t even think about offering to help,” I warn.
“Wasn’t going to,” he says, grinning. “This is better than Netflix.”
I hate this apartment. I hate this night. I hate this man.
And I hate that he’s kind of hot when he’s smug.
I give up.
Truly, cosmically, soul-deep give up.
I sigh, grunt, and shove the mattress back onto the warped frame. It makes an awful scraping sound and slumps in the middle again. Then I sit on the edge of the frame, elbows on my knees.
Behind me, I hear Mads shift. “Tell you what,” he says, and I don’t even look up, just groan softly into my hands.
“What now?”
“Let’s make it fun.”
I turn just enough to see the wild gleam in his annoying blue eyes.
“Rock-paper-scissors,” he says, holding up a fist. “If you win, I take the couch and you get my bed.”
“And if you win?” I ask warily.
He grins, all teeth and audacity. “We share my bed.”
I stare at him for a beat. He wiggles his fingers. “Best of three?”
“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms. “Rock-paper-scissors.”
“And…loser does laundry all week,” he says, already rolling up his sleeves. “In a thong.”
I glare at him.
“Fine.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “Just for the bed. But for the record, I would’ve lost on purpose just so you could see this ass in one of your thongs.”
I give him the slowest, most deliberate eye roll I can manage. “Oh my god, just throw.”
We both hold up our fists.
“Rock,” I count. “Paper. Scissors—”
I throw paper. He throws rock.
We go again. I throw scissors. He throws paper.
“Two to one,” I say, grinning so hard it hurts. “Victory is mine. Guess you and the couch are getting cozy tonight.”
He stares at our hands for a second, like maybe he can Jedi-mind-trick the outcome into changing. Then he sighs. Loudly. Theatrically. “You know I’m going to fake a couch-related back injury tomorrow, right?”
“And I’m going to fake sympathy,” I shoot back, already fluffing my pillow.
Mads stands, grabs his own pillow and blanket, and heads for the door, muttering something about how the couch probably has bedbugs. He’s probably not wrong.
But just before he steps out, he pauses in the doorway. His voice drops, quieter. Serious. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t break your bed. Believe what you want, but I didn’t.”