Chapter 17
Cook
Though Maddie shook in my grip, I didn’t let her go. I was learning to read her, and she needed a firm hand right now. Putting more pressure on her chin, I hoped I wouldn’t leave bruises for tomorrow.
Tears turned her eyes glossy, and one leaked to create a wet trail down the side of her nose. I brushed the fat droplet off her face, confused. We were just talking.
So why did she start crying?
Why was she trembling?
“Baby girl,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I don’t understand.”
She pinched her lips and shook her head as though she didn’t want to tell me. “We should just sleep, Daddy.”
I loosened my grip on her. “What did I tell you at Serenity?”
Maddie clamped her mouth shut again.
“You give it all to me. Your fears. Worries. Everything.”
“Yes, Daddy. I-I’m sorry.”
I wouldn’t correct her apology this time. She wasn’t allowed to apologize for many things, but for disobeying me, she could fucking grovel. “Tell me what happened.” I forced her chin up to stare at me. “Baby girl, tell me.”
“I’m scared.” Her voice trembled, and it shook me too to my core. What was happening to me?
“Why?” I asked, lowering to my knees in front of her. I released my hold on her chin, but before I could draw back my hand, she rested her cheek against my palm. I held her there, wiping away another tear with my thumb.
She quaked, shaking the bed under her. The old joints creaked. “Please don’t leave me, Daddy. I can’t lose you.”
I exhaled as my heart sputtered a beat.
Guns.
The fucking guns.
While Roni was good with Celt and I talking MC business, I shouldn’t have said shit about it around Maddie. I fucked up. No wonder she was scared and wanted to go home.
“I’m fine.” I pulled her into a hug. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe. I’m here.” She would always be safe with me. I would never let anything happen to her.
I held her close until she finally stopped shaking. When I looked at her again, alarm bells blared in my mind. She put on her brave face, her chin jutted out and her eyes distant. She wouldn’t look at me. I wanted to ask what would make her feel better, but the truth was that I needed to make that choice for her.
“Take off your clothes,” I said.
Without making a sound, she stripped herself of Celt’s sweatshirt and Roni’s scrubs. She didn’t have any underwear on. I didn’t know if Ronnie didn’t get her a pair or if Maddie just didn’t put them on.
I reached for the lapels of my leather jacket but then stopped. “Undress me. Piece by piece.”
Maddie stood faster than I had seen her move all night, and then she circled me with her chin dipped. She measured me, and I could read her trying to figure out where to start.
Coming face to face with me, she placed her hands on my shoulders and pushed the leather back, sliding my jacket away. Her fingers dragged along my arms, and she caught the jacket before it fell to the floor. There was a set of three hooks on the wall, where Maddie hung my jacket and returned to take off my shirt. With her hands on the hem and my abs peeking out, she paused.
Her eyes went wide as she stared at me, and I cracked a smile. I liked that I could take her breath away. I had seen it happen at Serenity, and it made me harder then too. I ducked so she could pull the cotton tee over my head.
Maddie took a step back with my shirt in her hands, and her eyes burned a trail into my skin, over my tats and scars.
“Fold the shirt up nicely,” I said, keeping my voice level.
When she turned to do my bidding, I swear I saw her booty shake—a happy dance. My cock hardened. It was going to be difficult to control myself when she finally took off my jeans. But she needed my control more than anything.
Maddie folded my shirt into a perfect square before setting it on the table, and then she returned to me, bending down to my shoes. She carefully unlaced and took off my boots, like I might lose my balance.
I was nearing forty to her twenty-eight, but I wasn’t fucking old, and I sure as shit wouldn’t fall when standing on one foot. She set my boots beside the door and returned to me. Her head was bent, and her hair draped in front of her face.
She didn’t raise her eyes this time before crouching to strip my socks, and when there was nothing left on my body except my pants, she got to her knees and grabbed my belt buckle, licking her plump lips. Her hand brushed against my covered cock, and I let out a small hiss.
She so did that on purpose.
I smacked her hand.
Even with her head bent, I knew she smirked. She undid my belt and then moved on to my jeans buttons. Every move of hers sent my cock into a tailspin, especially as I looked down on her.
There had been more than enough wet dreams of her sucking me off. Of her taking my length into her throat until her lips encircled the base and her throat opened for me.
Maddie dropped my jeans to my ankles. My breath hitched in my throat as I watched her pause at the bulge of my boxer briefs. She almost looked disappointed, like she hoped I wasn’t wearing another layer. I didn’t need my jeans scraping against my dick.
Following my jeans down my legs, she dragged her fingers over my shins and to my ankles. “Step out, Daddy.”
My dick fucking throbbed as I stepped free of my jeans. Why did my member have to respond like that?
It betrayed everything I told myself: that I didn’t like this and that I didn’t want her to call me Daddy. That I didn’t want to order her around. That I didn’t want her to serve me like this. It was all bullshit, but I tried to remind myself anyway.
The truth was clear, however. Watching her fold the clothes and duck down to her knees again spurred something primal in me. I didn’t know how else to describe the instinct. I fought against it as she hooked her fingers into my briefs and pulled them down.
My cock burst free. Removing the denim had been a little relief, but even the restraint of the briefs had grown painful. I wanted to shove her face straight to the crown and order her to suck me off. I wanted to feel her tongue and lips and teeth devouring my cock. To watch her cheeks hollow out even as her lips stretched around my girth. How would she react when I hit the back of her throat? Would she take me deeper? I wanted to hear and feel what sounds she made, and God help me, I wanted to feel her tears on my balls as she swallowed me down.
This need to claim her and mark her were things I had never done to a woman and told myself I would never do. I had sworn to myself I’d never be forceful with a woman after watching my piece-of-shit father smack my mom around.
In every sexual encounter I had ever had, I held myself back, and that may be why I never made a true connection. Why the women never come back for more. It hadn’t mattered though, because I didn’t want them.
With Maddie, I wouldn’t have to hold back, but I wouldn’t fuck her mouth today.
Maddie stroked my cock, driving a groan from my throat.
I grabbed her hand. “Get to your feet.”
She flipped back her hair, staring up at me with her doe-like eyes. But she didn’t get up from her kneeling position.
“Daddy,” she begged, darting out her small pink tongue to wet her lips.
It was taking all my restraint to hold back from shoving myself deep in her mouth, holding her head, and setting a hard rhythm.
“Get to your feet,” I ordered, forcing the words past my clenched teeth.
Maddie rose, dipping her chin. Her bottom lip pouted. Was she really that upset about not being able to rock my mic? She would be so terribly good. Just not tonight. Not in my best friend’s guest bedroom when I had to keep my moans to myself. While Celt and Roni already had a hint of the kink I was starting to explore, they didn’t need to hear it.
I grabbed her bottom lip between my teeth, bringing her head up to mine. She finally looked me in the eye.
“Your safe word?”
“Nizhóní,” she whispered. “I’ll use it if I need, Daddy.”
“Good, baby girl.” With every little moment like this, I was stepping deeper into shoes that were as comfortable as the riding boots I kept resoling. Truly, I was becoming her Dom. She could use the safe word if I pushed her too far, and that gave me reassurance that I wasn’t one of the jackasses who fucked her against her will.
When she saw my eyes, it was like a light had flicked on. She was fire, even in her submissive form. She had a challenge in her eyes that said she would ruin me. The guns, the drugs, and everything else—nothing was as dangerous for me as Madeline Flemming. She would be my undoing and my savior.
I released my hold on her bottom lip. “Lay on the bed.”
“Daddy?” Her eyes darted down to my cock.
“Do it, Maddie, or we’re done.” I would go to the bathroom and take care of myself.
She reclined on the bed.
“Good, baby girl.” I needed her to get used to the feel of me inside of her. “I want you addicted to my cock.”
“Yesss,” she hissed.
“From now on, your sweet little pussy will never crave a cock besides mine.”
“Never,” she said immediately.
My length was thick. Being neither boastful nor na?ve, I had more girth than anyone I’d seen in a locker room or in porn. It would take time, but I would mold her pussy to the perfect shape.
I lowered to my knees, my weight sinking the mattress.
But Maddie, her voice pinched and high, begged, “Please, Daddy. Give me your cock.”
Lifting one of her legs, I smacked her ass.
She yelped.
“Don’t be impatient.” Propping her feet on the bed so her knees stuck up, I took in her gorgeous, glistening pink pussy lips.
Her sweet taste would always be seared into my memory, and I wanted more on my tongue. I thirsted for her every last drop. I couldn’t say it now, not yet, but I had already claimed her, and I would relish the day I put a “Property of Cook” patch on her very own cut.
Still meeting her gaze, I dragged my finger down her slit. She wiggled on her bed, kicking out her legs. I removed my touch and dodged her kick, grabbing her leg. I slammed it and her to the bed.
“I can’t stroke this pretty little pussy if you’re all over the place.”
She still squirmed but put her legs back where I’d placed them.
I thought we’d passed this unease when she’d undressed me, but the way she acted showed something else was bothering her. Something she wasn’t telling me, so I either had to read her mind or coax it out of her. Or trust my instincts, as Mercer had said, to bend Maddie how she needed.
With a growl, I shoved her hips deep into my mattress as I dropped my weight onto her. She stilled, her eyes wide and unfocused. She’d gone somewhere else, and it was my job to bring her back. I wanted to devour her pleasure, not hurt her, but I pressed the tip of my cock in her unready pussy and drove it home. My spine tingled, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from spilling into her from the one thrust.
Her mouth dropped open, and a small screech slipped out. I slapped a hand over her mouth, cutting it off. Deep inside her, I held myself utterly still. One of her hands wrapped around her wrist while the other pried at my fingers. Her wide eyes darted around before flashing up to me.
In a low voice, I ordered. “You must be quiet.”
I needed this release, but I wasn’t going to have Celt or Roni rushing in here to save her when she belted out one of her beautiful screams.
“If you cannot be quiet, baby girl,” I said on a low rumble, “My hand stays.”
A spark of a challenge slipped into her gaze, and I growled. She was really going to force the matter, wasn’t she? I could be kissing her mouth, but apparently not tonight. Instead, I kept one hand on her hip and the other on her lips.
I was fucking her regardless.
“Stay with me, baby girl.”
My cock was already buried to the hilt, and her lower lips were clenched around me. Her channel felt like a vice grip around my dick, so I hadn’t started to move yet.
Meeting her gaze, I backed out of her slowly until the tip of my cock was right at the edge of her pussy. Just the way her pussy tried to hang onto me was intoxicating. She was so needy for me. I slammed back inside, stretching her, and she moaned.
Her hips raised, but I put more weight on top of her to hold her down. My thighs locked down on hers, and my chest pressed down on her breasts. Her hardened nipples pebbled against my skin.
I dragged my cock back before thrusting it into her, and she jerked back on the bed. Her head pulled back and her eyes closed. But I wasn’t having her going somewhere else on my watch.
“Open your damn eyes.”
Maddie’s eyes popped open. Her pupils were narrowed, panicked, and shifting.
I moved inside of her, and my voice rumbled out of my chest. “See me, Maddie.”
Her maple irises relaxed. She focused on me, and her body eased as she accepted me.
“It’s me.” I drove into her, clenching my ass to try to get deeper. “And you.” Thrust.
She sucked in air through her nose and gripped onto my shoulders.
“Nothing matters but us.” Another thrust. “None of that shit.” Slam, slam, slam. “Feel me.” Slam. “Only me.”
She nodded under my hand. I moved inside of her, shifting to the side to get deep into her cunt and find the perfect spot. Each plunge inside made her moan into my hand. Her hot saliva slicked my palm. I would wipe it off on her later.
Quickening my pace, I pumped into her. My thighs slapped against hers. She jerked back, and I placed my weight on her. Fuck, she felt so good. How could a pussy be so good?
Barely leaving her pussy anymore, I fucked her deeply, plowing into her in quick, jerky movements. She started to scream, her walls clenching, pulling against my cock. She squirmed, but I threw down my weight, no longer bracing myself. I held her down with my whole body and pressed my hand down on her face, cutting off the sound and maybe her breathing. She was coming all over me, under me, and my cock, wet from her juices, was eating it up.
I quickened my pace, jamming inside, fighting her clenching cunt, until I couldn’t hold back any longer. Pulling out, I raised onto my knees, grabbing my shaft. Maddie tried to push into a seated position, her mouth dangling open, but I shoved her back down on the bed. I stroked myself, using her juices and the drizzle from the tip of my cock as lube.
And then I detonated. Cum shot onto her chest in thick ropes. My balls drew up, pushing more streams from the purple head.
Fuck. Clenching my teeth, I kept my roar inside, but watched as her eyes widened. She no longer met my gaze but stared at my cock and my cum on her chest.
“Rub it in,” I gritted out.
Watching her massage my cum into her beautiful tits, I kept pumping myself until I was empty, sensitive, and limp. My head buzzed. I would be ready to go again in a few, but her pussy had to be sore after I invaded her. She wiggled on the bed, but I pushed her to the side to lay down beside her. Grabbing a free pillow, I stripped the case and cleaned up her chest.
Then I drew her ass into my hips and threw the blankets over us.
Maddie curled into me, and I wrapped my arm around her waist. She quickly fell asleep, and I closed my eyes. Maybe I could actually sleep too.
Maddie
Lying in bed, the sheets unlike those back at Cook’s house, I rolled over with a little of his cum still crusted to my chest and the scent of sex lingering in the air. I wanted his cock again after all he had done to me yesterday.
Unfortunately, after looking around the now-light room, I fell flat against the bed, alone.
Cook was gone.
A cold sweat broke out across my skin. Panic pulsated through my veins, and dread pooled in my belly. Where had he gone? Why did he leave me?
What had I done wrong?
“Cook!” My voice came out as a strangled cry.
I threw myself off the bed and out of the bedroom, skidding to a halt as Cook was already walking toward me. Roni and Celt were behind him, concern written across their faces, but it was just me overreacting.
“What is it, Maddie?” Cook met me at the mouth of the short hall, his eyes searching my face. “What happened?”
“Um...” My tongue swelled in my mouth. Nothing happened.
“Celt, why don’t we go get some more clothes for Maddie?” asked Roni, pulling on Celt’s arm, and they walked toward their shared room.
“Maddie,” warned Cook in a low voice, and he backed me into our bedroom here. I didn’t like it. I wanted to go home. I wanted my own clothes.
With my head bowed, I stopped myself before I fell to my knees. Daddy didn’t seem to like that when his friends were around. “Sorry. I just thought you were gone.”
“I’ll never leave you.” He gripped my chin and raised it again to face him. “But I do have to make breakfast, and you need to put on some clothes.”
He wore his low-hanging jeans and his t-shirt from yesterday. Still on the hook: his motorcycle jacket. He never would’ve left without it. Stupid me.
“Get dressed,” he said.
Roni appeared in the door, extending a stack of clothes. I took them from her hands and waited for Roni to leave before moving.
“I’m right out here,” Cook said, assuring me.
He closed the door behind him, and I changed quickly. When I stepped out of the bedroom again, Cook was at the stove and laughing with Celt while Roni was scrolling on her cell phone. I reached for a camera that I didn’t have, so I blinked like I snapped a picture, searing the image of Cook laughing with Celt into my mind.
Though I knew he had a sense of humor from his shirts and aprons, I didn’t often see my man laughing, even with me. Maybe I needed to figure out how to fix that.
“Hey,” said Roni, putting her phone down.
It was like the spell on the kitchen had been broken. Smiles dropped, and Cook straightened his back. Celt watched me from the corner of his eye with a displeased look. A shudder ran down my spine, and I fought the urge to run into Cook’s arms. I would have to be okay with Celt eventually. But maybe not today.
“I’m happy the clothes fit,” said Roni in an overly chipper tone. She was wearing her scrubs and had her hair tied up in a claw clip.
I shied away from her. “Yeah. They do.” I didn’t like the clothes. They fit around my body but rose up at my wrists and ankles.
Cook turned away from the stove. “I made you breakfast.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “I can do that for you.”
“What did I say about cooking?”
I furrowed my brows. “The grill is yours.”
“No, Maddie.”
Then I remembered and twisted my fingers together, answering meekly, “It’s what you do around the club.”
“Good. Now sit. Eat,” said Cook.
Celt backed toward the door, eyeing Cook.
A physical pain shot across my chest, and I tried not to grimace. I knew what was coming before Cook even said, “Hey, Maddie. I gotta help Celt with his bike. We’ll be back in a few minutes. You’re good with Roni, right?”
The woman smiled so hard I saw her molars. Her lips were pulled back, and I waited her to turn into a nameless and faceless monster. But she was nice and trying to include me, opposite of Celt, who I wasn’t sure had the ability to smile.
But as I studied her, I concluded Roni didn’t look like she could have an evil bone in her body. I also couldn’t tell Cook no. He was already walking toward the door, clapping Celt on the shoulder. They left the apartment.
“You should eat,” said Roni, walking around the island in the kitchen and dropping her cup in the sink. “Cook always makes the best food. I like when he’s around for that. And he makes me giggle with all his rude T-shirts.”
She laughed, though it seemed forced.
I slid onto the stool and took the fork. Cook’s food was good, she had that much right.
Roni was still smiling at me, her teeth clenched together. When I swallowed my bite of the delicious omelet, she was still looking at me.
“What?” I asked, wondering if I was somehow eating wrong. Gah, I had no clue what it meant to be normal, have a regular breakfast, make friends.
Her smile faltered, and she waved whatever she was thinking away. She started around the island, toward me. I dropped my fork and knife to the plate, and it clattered.
I pushed the chair out, ready to stand, but Roni said, “Wait! I just want to talk.”
What could we possibly have to talk about? I’d never talked to someone, and whatever normal was, was a foreign concept for me. This, though, didn’t feel normal. She wore the curious look like someone about to eat me.
“What?” I demanded. “Say it.”
Color drained from her face, and she looked down at her hands for a few long seconds. A shudder shimmied her shoulders. “I know about... Enigma.”
That deflated my defenses, and I fell onto the stool. I managed to reply, “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Neither do I.” She flashed up her gaze, her eyes glassy. “But you’re the only person I can talk to who will understand.”
“Understand?” I scoffed. What would she understand about what happened to me? “What do you think you know?”
Roni pulled out the other barstool and climbed onto it. Picking at dead skin around her nails, she said, “When I was young... well, not as young as you were back then.”
That was it?
She didn’t continue, but her throat bobbed like the next words were caught there. She stopped picking, curled her hands into fists as if staunching a bad habit. Then she shot me a sad smile. “I ran away from home just before I turned seventeen.”
Home? Why would anyone run away from home? Regardless, something about her manner and words tickled my curiosity, and despite my fear, I wanted to know more. I leaned a little closer.
She took a deep breath. “That part of the story’s not important.”
I frowned. That part seemed more important than anything about Enigma, but I couldn’t force questions out. At least not yet.
Roni took down her hair and re-twisted it, clamping the clip back in before dropping her hands. “Enigma is a lot of things, and I had no clue what would happen when I applied for a waitress position there. I only knew that the girl who introduced it to me said it paid better than any other waitressing job in LA.”
“You, um.. . made money from them?” I finally asked, voice shaky.
She rolled her eyes and bobbed her head—a confusing movement somewhere between a nod and a head-shake no. “At first, it was good. I made enough to get my own apartment, and I learned to look the other way when men came in with women who couldn’t possibly be their wives and took them into the back.”
I scowled. “Into the back?” That implied there was a front. I’d only ever been brought in through the alley door.
Roni nodded but didn’t directly answer the question. “It was a year and a half before I learned the club was run by the Mafia and Don Tommaso Gambino.”
His name was like a gunshot to my chest, and I placed my hand right above my heart. It had quickened, threatening to blow from my chest.
“Don’t say his name,” I said.
“Sorry.” She gulped. “I’ve learned to say it aloud, so I don’t give him power over me.”
“He doesn’t have power over me,” I retorted. He would never. Cook promised—his cock and no one else’s.
“Right.” She dropped her hand to the island counter.
Somehow, that thin reply eased something in me. She wasn’t talking over me or arguing, only showing me how she had come out of a shitty situation. Maybe Roni was someone I could get used to.
She continued, “They—Tommy and his capos—believe they are above the rules of our society.”
No fucking shit. I grabbed the orange juice and guzzled it.
“One day, one of his men came to me at the end of my shift and offered me a promotion. God, I was fucking na?ve.” She ran her down her throat. “The Don used me. Collared me. Passed me around. Did really fucked-up things to me. Hell, when I finally got out, I had to be treated for chlamydia.”
“For what?” I asked.
“It’s a sexually transmitted disease,” she answered as though it were a run-of-the-mill question.
My eyes went wide as I flinched. Fuck. I needed to be tested then. What if I gave something to Daddy?
“They tested you at the recovery house. You’re clean.” Roni rolled up the long sleeve under her scrub t-shirt, revealing scars. They were similar to but not exactly like my own. “A man they called The Sadist did this to me.”
I grabbed her arm, bringing it closer to me and studying the burn marks, and she hissed.
“Cigarettes?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Roni, flexing her hand.
I released her arm and pulled up my shirt, tucking the hem under my breast and revealing my stomach. “Some of Signora’s clients had a thing for blades.”
Roni stiffened. “Signora?”
I worked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. I’d been punished when speaking her real name. Glancing around the apartment, I reassured myself that no one else was here. And Roni said Tommy G.’s full name.
Weakly, I answered, “Amaranta Gambino.” And I found she was right. It helped to say the name aloud.
Roni’s fingers reached for me but stopped. “May I?”
I nodded, and her cool fingertips brushed over one of the longer, angrier scars.
“She let them do that to you?”
“He—” Tommy, but I choked on his name. I forced it past my clenched teeth. “Tommy only cared about my cunt. He wasn’t creative when it came to how he used me.” I halted, my eyes prickling, and swallowed hard.
“But?” Roni prompted me to continue.
“But Signora let the other clients do what they wanted. ‘Anything to please them,’ she would say. I’d get beaten or thrown in the cage when I displeased any of them.” My cheeks were on fire, and I stared at the flashing green 12:00 on the microwave.
Silence filled the space between us until I couldn’t keep my eyes away and looked over at Roni.
When she looked like she was about to vomit, I pulled my shirt from under my breast and let it fall to my waist again. I didn’t care who saw my body or scars. Let the world see them! But Cook wouldn’t like it if I made his friend’s girl vomit.
I almost laughed. She called herself a nurse.
“Look, Maddie,” said Roni, working her jaw. “I’m not looking to trade war stories. Or have a competition. But you and I know what we’ve gone through.”
“Do we?” I looked around her apartment. “You seem like you got a nice life here. I didn’t get that chance.”
“You’re getting it now,” said Roni, fidgeting again with her hands. “I shouldn’t be telling you—or anyone—this for safety reasons, but I’m the reason Don Gambino was locked up. And when his trial rolls around, I’ll have to testify in court against him.”
I recoiled, appalled at the thought of having to face him again. “Why?”
“I overheard things.” Roni lifted one shoulder. “When one of Gambino’s associates stopped by his office, he pushed me into a room off his office and piped classical music over the speakers.”
We both shivered. He’d made me listen to classical music too, but through headphones. And opera. A bow drawing across strings now sent terror through my blood, and I would bet Roni was remembering the same.
“You were a waitress though. Why didn’t you just leave?”
“I tried, but . . . circumstances drove me back.”
I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.
After a minute, she smirked though, a hint of scandal in her light green eyes. “In that room, though, he didn’t account for the return air vent, so I heard a lot of illegal shit. When I finally got out, I had a ton of information on him. A whole stack of journals filled with names, places, details. More than just the drug and sex trafficking that went on in that club.”
My bottom lip jutted, but I pinched it to keep from pouting so obviously. I never got a chance to overhear things or to escape.
With a deep huff, Roni swiveled her chair to face me again. “Maddie, I know this is all weird to you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, forcing another bite of Cook’s omelet into my mouth. I didn’t want him to think I was ungrateful, but I had lost my appetite. The food tasted like sand.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” pushed Roni. “I know. I’ve been there. I’m still there sometimes. In the nightmares, anyway. I can be there for you, Maddie, if you’ll let me.”
I drew my eyebrows together. “And how would you be there?”
“I can be your friend.” She took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “You can talk about what happened to you at Enigma, but we can also go get drinks or go to movies or hang out. Cook said he got you a phone, so take my phone number.”
She scurried behind the island and grabbed a yellow stack of paper. After scribbling some numbers, she pulled the top sheet off and handed it to me. The back was sticky.
“Text me,” she said, “and I’ll text you back when I can. Obviously, I can’t respond while I’m at work, but I’ll get back to you after. We can do what other people do.”
Roni left out the word normal, but it was there between the other words.
I snorted. “I don’t know what normal people do. I’m just trying to figure out my own life.”
“Valid.” She placed a hand on my forearm. “Everything you do is valid. You are doing what you need to do to survive.”
“I’m doing more than surviving,” I disagreed, slithering my hand out of her grasp. “I’m living now.” My voice wavered when I didn’t wish it to. Fuck, why did it have to give me away like that?
“I know,” said Roni in a small voice. “But know that you can count on me, Maddie. We can be friends.”
I already had a friend, Bou. Or at least, I thought she was my friend. Oh, and Belle. I liked Belle a lot. Weren’t all of Cook’s friends my friends? Celt might be the odd one out, but he was the one I needed to impress the most.
“Will you help me with Celt?” I asked.
“With Celt?” Roni scrunched up her nose. “Why would you need help with him?”
“I don’t think he likes me.”
Roni snorted and waved off the notion. “He’s concerned about all your scars. The visible ones and the others too. Trust me, if you make Cook happy, he’ll worship the ground you walk on.”
“Not sure about that,” I mumbled.
Roni smiled, almost naturally now. “Look at us. Already talking boys and boy problems. This is the fast track to friendship.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Did you want to talk periods? Or how work sucks? Or favorite bands?” Roni held out her arms. “Ask me whatever you want.”
I wasn’t even sure where to start. The only person I’d ever been close with was my sister, and that was before we had periods. If I ever really knew, I had long since forgotten what it was like to have a friend.
In the old mill, my friends consisted of other captives. We became allies, not friends, and we never shared except to warn each other. I didn’t give my measly rations to another hungry person, and I didn’t comfort someone who was crying, because I would’ve been punished too.
I didn’t know what it was like to have a friend, the same way I didn’t truly remember what it was like to have a sister. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing with Cook, but I just knew it felt good. Right.
Roni raised her eyebrows like she was waiting for me to say something. Ask her anything, she’d said, so I asked, “Have you ever been to the nightclub Serenity? It’s run by Sloan M—”
The door swung open, and Cook and Celt stumbled in, laughing. Their cheeks were red. Their muscles strained under their T-shirts as they carried heavy boxes into the apartment.
Scowling my confusion, I watched the antics cautiously. They’d said working on Celt’s bike, not moving more boxes.
Roni ran over and grabbed something off the top of Celt’s load, and they put everything down in the living room.
I turned back to my breakfast, realizing I had only taken a few bites. The omelet and toast had gone cold, but I shoveled a few more bites into my mouth.
“You didn’t like it?” asked Cook, drawing his eyebrows together.
“No.” I swallowed and reached for another bite. “I mean yeah. It’s good.”
He studied me under his heavy eyebrow bone and then nodded. “Well, when you’re done, we’re going to head out.”
I almost jumped out of my seat, dropping the fork. “Home?”
“Yup, gotta get back to the Ridge,” said Cook.