Chapter Forty-Nine
Maddie
“Absolutely not.” I recoil so violently from the swimsuit AJ pulls from a rack that I almost take out an elderly woman browsing next to me. Cringing, I turn to her and mutter, “I’m so sorry.”
The little lady waddles off with an amused little titter, and I turn to glare at my asshole friend, slapping my hand over my face while I try not to throttle the diva holding scraps of material toward me in offering.
“What? You don’t like it?” she wonders with no small amount of false innocence.
I glare at the beauty with black-and-blond hair, raising an eyebrow as I tell her, “That bikini is held together by faith, trust, and pixie dust. One strong gust of wind and my nipples will end up in a whole other country. I’m not buying it.”
AJ wiggles the racy little number at me and pouts, “But just think of the sex you’d get if you strutted around in this in front of your guys.”
My mouth opens as if to argue, and then I snap it shut again. I look up, actually pondering it, and a slow smile stretches over my mouth before I hold my basket out to her. “That’s going straight in my basket.”
I snort as Henley falls into a fit of giggles from across the aisle. Meanwhile, Zelda holds up a neon-green swimsuit with visible disgust and mutters, “This feels radioactive.”
AJ looks over and nods. “Hey, if you stand on a beach at night, I think you could safely guide ships to shore in that. Be the beacon to lost sailors. A siren in seasick puke green. What do you think?”
Rolling my eyes, I wander away from her, searching through the safer-colored options. We’ve been shopping for five hours already.
Five. Whole. Hours.
We’ve already made several pit stops to our cars to drop off boxes and bags, and somehow the girls still have the energy to continue.
I have no idea where they’re pulling it from, maybe siphoning it straight from me, but they’re like hyperactive little bunnies hopping around every store we stumble across.
I mean, we spent thirty minutes in a vape store.
None of us smoke or vape. I have no idea why we were in there, only that it smelled like a weird concoction of chemical blueberry and cream.
I, however, am one yawn away from lying down in the middle of the mall and letting the patrons trample all over me.
Fuck it, maybe I’ll just let capitalism consume me.
It might be the vacation I need at this rate.
My lower back is killing me, an ache forming like nothing but shopping for hours can produce, and my arm is about ready to fall off from the three heavy bags I’ve been carting around for three freaking hours.
Why do I always forget how grueling and exhausting shopping with clothes addicts is? It’s like my brain wipes the slate clean after a day at the mall with Henley, AJ, and Zelda, tricking me into doing it all over again. The iced coffee I was bribed with has not been worth the backache.
“I still think it’s weird you haven’t booked a vacation yet,” Henley repeats for the second time today, her voice gentle and charming with her adorable English accent. She’s flipping through a rack of cover-ups, and I spot a pretty cream number that I snag before she moves on.
I head to the mirror nearby and hold the material to my body, shrugging a shoulder. “There’s no point. I’m pretty sure Caiden is planning something.”
“You are?” Zelda queries, eyeing the cover-up and throwing me a thumbs-up of approval.
“What makes you think that?” AJ wonders, meandering over to a different row of swimwear that looks much less offensive to my eyes.
Sliding the cover-up into my basket, I head over to join her and say, “He’s really not as inconspicuous as he might believe himself to be.
A few weeks ago, I received a thorough grilling about my past, present, and future travel plans.
The guy knows more about what I want out of a vacation than I do at this rate.
And that was before we got together. So I think he’s been planning something for a little while now. I’m more than happy to let him, too.”
“Why?” Zelda snorts, pulling out a bikini with the American flag boldly printed over it.
The Scottish Rose widens her eyes, shakes her head slowly, and puts the garment back as though she’s touched something diabolical.
I’m sure it hurt her British senses, so I don’t give her shit for it, especially since Henley makes a face that matches Zelda’s to perfection.
Drama queens, the two of them.
“Because I’m curious,” I answer, and I expect their groans in response.
“That will honestly kill you one of these days, babe,” AJ reminds me, like she so often does, as though I’m not already fully aware that I will be bested by my curiosity one of these days.
It can’t be helped, though. There’s a world of wonders out there, and I simply won’t learn any of it if I don’t feed my curious side.
Flashing her a grin, I agree. “You’re right, but I’m willing to perish at the hands of my muscled golden retriever.
He genuinely thinks he’s being sneaky, and I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m onto him.
He keeps smiling every time I even mention a vacation.
Baxter and Ryan keep sharing weird glances every time I mention a country I’d like to visit.
And Rayne literally got up and left the room when I started talking about flight prices two nights ago.
When he came back, the bastard was shirtless and had no trouble distracting me for the rest of the night.
I didn’t even remember I was looking at flight costs until yesterday morning, when I saw the browser tab still open on my laptop.
You can’t tell me that isn’t suspicious behavior. Bordering on criminal, if you ask me.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s sus, for sure,” Zelda snickers, venturing off toward a different aisle.
I follow after her, eyeing things as we go, and I mutter, “My only worry right now is that he books some weird form of a couples’ cruise. I’m throwing myself into the ocean if he does. The sharks can have a little snack.”
“Your fear of water is so dramatic,” AJ snickers, and I glare at her.
“You call it dramatic, I call it self-preservation. There are two things in the world that I’m terrified of, and those are the ocean and space.
Two vast environments that are still too unknown for me to be comfortable with.
The day you get me on a cruise is the day I’ve turned insane,” I remind them all, as though we haven’t had this discussion before.
We have, several times, because I’ll be damned if I’m forced onto a ship of doom.
I’ve watched Titanic. I know how that story ends, and I will not be another Jack Dawson, damn it.
Henley, bless her gentle soul, pats my shoulder as she passes and says, “At least you’ll die loved.”
“By four men, no less,” Zelda chimes in. “What a way to go, hen.”
AJ is almost crying with laughter, and I flip them all the bird, carrying my basket to a different aisle and adding several things to the haul.
By the time we finally leave the mall, my arms are loaded down with shopping bags and my feet are considering legal action against me.
Which, honestly, is so valid. The ache in several parts of my body calls for a massage, and I’ll be damned if I’m not already thinking of ways to convince one of my lovers to lay their talented hands on every sore spot.
“You look as hungry as I feel,” AJ suddenly points out, and I blink over at her while I register her words.
When they land, I smirk. “Not particularly for food.”
“Oh my God, you slut,” she laughs, linking her arm with mine as we head toward the parking lot. “I’ve never been prouder of you, Mads, and I was there when you finally learned to ride a bike without crashing into that tree that still has a Maddie-sized dent in it.”
Laughing, I bump my head against hers and say, “I am pretty hungry, though.”
“I’m starved. I need food. Like, pronto,” Zelda grouches, rubbing a hand over her flat stomach.
“You say that like you’re being hunted, Zee,” Henley snickers.
“I am. By hunger,” Zee retorts, dramatically feigning a fainting spell as she walks.
I’m still laughing as we cross the parking lot toward my car when I see it. I stop walking instantly, tugging on AJ without meaning to. She stumbles to a stop beside me, and Henley and Zelda notice.
“Mads?” Henley asks softly.
I can’t answer, because my stomach is too busy dropping, a sick feeling forming in my gut as I eye my vandalized car.
Painted across the side of my car, ruining the matte-black paint job, is one word sprawled in huge red letters.
WHORE
For a moment, everything around me goes strangely quiet. The parking lot, the traffic, my girls. It all simply fades behind the sudden roar that fills my ears, accompanied by a frenzied ringing that makes my head ache.
My car. My beautiful baby, ruined.
“Oh, what the fuck?” AJ blurts suddenly, and I whimper at the sound of her rage, her anger almost giving me whiplash.
Zelda goes rigid beside me, frighteningly so, and Henley’s hand finds my arm gently.
I can do nothing but stare at my car and the word that is still dripping with wet paint, the ugly letters stretched across the dark bodywork.
Whoever did that must have done it recently, and I actually want to cry at the sight of my pride and joy now marred with such an ugly word.
Something twists painfully in my chest, something hurt and wounded, because it’s not even about the word. It’s the car itself. I fucking love my car, and now she’s ruined. I think I would have preferred an Autobot to stomp on her rather than see her beautiful paintwork tarnished with crass writing.
“All right,” AJ snaps sharply. “Someone is dying today.”
“Queue starts behind me. Get in line,” Zelda seethes darkly, and I swallow hard before dragging my phone from my back pocket.
With a shaky hand, I snap several photos of my poor baby and send them to the group chat with my guys.