Chapter 5 Maddison #2
Confusion weaves across his forehead. “Are you kidding me right now?”
I shake my head. “Nope, but again, why do you act so surprised?”
He blinks a few times. “Because you’re hot as hell. Like, seriously gorgeous. And then you add that with your personality, and I just don’t get how guys haven’t been lining up to be with you.”
“Even if all of those things you just said were true—which they’re not—who’s to say guys weren’t and I just reject them?”
“That makes the most sense.” He lifts his free hand and wags his finger at me. “I could kind of see that. Although, what is with the no-sex thing?”
I lean to the right to lift my hand and sweep strands of my hair out of my face. “Because I have a plan.”
“What sort of plan?”
“It started with getting into college. But now it’s to graduate.”
“And sex gets in the way of that?”
“It could, if I got pregnant. It happened to my mother.”
He bobs his head up and down. “I get it. You don’t want to end up like her.”
I exaggeratedly widen my eyes. “That’s the understatement of the year.”
He presses his lips together, considering something. “She sounded unpleasant when you talked to her on the phone while we were in jail.”
“She’s an unpleasant woman,” I agree. “She ended up not bailing me out of jail, either. Someone else did.”
He rubs his lips together. “Who?”
I lift a shoulder. “I don’t know. They wanted to remain anonymous.”
“That’s weird.” He stares off at a group of people playing frisbee in the quad yard.
“Is it?” I question suspiciously. “Because you’re acting very suspicious right now.”
“Hmm … am I?” He meets my gaze, and somehow, I just know …
“You’re lying to me right now.” I start to move my leg away.
“Wait.” He holds onto my leg, the pads of his fingertips pressing into my flesh. “Don’t freak out, okay? The lie … it’s not bad.”
“All lies are bad,” I stress. “It’s all I’ve ever known, and it’s never been a good thing.”
“I get that. Trust me; my father lies all the time. But this isn’t mine to tell. And it’s not bad. I promise.” His eyes plead for me to understand.
And that’s about when it clicks—what’s going on.
I’m fairly positive River paid my bail.
I have no clue how I feel about that. He meant well, I’m sure. It makes me feel in debt to him, though. And that, I’m not a fan of.
Exhaling, I attempt to relax as I recline back on my hands. Finn visibly relaxes, too, then begins to knead my thigh muscles again.
“How does this feel?” he asks.
“Really good. I feel like I’m being spoiled and there’s no coming back from that. I’ll probably end up calling you every time my legs hurt now.” I’m mostly joking.
His lips tug into a smile. “That wouldn’t bother me.”
“You think so?” I arch my brow. “Because imagine me calling you up right before you’re about to hook up with some hot girl just to tell you to come massage my legs.”
The haughty grin that spreads across his face has my stomach swooping with nerves. “I’d probably think you were secretly wanting a booty call.”
I roll my eyes. “Didn’t I just tell you I am a virgin?”
“Booty calls can be more than just sex, Maddy.” He looks at me again, and his emotions are written all over his face. “Unless you haven’t done anything else, either.”
“I’ve kissed a few guys,” I divulge. “But that’s it.”
He sinks his teeth deep into his full bottom lip. “Goddammit, girl, you’re about to send me over the edge.”
I snort a laugh. “This is turning you on? For reals?”
“Yes, for reals. It’s making me want to show you all the things you’ve been missing. Things I’m really, really good at.” He winks.
I pick up a small twig and throw it at him. It pegs him in the forehead, and he chuckles, unfazed.
I roll my eyes, but my skin is warm, and not from the sunlight. “Are you always like this?”
“Nah, I have a serious side, too,” he tells me dismissively. “I just don’t show it a lot.”
“I’d like to see it.” I wiggle my other leg as the muscles gripe in pain.
He glances at that leg then slides his fingers out from my pant leg. “Let’s switch.”
I do as he says, and he begins massaging that leg.
This is one of the nicest things a guy has ever done for me. Well, besides when he helped me escape Drew. River has helped me so much, too. How can these two royal twins be so nice? I didn’t expect things to be this way when I came here.
Still, so many secrets dance through the air, starting with … “Are you ever going to tell me how you vanished into thin air in the library?”
I diligently observe his reaction as tension ravels through his muscles and his fingers stop moving.
“I’d rather not.”
I frown. “Why not? You say you want to be my friend, you massage my legs, and yet you won’t tell me this or why you were even hanging out with that Eli guy, who your sister hates, by the way.”
“I know Lily hates him, and one day, that asshole will pay for what he’s done.
” He bites out each word. “But I have to play this carefully. It’s how the royal game is played.
” He looks at me then. “You need to take note of that, too. The more careful you are about seeking answers, the safer you’ll be. ”
I’m unsure if he’s implying he’ll tell me later or he wants me to totally back off. I won’t, though. It’s not the way I work. I hate secrets. I hate lies. And I don’t want to hate him. He’s too cute and sweet for that.
Before deciding if I should simply peace out, a twenty-something-year-old, red-headed guy walks up to us. He’s wearing a pizza company shirt and is carrying a pizza box.
“Are you Finn Averson?” he asks as he stops beside us. His attention roams to where Finn’s hand stuck up my pant leg, and I can only imagine what he’s thinking.
“Yep, the one and only,” he tells him with a cheeky grin.
I can’t help smiling. Finn has that way about him where, even when he’s annoying the hell out of me, I can still smile at his stupid silliness.
“Here you go.” He hands Finn the box. “Thanks for the tip, too. That was awesome.”
“Sure, no problem. It’s a long drive up here.
” Finn sets the box down beside his hip then opens the lid as the delivery guy strolls away with his arms crossed.
He’s rigid as he passes by the group of people playing frisbee and one of the bulkier dudes makes some asinine comment to him about his outfit.
“How come you’re nice?” I return my focus to Finn as he grabs a slice of chicken and spinach pizza from the box.
His forehead creases. “Am I? Because people usually tell me I’m charming, not nice.” He dazzles me with a grin.
I sigh. Always joking.
“You are. So is River. And your sister.” I press a glance at the douchebag frisbee dude. “And then there’s guys like him who are total rich asshats.”
“Asshats, huh?” He’s beyond amused. “That’s an interesting choice of word.”
“That’s what he is. And you’re not. I’m just wondering why. What’s the deciding factor between a rich guy turning into a jerk and then turning into you and River?”
He contemplates this with his head tilted to the side, his gaze dissecting me. “We can be assholes, but we’ve never thought we were above anyone just because we were born into money. To be honest, I hate some of the people who go here, and I find people like you immensely more interesting.”
Is that a compliment or not? I can’t tell.
“Because I’m poor?”
“No, because you’re honest, and real, and tough in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend.”
“I doubt your life is super easy all the time, considering your broken friendship with Noah.”
“It hasn’t always been easy, but I still feel like your life has been harder, and you turned out way better than me.” His pretty boy gaze is unnervingly attentive—too much, honestly. “You fascinate me, Maddison Averly.”
That might be one of the sweetest things a guy has ever said to me. Not that I’m hot, tough, and have a nice ass. It’s making me feel twitchy, to the point where I squirm.
If he notices, he doesn’t remark. Instead, he moves to hand me a slice of pizza.
“Now, eat up because I’m not about to eat this entire thing by myself,” he tells me, dangling the pizza in front of my face.
I shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”
“Liar. River told me how you always refuse anything offered to you.” He urges me to take the slice. “Come on. Just take it. I have an entire pizza over here, and with how badly your leg muscles hurt, I’m betting you burned a lot of calories this morning.”
He’s right. And the pizza does look so yummy. If it weren’t for the alarm still blaring in the distance, I’d decline and go to the cafeteria. But I’m famished, so I take it.
“Thank you.” I take a bite. “But FYI, there’s no way in hell I believe you couldn’t eat an entire pizza by yourself.”
He gives me this cocky smile as he collects a slice for himself. “My record is three pizzas in one night.”
My jaw drops. “What the hell is your stomach made of, bro?”
He busts up laughing, his eyes crinkling around the corners. “It was for a dare. And I won a hundred bucks.”
“And three pizzas,” I add, causing him to laugh harder.
“I love how you just say things how they are.” He sinks his teeth into the slice of pizza and tears a chunk off. “And how you’re always calling me bro and dude. It’s not normal around here for women to talk like that.”
“Why? Because their ladies?” My eye roll is evident through my tone.
“I mean, yeah, that’s how they’re raised to be.” He pauses. “Not that all of them are like that. They just act that way in public. I mean, River and I have a lot of responsibilities—River in particular—but I feel bad for Lily, who spent most of her childhood attending ballroom and manners.”
“Ew, that’s a real thing?” I take another bite of my pizza, eating like a savage and owning the heck out of it.
He wolfs down half a slice of pizza. “Yep. There’sa ton of weird classes she had to go to, and she hated every one of them. And they changed her, even if she didn’t want them to.”
“That’s sad.” I’ve never even thought about how royal women might have it just as bad as north-siders, but in a different way. It makes me think of this whole betrothed thing.
“I’m guessing this Isla girl had to go through the same thing, but maybe even more because she’s betrothed?” I’m being nosey about River, and I don’t like it—how I’m this interested in him, enough that I’m prying.
And Finn reads right through my shit.
“Ah, the betrothed,” he muses then sighs.
He grabs a napkin from the stack that’s on top of the pizza box and wipes his fingers clean.
“We used to kind of be friends with Isla when we were kids, but once we got old enough to realize what being betrothed entails, our friendship dissolved. Isla has been through a lot of shit. Her mother is a freaking lunatic. I once saw her smack a waiter because he brought her the wrong drink.”
I break off a piece of the pizza crust. “What did the waiter do?”
“Nothing. He got fired.” He rotates his upper body and reaches for another slice of pizza.
“That’s so messed up,” I say, frowning.
“That’s the royal world, Mads. The rich get what they want, even if they don’t deserve it, and they treat anyone beneath them like they’re worth absolutely nothing.”
“I thought you said not all of them are bad?”
“They’re not. But there’s enough vipers crawling around here that the risk of getting poisoned is high.” He gives me a pressing look. “The best way to reduce the risk is to stay as far away from the danger as possible.”
His warning is loud and clear, even if he doesn’t say the words aloud—stop asking questions about the library before I get bit.
Little does he know I’ve been poisoned my entire life, to the point where I’m pretty certain I’m immune to it.