17. Chapter 17
Rylen
The heavy weight of a body hitting my mattress is the only warning I get before the air is knocked out of me. I grunt, blinking against the harsh daylight, and find a pair of bright blue eyes inches from my own.
"Happy birthday, Ry," Maddox beams, his grin wide and terrifyingly energetic for this unholy time of—morning? Late afternoon? Whatever it is, it's too fucking early.
I grope for my bearings, my brain still foggy with sleep, but as my vision clears, I realize my room doesn't look like my room anymore.
There are orange and black balloons bobbing against the ceiling, and fake cobwebs are draped over my headboard.
A string of plastic jack-o'-lantern lights is tangled around my bedpost, casting an orange glow over my duvet.
"You did all this?" I ask aghast, my voice sounding like it was dragged through gravel. I look around the room, amazed. He must have been up half the night, creeping around in the dark while I was dead to the world.
"Yeah, man," Maddox says, propping his chin on his hands as he sprawls across my chest. He doesn't seem to care that I’m half-naked and probably smell like stale sweat and sleep.
" You know I’ll always be your biggest simp," he laughs in that painfully carefree way that only he seems to be able to. I wish I was more like that.
I shift awkwardly under his affectionate gaze.
The heat from his body is seeping through the blankets, and the way he’s looking at me—like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing—makes my pulse do a nervous, stuttering dance.
After everything that’s happened this week, the weight of his attention feels heavier than the 195 lbs body on me.
"And if anyone tries to take my spot," Maddox continues, his voice dropping into a casual, conversational deadpan, "I’ll cut their face off and wear it, while I pull each and every one of their fingernails out with pliers.
" He punctuates the threat by sucking in a sharp, wet breath, his lips curling back as he makes that iconic, pth-pth-pth-pth Hannibal Lecter noise.
Mads smiles up at me then, his eyes literally shining, as if he hadn't just described a scene out of a snuff film. He looks at me with pure, unadulterated hearts in his eyes, waiting for a reaction.
He’s a little fucking freak, but god, I love him.
Fuck, I do—I l ove him. The realization hits me like a freight train. It’s not just loyalty or history anymore. I’m in-love with Maddox Bakker.
My chest aches with a sharp, localized pain right behind my ribs. I can’t meet his stare anymore, so I look at a floating balloon instead. The silence stretches, turning thick and dangerous. To break it, I reach for my phone on the nightstand .
"Move over, let's get a photo," I mutter, needing a distraction before I do something stupid, like confessing my undying love for my best friend.
Maddox doesn't need to be told twice. He shuffles sideways, grabbing Gremlin and squishing her furry body right between our chests.
She lets out a loud protest, but she isn't trying very hard to get away from the embrace.
"Get in there you little shit," Maddox chuckles, leaning his head against mine. I hold the phone up, capturing the three of us. Maddox is glowing, while I look like I’ve been hit by a truck, and Gremlin is just a blob of black and white fur in the middle. It’s the messiest, most sincere picture of us I own.
As soon as Mads hops off the bed to go make birthday bacon like he does every birthday, I find myself staring at the screen. My thumb hovers over the settings before I click: Set as Wallpaper.
If he sees it, I’ll just tell him it’s because the cat looks cute. Which she does—it’s a really good pic of Gremlin. That’s all it is. I’m definitely not keeping a photo of the man who just threatened to skin people alive for me, on my lock-screen for any other reason.
I stare at the image for a second longer—Maddox's messy hair, that infuriating half-smile ghosting across his face, the orange pumpkin lights, the way his lean body is pressed into mine—and then I lock the phone and shove it under my pillow, my heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs .
Loving him isn’t a choice; it’s a fucking tidal wave and I’m the foolish prick who keeps walking away from the shore, despite knowing the flood would destroy the safe borders of our friendship. But am I really walking towards something I should be running away from?
The smell of birthday bacon eventually lures me out of bed.
I spent nearly ten minutes staring at my new wallpaper—at the way Maddox’s eyes crinkle in the photo—before I manage to shove my legs into a pair of jeans and stumble toward the kitchen with my phone tucked into my pocket.
I want to keep the energy light. I want to stay in that safe, "just friends" bubble of Halloween decorations and birthday jokes, only the second I step into the kitchen, the air changes.
The "best friend" mask Maddox was wearing in my bedroom is gone, replaced by the stormy, restless energy that always seems to find us when we’re alone. He isn't standing at the stove as I expected. He’s just... waiting for me.
I lean against the counter, unsure what to say. Awkwardly fiddling with my phone to keep myself from having to acknowledge the tension in the air. Maddox’s breath feels like a phantom limb, always touching me even when he’s meters away.
We’re standing in the quiet of the kitchen—two best friends who know each other's schedules, secrets, and worst fears. Except right now, we’re more like two strangers dancing on the edge of a cliff .
He steps close until we’re almost touching; I flinch, not outwardly, but deep inside my ribs. His voice, that low, dangerous purr that can shake me to pieces, is right next to my ear.
“What have you done to me, love?” he murmurs.
That word is my fucking Achilles’ heel and I'm sure he knows it. He reaches out, his thumb tracing over the very edge of my bottom lip in a light, gentle stroke. It’s like an iron chain pulling my focus back to his face.
My phone slips from my grasp to the counter with a clatter.
"Let me take care of you," he whispers, his eyes searching mine with a heat that makes my knees weak. "Anything you want. Just tell me."
I meet his stormy eyes and see the raw emotion there, the kind that demands more than just a fleeting release.
I swallow thickly and try to turn away, a sharp movement meant to feel like a rejection, but I’m trapped between him and the counter.
I need distance, to feel the cool air, I need anything but him.
His eyes appraise me in a way that makes my insides twist; they’re carefully studying me, his lips pressed in a thin line.
“Has anyone else ever taken care of you the way that I do?” he asks quietly, pausing a beat before adding, “the way you take care of me?”
I turn around, trying desperately to be free of this torture, though the distance I try to create doesn’t last long.
Maddox draws impossibly closer, his body perfectly aligning to my own until I can feel the frantic beat of his heart against my back.
His hands settle on my waist, pulling me flush against him.
His lips trail soft, devastating kisses along my neck, and a groan fights its way up my throat.
My eyelids flutter closed at the feeling of his tongue ghosting over my skin. The fight is leaving me, draining out with every slow, delicious touch. This is the surrender I keep telling myself I wouldn’t make. Yet here I am, smashing that shit to pieces. A-fucking-gain.
“Mads, I don’t—” I exhale, the words useless. "I’m so tired of fighting."
“Don’t fight it, Ry,” he breathes against my skin, his hands sliding lower, possessive and sure. “Consider it a birthday gift. Nothing more.”
He’s being so goddamn gentle it hurts worse than if he’d been rough. He’s acting like I’m some precious heirloom—something he’s finally allowed to hold after years of it being locked behind a glass cage.
I reach back, my fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer, the ache in my chest becoming unbearable.
I want to tell him I love him. I want to tell him to never let go.
That I'm sorry I'm like this, that loving me must be so fucking exhausting.
That I just need more time. That I'm trying to put him first, trying to protect him—it's what I'm always trying to do.
I turn in his arms, my hands fumbling with his shirt, needing to feel his skin against mine.
The air in the kitchen is thick, charged with years of stuff we never said, and for a second, I think we’re actually going to do it.
I think I’m actually going to let the walls stay down. If that's what he actually wants.
Then, the shrill, insistent noise of my phone slices through the silence. Both of our eyes snap to the counter. The bright screen flashes Bry .
The spell is broken, taken over by the creeping panic and the shame of what I’m doing—of how easily I just let Maddox in—it all slams back into my chest.
The "No Bears" mantra starts screaming in my head, but the walls have already slammed up, hard and unforgiving. And just like that, I realise why we can never be together. I need to stop toeing this dangerous line and cut it off once and for-all. Even he ends up hating me for it.
I snatch my hands away from Maddox like his skin is burning me, and take one shaky step back, breaking the contact so fast that he almost stumbles.
I grab the phone, not looking at him. As I answer my voice is entirely devoid of the warmth that was there seconds ago. “No, not doing anything important, what’s up?” I lie, turning my back on Mads and walking quickly toward the living room, leaving him behind me in the silence of the kitchen.