Chapter Twenty-Six #2
She starts swinging her legs, hooking one arm around my neck and playing her fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck as she drunkenly answers, “The girls saw me to the elevator, but I told them to go. Not because I didn’t want to admit I didn’t know how to use the elevator. No sir-ee.”
It was definitely because she couldn’t use the elevator.
Snorting, I carry her to her front door, watching as she delves into her purse and rummages for her keys.
A small pinch of sadness hits me then, because I noticed she started locking her door the night she didn’t show for dinner.
She’s done it every day since, truly locking us out, and I still don’t know what the hell happened for her to ghost us.
Taking her keys gently, I unlock the door and step inside, kicking the door shut behind myself. Without a word, I carry Maddie to her couch and place her down like she’s a work of art I’m cautious of breaking, right before heading to the kitchen to get her a glass of water.
When I return, I find her sprawled on the footstool like a starfish, her spaced-out eyes staring up at the ceiling with a tilted head and a look of awe on that gorgeous face. Her next whispered string of words has me biting back another grin. “I didn’t know my ceiling moved. Did you?”
“Not a clue,” I answer, stepping close and cupping the back of her head to lift her into a seated position, pressing the cool glass of water to her plump lip that almost distracts me. “Here, have some of this.”
She does as she’s told, tilting her head back and gulping down the water like she’s spent a month in the desert, and I have to stop her from chugging down the whole thing in case it makes her sick.
Breathless, she nods. “That’s some good shit right there. Good shit, indeed.”
Grinning at her, I ask, “How much did you even drink, mayhem?”
Her face scrunches like she’s thinking hard about it before she shrugs loosely and admits, “I stopped counting after the fifth fruity concoction Zelda put in my hand. Your guess is as good as mine. Could be ten, could be a hundred. Well, actually, no. I’d probably die after a hundred.
That’s still a better death than the stairs. ”
She sighs like she’s been hard done by after climbing all those stairs, and it makes me wonder what time she actually got home and just how long it took her to get to where I found her.
A thought that’s forgotten when she suddenly yawns and flops back down with her usual dramatic flair that I’ve grown pretty addicted to over the months. Eyeing the little enigma, I pat her knee and tell her, “Stay put. I’ll get you clothes to change into.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” she slurs, dropping an arm across her face before falling silent.
Nodding to myself, I stand and head toward Maddie’s bedroom, heading straight for her closet.
I rummage through a few drawers, finding a pair of comfortable shorts I know she likes to lounge in and a soft band T-shirt she can sleep in, carrying them back to a quiet Maddie still lying on the footstool awkwardly.
I know she’s not asleep, because she’s humming a tune under her breath, her hand bobbing along to the beat. So, I step to her side and hover her clothes in front of her face. “Wanna get changed into something comfier before going to sleep?”
Her hand falls away and her gaze meets mine, my heart stalling in my chest not for the first time.
There’s something in her eyes that bleeds the humor away from my body, and I crouch beside her slowly, her eyes tracking every move as though she hasn’t been drinking her body weight in cocktails all night.
Keeping my voice hushed, not really wanting to disturb the peace I feel when I’m in her space, I ask, “What’s going on in that head of yours, Maddie?”
Those piercing blue eyes scan me, an awareness in those depths that fights through the drunk haze that keeps her head swaying, and she grumbles, “I missed you guys.”
My shoulders slump and I crouch beside her, tucking more of her hair from her face. She watches me as closely as she can manage, pouts, and crosses her arms over her chest just as I ask, “You wanna tell me why you locked us out?”
She shakes her head, and I smile down at her, softening like I never have before. It feels weird, but not totally alien, and I find myself actually liking it. I kind of like finding someone to be soft for, even if she’s currently icing us out.
“You don’t want to explain why you’ve been intentionally avoiding us?” I push gently, sneaking my hand to the back of her neck and scratching softly at her nape. A move I’ve found melts her entirely, just like it does now.
Her whole body relaxes more than it had been seconds before, and I can’t even describe what that does to my chest, my heart filling almost to bursting.
Another sign that I’m absolutely sunk for this woman, her absence fucking with me more than I ever thought it would.
I knew I was growing attached, we all did, but I’m no less surprised by how deeply I’m in the water.
Maddie finally looks away and slurs, “No. You’ll think it’s stupid.”
“I promise I won’t,” I counter easily, almost desperate to know why we were hung out to dry, with only two texts from her in a week.
She looks back at me, and a new vulnerability fills those pretty blues, shocking me into silence.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that look on her face in the months I’ve known her, and I’ll be punched square in the face by King Kong himself if it doesn’t completely sucker me.
My heart pinches so hard that I feel it ache, pounding so loudly I’m sure she would be able to hear it if she wasn’t drunk.
And then she wrecks me when she whispers sadly, her voice warbling with an underlying note of tears, “I’m too much.”
I keep my fingers moving against her neck, softly scratching as I ask, “What do you mean?”
“I’m too much,” she repeats, a sad smile tugging at those beautifully full lips.
Her eyes scan my face as she carefully speaks, trying her best not to slur her words.
“Too much trouble. Too much drama. Just too much. So much so that the four guys I like felt like they had to turn themselves into bodyguards because I’m being stalked by a small-dicked ex that won’t leave me alone. And that’s the tip of the lettuce.”
Wait, what?
I pause, squinting before I suddenly understand what she’s saying.
“Tip of the iceberg, you mean?” I ask gently.
“That’s what I said,” she insists, rolling those eyes at me, the teary look disappearing as suddenly as it came.
“Anyway, on top of being a handful with baggage, the craziest thing has happened and it sucks, because it’s one of those one-way street things.
Which sucks even more, because Caid said something, and then Ryan said something, and something clicked in my head and I just buried my head in the sand. Like a pigeon.”
“An ostrich,” I correct, trying to keep up and failing miserably. The most I know is that Ryan spoke to her last before she cut us off, and he said things seemed normal until they pulled up at the apartment building and Maddie practically ran off after claiming she was sick.
“That’s what I said,” she claims again, and I roll my eyes at her.
She carries on speaking before I can say anything, and I shut up and listen, scared she might clam up and lock us out again.
“Anyway, Ryan said something that made me realize you guys became glorified bodyguards, and it dawned on me. You guys are sticking around because I have small-penis problems, not because you actually like me. Not how I like you.”
I fucking choke, because how can she say one thing that’s so outlandish before saying something that actually wrecks me from the inside out?
My hand pauses in her hair as I cough through both humor and shock, feeling her pat my back limply as though that’ll do much of anything. It does make me sweet for her, knowing she’s trying to help, even though she can’t keep her head up on her own right now.
When I can finally talk again, I quietly ask her, “What makes you think we don’t like you?”
She shrugs sloppily. “I know you like me, but it’s like liking a puppy, right?
Or liking chicken. Wait, no, that’s not comparable.
Chicken is the slut of all the meats. There’s nothing like liking chicken.
What else is there? Um, it’s like liking…
I dunno, I can’t brain right now. What I mean is, I have huge, fat crushes on four different guys, and they all feel obligated to look after me like mighty defenders and I’m a defenseless wimp that needs help.
And it made me realize that Toby was right.
I really am too much. And it sucks, you know? ”
I don’t know, because there hasn’t been a time that I’ve felt like Maddie was too much.
In fact, over the past two months, I only ever want more.
I want more of the laughs I hear in our apartments when she’s around, want more of our shared meals that make me feel like I’ve found a complete family for the first time in my life, and I definitely want more of Maddie’s time.
I don’t think there’s been a moment since I’ve known this girl where I’ve felt like she’s too much.
I can’t even seem to get enough, which is why her absence all week has pissed me the hell off.
So, with a little bit of bite I don’t mean to show, I answer, “No. I don’t know, because there’s never been a time where any of us thought you were too much, Maddie. Not once.”
That snags her attention, and she blinks rapidly at me, mouth parting with a small gasp that does things to me I can’t even explain.
I run my gaze over her face and, deciding to bite the bullet and jump farther into the deep end, I finally admit, “I don’t know where the wires crossed, but where the hell did you get the idea that we didn’t like you?”
Maddie’s eyebrows pinch, and she slowly shakes her head. “I didn’t say that. I said you liked me like someone would like a puppy.”
“Who told you that?” I push, desperate to know where the hell she got that idea.
She shrugs. “Caid said you guys liked me, but didn’t elaborate, and he said it like he was saying the weather was nice. I really like you guys. Like, all of you, but then Ryan said you were looking out for me because of Toby. So I assumed-”
Something possesses me suddenly, and I have no control over myself when I lean toward her, simultaneously tugging her toward me.
I don’t even recognize my voice when I harshly breathe, “We fucking like you, too, Maddie.”
My lips are on hers before I can think rationally, kissing her with every ounce of feeling I’ve built for her over the past two months of being near her.
It’s when she kisses me back that I fall, right then and there, head over fucking heels.
I’m a complete lost cause, my lips molding against hers as I taste the alcohol on the lips I’ve thought about since I saw them in person.
I’ve imagined how they would feel against mine, but nothing could have done them justice, a new obsession forming as I kiss her like she’s mine.
Because she fucking is. She’s mine, just as much as she’s Caiden’s. As much as she is Baxter’s. And Ryan’s. No more icing us out, no more hiding. Because now that I’ve had a taste, there’s no way on this earth that I’m letting my bundle of mayhem get away from me now.