Masquerade

At that I laugh and then pull back. “Name the time.”

I’m not sure if Adrian and Maddox say anything to each other because when I look, Laney is hugging Scratch. Her face is angled toward the other side of him and I can tell she’s saying something in his ear. She’s so relaxed but he looks slightly uncomfortable. Laney pulls back and he ruffles her hair and says, “I know.”

It’s so not my business; still, I want to know what she said. Or maybe it’s that I want to know what he heard. Everything about Maddox makes me curious.

“I’m so glad you could come.” Laney turns to me next and pulls me into a hug as well. It’s so crazy being around these girls. I’m not used to being around women I feel comfortable with—women I feel like I can be myself around—and it gives me this strange sort of happiness I didn’t know I missed.

The whole way home I can’t stop thinking about it. I hardly register my arms and legs around Maddox as he drives his motorcycle through town. Today was a good day. I had fun and felt okay being me… like I had when I lived with Melody and Rex? They loved me for me. Mom and Dad love me even though they wish I were someone else. I can’t keep putting my parents down and not Rex and Melody, though. It’s not like they are perfect either. They stole me.

Little flashes of fear flicker through me again. The feeling of being grabbed… of being confused. They stole me and told me my parents were dead. And it hurt. I never let myself remember that I’d been sad at first. How could they hurt me if they loved me? Or did that mean they loved me more? Because they risked it all for me and wanted me so badly.

The world would be easier without so many questions of what love is and how to do it properly. I see it when Laney and Maddox look at each other or between Adrian and Laney and Colt and Cheye

Before I know it, we’re pulling into my driveway and Maddox is turning off his motorcycle. With a kick, I pull my leg over the bike and pull the helmet from my head. “Tell me about your sister and Adrian.” I don’t know why I need to know but there’s suddenly this thirst that I can’t quench. There has to be a story there. Maybe if I know it, it’ll help me understand.

One, two, three, four, five. Maddox sits on the bike, not looking at me. Then he pulls the helmet from his head and I know I struck a chord—that the way his sister and Adrian got together somehow ties to him too. I see the ache in him that he tries so hard to bury. “Shit. I’m sorry. It’s not my business. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

Slowly, he turns his head, looks at me. He does that thing again where he closes his eyes for a second before taking a deep breath and opening them.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” I say, trying to make up for inadvertently pushing him.

“My dad killed Adrian’s son.” He turns, his jaw tight, eyes trained in front of him instead of on me.

Words escape me. Fighting, I try to find them in the maze of my mind but I can’t. His father killed Adrian’s son. And he’s with her. He loves her. And Maddox told me.

“Maddox… shit. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” He looks at me. “You didn’t do it. You didn’t get fucked up and get your girlfriend to go down on you while you were taking a corner too fast.” His hands tighten into fists. “He was two years old and my father ran him down in front of Adrian. That’s what started the shit with my mom.”

“How?” I’m shaking my head. We shouldn’t be doing this in the middle of my driveway. We maybe shouldn’t be doing it at all. Holy crap. His father killed Adrian’s little boy.

“Laney thought she could make it better. She wanted to find Adrian, tell him and apologize, like that would somehow fix all our lives. She thought Ash was Adrian’s nephew. But instead of telling him the truth, she fell for him. When she told him, she found out it was his son.”

Finally… finally he looks at me. “As you can imagine, he lost it. He found his way back to her, though. He loves her enough that he would do anything for her regardless of what we took from him.”

How do you love like that?

“What do you mean, ‘we’? You didn’t take anything from him. Just like you said I wasn’t in that car, you weren’t either.”

“I should go.” Maddox’s hand comes up to put the helmet back on his head, but I grab it. I don’t know what’s come over me but I need him here. Can’t let him leave.

Not after the truth he gave me.

“Don’t.”

I look at him. Really look at him. Yes, I’ve always thought he was gorgeous but that’s not all that’s there. I know that only now I’m seeing it. Seeing the pain inside him as though he’s wearing it for me. I don’t know where it all comes from or why he feels any responsibility for his father, but it’s there.

And my heart breaks for him.

“Why? Why should I stay, Bee? So we can keep fucking around? So we can draw pictures again or sleep in the same bed? Why do we keep playing these games?”

He’s right. We are playing games but I don’t know how to stop them. I also don’t know how to let him go and I don’t think I want to. I want to give him something. Want him close to me in a way I’ve never wanted anyone close to me before. If I could, I’d cure that ache inside him. I don’t know how to tell him that. Don’t know how to show him or even what the hell it all means.

“I don’t know,” I admit, at a loss for words.

His eyes bore into me. “Tell me about your parents, Bee. You wa

I think about his sister and her friends. How much they care about each other and how they made me feel like I fit. How I feel like that with him, too, and Maddox has given me both those things.

How he came to me and let me pierce him because he knew that was all he had to offer. It was his way to say he kind of trusted me and I want him to know the same thing about me. That I trust him. I’m falling for him… Or maybe I’m already there.

When I open my mouth, those aren’t the words that come out. “No, those aren’t the reasons I want you to come in. I want you to mark me.”

His eyes fill with fire and I know he understands exactly what I mean.

Chapter Twenty-Two ~Maddox~

I want you to mark me.

I’m cemented in place. My feet nailed to the ground and my eyes glued to her. There is no doubt in my mind what she’s saying. She wants me to give her ink—to put something into her skin and it’s the biggest fucking honor to even have her say it but also scares the hell out of me. This is huge. This is Bee and the last thing I want is to screw something up that’s this big.

She straight up told me she hasn’t let anyone except the Professor give her ink but she’s asking for it from me—someone who’s never put needle to flesh before.

There’s no fucking way I will walk away from this either. I want my mark on her. Want her to have a piece of me with her for the rest of her life.

“Here?” Cocking my head, I nod toward her house.

“I have everything we need.”

As if my body has a mind of its own, I reach for her. Wrap an arm around her shoulder and pull her close. I like having her near, like the way she feels and how she makes me feel. My body molds to hers as though we’re supposed to fit together.

We walk to her house and she unlocks the door. Bee steps in first and hits a light. Words are trapped in my throat as I look around her house. It’s… perfect. Her furniture is white and there are dried flowers on the entertainment center and paintings on the walls that you can tell cost more than all the secondhand shit in my house put together. It’s not her.