She nods. “I did…” Her voice is soft and so quiet. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize,” I say. “Look at me.” I don’t wait for her to lift her head. Instead, I cup her face and do it for her. The anger from earlier hits me like a blow to the gut and the only thing keeping me from raging is the softness of her skin on my hands. I’m gentle when I slide my thumb across a dark purple bruise on her cheek, but she winces, her bottom lip curling between her teeth in an attempt to either keep her pained moan at bay or show me that it isn’t as bad as it looks. She’s stupid for doing either. I’m so fucking angry for her I can feel the rage pounding through me. It’s a white-hot anger that has me seeing red, and the only thing that’ll make it better is beating the shit out of someone. The cop would do nicely.

“I know it hurts.” That’s really all I can say right now. “I’m sorry.” That too. It comes out pretty damn easy, too.

When she sets a hand on my wrist, I thinking she’s going to push me away, tell me to leave her the fuck alone. It’s what I would’ve done. I never allowed anyone close enough to see how much it hurt when I was going through it. But she’s not me. She doesn’t push me away, in fact, her hand remains like a warm, soft band of flesh around my wrist and when she squeezes, I let her. I take the silence of her pain that feels too damn much like my own.

Jesus fucking Christ!

I’m stuck between wanting to hit something right now and rolling a joint, and popping some SKY to numb me to the balls.

“I’m okay.” When she answers, it’s with a breathy whisper clogged with tears she doesn’t let fall. She sniffs and attempts to smile. “A pig is probably somewhere getting some pretty awesome air mileage right now.”

She lost me. “What?”

“You know, pigs flying, you actually being here, in school. I’m thinking you gave a pig some wings,” she jokes quietly, and when she actually produces a genuine smile, I’m struck for a little bit with how much I like it on her. It’s a little shy, a flash of pearly-white teeth between a set of lips, her pink pout grabbing my attention. “You can let go of my face now,” she says, trying her best not to meet my gaze.

Another thing that strikes me suddenly is how unwilling I am to let her go. It’s such an insane mind-fuck that I have to take a few steps away from her to keep myself from losing it.

“So…are you staying?”

“Nah,” I say, “I got someone waiting for me.” I put enough out there to make her think it’s a girl but it’s actually a customer who hit me up earlier this morning for some SKY. I’m not even sure why the lie is necessary right now. But I don’t want her getting ideas. “I’ll be seeing you, Aylee.”

I’m down the stairs when she calls, “Maddox…?”

I’m at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her standing on top of it. “Yeah?”

“I’m glad you came.”

Four little words softly spoken slide under my skin like a needle full of shit I shouldn’t be doing but the aftereffect might just be the best fucking high of my life. This girl is not someone I should be fucking with. She’s got neon yellow hazardous signs written all over her slim body clearly warning me to stay the fuck away and yet all I seem to be doing is stupidly running towards it. Towards her. At full speed.

Yeah, I need to get the fuck outta here.

“Put something on that cheek.” And then I turn and leave.

Chapter 14

Aylee

The week drags on at a snail’s pace. Each morning I wake up with a renewed hope that I’ll see Maddox at school again, but by the end of each day that hope burns to embers of despair. There’s a strange weight on my chest that only seems to grow heavier with each passing day. It feels like a boulder stopping my heart from finding its proper rhythm. He doesn’t show up to group therapy either, so by Friday night all I want to do is curl up in bed with a blanket over my head with a Netflix marathon of Audrey Hepburn movies to watch until I fall asleep and pray that I’ll forget him. Forget about his piercing eyes. Forget the way he’d touched me on Tuesday, and held my face so tenderly in the palm of his hand while trying to comfort me. Forget about the effect his words have on me, and how much I quake inside when he tells me to do something. Forget about his athletic frame, the broadness of his shoulders, the rise and dips of his abdomen adorned by all those tattoos. Forget that all too distinct line of toned muscles that cuts down his slim waist and leads to his groin where his long, thick, perfectly-veined penis springs up from between his lengthy, powerful legs like a masterfully-crafted pillar. Forget him, and forget everything. But I can no more forget every wickedly beautiful aspect of him than I can forget my own name.

“Would you do it?”

I blink. “Do what?” I’m in Mallory’s room. No movie for me this Friday night. Not only is it Halloween, but I’ve been given permission to spend the night at Mallory’s house. I’m not sure how she did it, but after telling her I wasn’t going to be able to spend the night at her house like we’d first planned two weeks ago, she had me call Tim and took the phone from me to talk to him. It took her less than two minutes to get him to agree for me to have a sleepover at her house.

“Let Maddox Moore fuck you on camera.”

My eyebrows shoot to my hairline. If I’d been drinking something right now, I would’ve spit it out all over myself. Giving her a bemused look, I try to figure out exactly when and how we got into this conversation. “What?”

She turns to look at me from where she stands in her walking closet and rolls her eyes. “Don’t play stupid with me. That whole ‘I’m so innocent act’ is only going to get you so far. I saw you with him the other day, you know. And Danielle and Alecia said they saw you at his apartment the day you totally ditched me. So I want to know, are you going to let Maddox fuck you for his website?”

I’m concentrating so hard on the screen of my phone that I’m sure it’s going to go up in flames any second now. That, or it’ll just be me who spontaneously combusts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mal.”

“Fucking spare me, Aylee. Why are you keeping stuff from me? I thought we were supposed to be best friends.”

I look at her. “We are,” I insist.

“Then why the hell didn’t you tell me you’re fucking Maddox?”

God. This conversation is spinning out of control. “I’m not! I’m not doing anything with him. I just wanted to ask if he would pose for me. I told you I needed three new and different pieces for my portfolio.”

“So what, you’re going to just…paint him?” Despite the skepticism in her voice, she sounds utterly confused. Like the thought of doing anything other than ‘fucking’ Maddox Moore was inconceivable. She wouldn’t be wrong. The idea of being intimate with Maddox didn’t just cross my mind, it lingered there. It brought baggage and made a nice, comfortable home inside my brain and in the inferno-hot place directly south of my stomach.

With a shrug, I shift from side to side on her bed before bringing my legs to my chest. “I don’t think he’s going to do it.” I’m referring to the drawing. Resting my head on my upraised knees, I’m grateful my hair is able to cover my hot face. She saw the bruise, briefly asked me about it, and bought the ‘I walked into an open cupboard’ excuse I gave her.

She takes out a black skater skirt and holds it in front of her while keeping her eyes glued to the mirror. “Well yeah, no shit. The guy fucks and sells drugs for a living. I don’t think he has time for your little art project. And no offense, but he’s kind of out of your league. I just figured he wanted to fuck you on camera, is all. Because that’s his little project. How about this one?” She turns to me for an opinion I’m sure she doesn’t really need.