“Jesus, I don’t need this shit.” The son of God isn’t listening. He never has. With a curse, I set out after her. When I reach her, I grab her arm to stop her progression and whip her around. “Mind telling me what the fuck is up?”
She gives me that abused puppy look again. Wide, mismatched eyes gleaming with tears, brows furrowed, bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she worries it mercilessly until it’s plump and strawberry red from the blood pumping beneath. The visual sends my own blood rushing south, my dick twitching like it knows what’s up. I have to tear my eyes away from her mouth.
“My bike…it’s gone. I rode it here. I locked it right over there.” She points back to the sign a little ways back. “Now, it’s gone. I locked it, I know I locked it.”
I let go of her arm with a scoff, “Maybe you forgot where you are, but around here, the word ‘locked’ doesn’t mean shit.” Looking damn near pitiful, I say a little gentler, “Not sure if this makes you feel better, but my place has been robbed more times than I can count. Don’t take it personally. Think of it as the neighborhood welcoming you to the shittiest part of the city. Instead of a welcome basket, you get your shit taken.”
Her shoulders rise and fall with a long sigh. “I don’t know how I’m going to get home.”
“Maybe you can convince me to give you a ride, on a full stomach. Come on.”
Chapter 10
Aylee
My bike is gone. Not a great loss, but it was my favorite mode of transportation. With it I had an excuse not to rely on either Rachel or Tim for rides. It’d been my small piece of independence. A small taste of the freedom I could one day get. One day soon. College is just around the corner.
“Drop that pussy, bitch…” Those words drag me out of my thoughts. The rap song blasting from the woofers of his truck on the drive to wherever we’re going is aggressive and misogynistic. The only upside is that it saves us from the awkward silence. Glancing to my left, I note that he’s really into the song. He’s bobbing his dark head and raping the lyrics like I’m not in the car. It’s an abrasive song lade with so much talk about sex, every time he curls his full mouth around the word ‘pussy’ a tug of something inexplicable ripples through me. He turns his head in time to catch me rudely staring.
With a cocked eyebrow, he follows with a sly grin, evoking a surge of warmth beneath my skin. I turn away, telling myself not to look at him again for the rest of the drive. It’s hard, but I manage, even when the sound of his throaty, mocking laughter glides along my skin.
Butts and Suds is a small diner located on the city line of Trenton and Dover. It’s the sort of mom-and-pop place you’d find off the side of an interstate after a long road trip. Maddox turns left and rolls his pickup in an empty space, next to another truck. The side of the restaurant, with its four long-paneled windows, faces the unpaved parking lot so that the occupants of the diner are able to look out at whoever is coming in and vice versa. It’s as small on the inside as it is on the outside, even more so considering how packed it is. We walk into a din of more than fifty patrons immerse in conversations interrupted by the occasional laughter and the clacking of silverware. There are people seated on red-cushioned stools lined beneath a long counter to the left while on the right fifteen or so booths matching the red of the stools stretch a short distance down to the kitchen area.
“Eh, Suzy, you got a table for me?”
The heavyset woman behind the counter with graying auburn hair twisted up in a bun and a greasy white apron tied over her powder blue uniform smiles big at the sight of Maddox.
“Last booth by the kitchen.”
While I slide in on one side of the booth, he walks away for a brief moment and returns with two Styrofoam cups of fountain drinks.
“The only thing good to drink here is the sweet tea,” he says, setting one of the cups in front of me and taking a seat.
“So, tell me…”
“Been a while, kiddo,” the waitress from earlier interrupts, the same warm, wide smile brightening her weathered features. She looks about fifty, with deep frown lines carved across her forehead. “How you been? Staying out of trouble?”
Maddox scoffs. “Never learned how, Suze.”
She laughs. “Don’t I know it? Always have been a real pain in the ass, even when your mom brought you around.” Her glance strays to me. “You know he used to go behind that counter right there, take our tip jar and help himself? His mom didn’t know what the hell to do with him. God bless that woman’s soul, she was such a sweetheart. I still can’t believe it happened like that. She didn’t deserve any of that. None of you guys did. Your old man was such a bastard.”
It’s remarkable how quickly his expression of casual tolerance vanishes. Nothing immediately takes its place. He just stares straight ahead, right through me, like he’s trapped in a memory. He doesn’t say anything, but he’s radiating so much hostility, it’s like sitting across from a heat lamp.
He reaches over to pick up his cup. “Here’s to hoping he’s roasting in hell,” he announces, and drinks and drinks until it’s all gone. Despite all the noise around us, there’s a cloud of tension hanging over us in that instant.
Knowing she probably said far more than she should have, Suzy clears her throat before taking out her pencil and pad. “What’ll be, kiddo, the usual?”
“Yup.” Short and concise.
Jotting it down, she turns to me. “And you, sweetheart?”
I shake my head. “I’m okay, thank you.”
“Order something,” he grumbles, his gaze boring into me.
“Uh…maybe some fries…?”
“You got it. Basket of fries, coming up. Hang tight. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“You follow me around school, you’re at this bullshit therapy group I’ve been forced to go to, and now you’ve come all the way down to my little shithole with some stupid-ass excuse about homework. I don’t know what the fuck you want, but I’m going to make it real easy for you and tell you I’m not…”
“I want to draw you,” I blurt out.
He looks at me like I’ve gone brain-dead. I raise a hand to sweep my hair behind my ear with a sigh. “I’m applying to the New England Institute of Art, and they need my portfolio by December. I’ve been following you around because you have this look I think would translate really well onto a canvas. I thought I could capture your likeness from far away and not have to bother you, but…” I raise my shoulders to align with my ears and let them drop with a sigh as my eyes drop down to the black-speckled tabletop.
“Look at me.”
I can’t say why his directives have such an unquestionable effect on me, or why. I can’t seem to deny them. But without even the slightest hint of hesitation, they fly to meet his brooding, pewter gaze.
“Continue what you were saying.”
Another sigh. “But I need you sitting in front of me in order to get your angles and contours exactly how I’d like them.” It’s so hard to hold his stare, especially when embarrassment warms my face like it is now. “I was hoping you’d let me draw you.”
With his razor blade stare fixing steadily on me, he raises his arms and folds them behind his head. “Why not ask Noah? We have the same face.”
“Actually, you don’t…not really.” At the intrigued cock of his left eyebrow, I look away before elaborating. “I know you’re twins, but Noah’s face is more symmetrical, his features are delicate, beautiful even. But you…you’re…”
“Uglier,” he quips, the corner of his mouth flirting with a boyish grin.
I shake my head, “Far from it.” I lick my lips as my eyes dart to his face before looking away again. “You’re…rugged. Striking. There’s a hardness about you that’s really compelling. It’s hard not to stare at you.” I bite my tongue at the unsolicited admission.