“I’m okay.” It’s not the truth. But not a lie either. I’m going to be okay because I’ve been through this before. Much worse than this. “Did you want something else? I’m really tired. I was going to take a shower and go to bed.” I’m not up for entertaining her right now.
She pouts disappointedly, “Okay, then we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Yeah, tomorrow.”
I’m closing the door when she stops me. “Aylee?”
I sigh. “Yeah?”
“Daddy…daddy loves you. You know that, right? Even when he does bad things…he still loves you. He loves all of us.”
His love is wrong. He loves me the wrong way. Will she understand if I tell her that? Will she understand the implication?
With a nod, I bite the inside of my cheek. “Night, Sarah.”
I see it on her face; she wants to say more. Tell me more positive shit about her father so that I don’t think badly of him. She wants to take me into her idyllic world and show me that her dad isn’t the monster who preys on me. I don’t give her a chance to speak further as I promptly close the door with her still standing there. I come away from the door, and OCD has me triple checking the knob just to make sure it’s locked. I assume Rachel has gotten Tim’s attention somehow or he’s on his way to his den in the basement, where he’ll spend the next few hours drowning in amber liquid. The sudden strong urge to shower brings me to my bathroom and it’s beneath the running jets raining down on me that my body truly relaxes. When I’m done, I head back to my room and catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror. There’s a bruise forming from where he hit me. By tomorrow it will be hideous. Glaring at nothing in particular, I walk away, unable to look at myself for too long. Before crawling on my bed, I find my cell phone inside my backpack and bring it with me. There’s a long, colorful text from Mallory.
What happened to you today?
I waited forever!!!
Wish you would’ve told me you were going to ditch me!!!
You’re such an airhead, Aylee.
I swear to God, if I wasn’t your best friend, I’d kick your ass. You better text or call me when you get this.
Guilt bubbles like acid burning the inside of my stomach. I feel terrible for not telling her I wasn’t going to meet her. It simply didn’t cross my mind, but I still feel horrible. My thumbs hover over the touch screen keypad ready to type a long, sorrowful message that would detail exactly why I didn’t bother to meet up with her. But something stops me. Realization hits me from all sides and I know without a single doubt that I don’t want to share this with her. I don’t want her to know about Maddox and the fact that I went to his apartment. I don’t want to tell her about the diner or the truck or that he came to my door just a bit ago. I don’t want to tell her about any of it. If she knows, it’ll spoil it. I don’t know why I think this, but I want to keep this a secret. I’m filled with so many secrets. But this one is special. This one I want burrowed deep inside the fibers of my flesh, because it’s not wrong. It’s not twisted. It’s not stained. It’s mine and it’s clean and it’s precious. I set the phone down on my nightstand. I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I’ll make it up to her some other way.
When my head touches my pillow, Maddox takes over my thoughts, bulldozing Mallory and everything and everyone else out of my head until he consumes my mind. He’s my god and he demands complete and utter adulation. I replay the day, from the minute I walked in on him with those two girls to the brief, intensely charged moment we shared in his truck when he’d sensually brushed his thumb across my lip to just a little bit ago when he came to the door. What could he have possibly been thinking doing that? A smile pulls at my mouth. Anyone with half a brain could tell he’d been lying about us studying together. And yet, the fact that he’d even bothered to take the time and come to the door and make up a lie on my behalf is extremely moving. Butterflies flutter in my stomach, my heart thuds, and something like pleasure slowly coats my insides. The very idea that someone like him could care for someone like me, even on a strictly platonic level, makes me feel completely lightheaded. I hold onto to that feeling, to that thought, like it’s a security blanket, and I close my eyes. When sleep comes, Maddox is there, and in my dreams he’s sitting on my bed, too handsome for words. A crook of his finger bids me to go to him, and I do. Without question, and all too happily, all too willingly, I curl up next to him, and am content with him simply holding me.
Chapter 13
Maddox
She’s got ass for days, and I’m an ass man so I’m liking the view. Sitting on the futon in the living room, she’s on my dick, riding and grinding on it like a stripper at last call. Her ass bounces against my groin after every time she goes up and drops back down. She’s soaking wet, dripping all over me. Her stepsister’s there too, kneeling in front of her, sucking and squeezing her tits. At this point, I’ve stop asking for names. Sister 1 is the one with the fat ass. Sister 2 can deep throat like no one else. It’s a good time right now. You’d think with me balls-deep in this chick and her sister on deck for another round, I’d be more focused on what the fuck is happening here and now, that I’d be feeling like the happiest fucker on earth. You’d be fucking wrong. I’m the farthest thing from focused. My dick is still hard as fuck, but my mind is on some other shit.
Aylee. Haven’t stopped thinking about her since last night. I rarely ever have a girl on the brain for this long, and if she is, it’s because we’re fucking. Aylee comes to mind and I’m not thinking with my cock. Well…not entirely. When I saw her old man last night, I instantly recognized him as that piece of shit cop Dro had me do the drop to last week. And I’m thinking that’s the main reason why I’m bothered right now. That asshole is trouble. The fact that he’s her father makes it even worse. I know he’s laying into her. It eats me up inside thinking that I might’ve made it worst for her by going to the door. Suddenly my mind goes into overdrive. I know he’s going to beat her. If he hasn’t already. But how badly? Will she be in school? I never was when it was that bad. There’d been a lot of missed school days when that sperm donor kicked my ass. A surge of anger fires off inside me, it clenches my muscles and pulls me straight up sending the chick on my dick stumbling to the floor into a heap on top of her sister.
“Hey—what the fuck, Max?” She glares at me, obviously pissed. I don’t give a fuck, though.
“Got somewhere to be.” I head to the kitchen to throw away the condom before hopping into my jeans. “Get the fuck out.”
Once they have their clothes on, I rush them out the door and follow suit, closing the door behind me. I head down to my truck, hop inside, and gun it down to the school.
***
Aylee
Seated around the kitchen table the next morning, Tim, Rachel, Sarah, and I wordlessly eat our breakfast. The events of the previous night aren’t mentioned. The sounds of silverware clinking are the only noises that break into the tense silence. Just before everyone gets up to go about their day, I add fuel to the fire by telling them I lost my bike. The only reason why I say anything at all is because I don’t have a way of getting to school.
“What happened to it?” Sarah asks, sipping her glass of milk. It’s an innocent enough question and knowing Sarah as well I do, I know there’s no malicious intent there. Just simple, blithe, childish curiosity.