Make Me Bad(48)

I frown.

“Why?”

“The numbers would be all off. Andy has two couches and two chairs in his living room. With seven people, someone would have to sit on the floor.”

“So we’ll just bring in a chair from the kitchen.”

“Hand me another snowflake, will you?”

Ah, so he’s just going to ignore me then. Wonderful. It’s as if the whole topic bores him, which makes sense. He’s never been in my shoes. He’s never had to go years starved for affection, yearning to know what it feels like to just…

I resist the urge to groan and yank my hair.

He was right earlier—I did think he was going to take advantage of me in that hallway. I wanted him to!

“Madison. Snowflake.”

Right. I grab some off the table and walk over to the ladder so I can pass them off to him. My shoulders are sagged. My smile is wiped clean.

Even on my tiptoes, our hands barely touch. He stares down at me with a grim expression.

“Just…not tonight, okay?” he asks, his eyes imploring me to drop the subject. “Let’s just hang out with the group and we can figure out that boyfriend stuff later.”

I hate that he wants to shelve the topic. It might not be a big deal to him, but it is to me.

I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought I was going to back him into a corner so he’d be forced to come clean one way or the other. Instead, he chose a third route, one I didn’t even see coming: total indifference.





15





Ben





A warm front is moving into Clifton Cove today, the first of the season. I’ve been tracking the weather a lot this week. I turn on the morning news and listen to the meteorologist droning on about the terrible storm headed our way. They weren’t kidding. Last night, it rained cats and dogs, and it’s still drizzling right now. I see it through my office window.

I don’t mind though. With the rain comes the heat, not nearly as warm as it gets here in the middle of the summer, but it’ll be warm enough for a plan I’m debating putting into action tonight.

It’s been two months since I first started volunteering with Madison. I’ve endured two months of hanging out with our fledgling friend group, of forcing a distance between us and ensuring my hands stay to myself as much as possible. We text all the time. We’re building a relationship that neither one of us is acknowledging.

Her family still doesn’t know about us and other than the stunt I pulled in the diner, I’ve respected that fact. She never has to insist that I park around the block from her house when I drive her home. I do it because I don’t want to make her life any harder. I do it because spending time with her is the best part of my week, because when she’s in my car, I feel like…

I can’t finish the thought.

I’m a mess.

Since the picnic when she asked me if I found her attractive (in a hypothetical sense), we haven’t delved into feelings, no talk of romance and seduction and the urge I have to suppress every time I’m within ten feet of her. I want to kiss her, all the time—in that hallway at the diner, when she was curled up on the couch beside me at Andy’s house for movie night, when she’s reading a story aloud to the kids in the library, when she wears the green dress that matches her eyes.

I’m a man falling, though I’ve tried to convince myself otherwise.

For Christ’s sake, I’m supposed to be finding her some other guy to date.

Andy finds the whole thing truly hilarious. He thinks I’ve really stepped in shit this time.

“It’s so poetic, don’t you see? The universe is finally setting things straight for guys like me. All these years, I’ve had to endure women throwing themselves at you. Now you want Madison and she doesn’t want you. No, wait—she can’t want you. There’s a difference, and you’re having to really mind your manners. Have you even kissed her?”

“Get out of my office.”

“Oh man, no kiss? You’ve thought about it though, right?”

“I’m going to physically remove you.”

“I’d like to see you try—I’m heavier than I look. So, what’s your plan? Stay in the friend zone? Bet you’ve never been here before. It sucks, doesn’t it? Suffering day in and day out and knowing there’s nothing that can come from it.”

I stand up from my desk then, prepared to make good on my promise to forcibly remove him.

He leaps to his feet and holds out his hands to fend me off. “Hey, hey. Okay, I hear you loud and clear. You’re obviously a man possessed.”

I stop short and prop my hands on my hips.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he prods.

“I don’t know.”

He shakes his head, all humor erased from his eyes. “I don’t believe you. In our first year of law school, you’d already outlined our firm’s five-year growth plan. You’re always ten steps ahead of everyone around you. It’s the way your brain operates. You want Madison—are you really not going to fight to get her?”

His words are a constant taunt through the remainder of my day.

Am I going to fight for her?

It’s a tricky situation. Her family doesn’t like me, and there’s not much I can do about that. I can’t shed my last name or make myself meek. I can’t minimize who I am, and I won’t, not even to gain their acceptance. In truth, half the things they assume are accurate. I did grow up privileged, and I’ve had the world at my fingertips. But, my mom’s death ensured that I know what’s most important in life. I want a family. I want a house that’s a home, not an empty shell. I want to love someone the way my parents loved each other, through thick and thin, through sickness and health.