I can’t imagine spending the rest of your life in a metal and cinderblock cage is anything but hell on earth, but at least he’s alive.
Which is more than Dallas can say.
Thirty-Three
Brighton
* * *
The apartment smells like Chinese takeout and Madden is stepping out of the shower when I get home.
“Took the night off?” I ask. Normally he works until nine or ten most days of the week.
He winks. “Thought you might want help celebrating your first full day in the real world.”
“Is this for us?” I point to the white bags on the counter.
“Yeah. I didn’t know what you like so I just ordered a bunch of stuff.”
I dig around in one of the bags, retrieving an egg roll and taking a bite off the tip. “I know you’re not a real boyfriend, but you’re a pretty amazing pretend one.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Stop.” Madden pulls up a chair at the table, and I take the one beside him. “So how was it?”
“I survived.”
“Never a bad thing.” He grabs a white cardboard container of rice and a plastic spoon.
“Today was mostly orientations and paperwork. Gave me a tour of the building. Introduced me to my research team.”
“Nerds?”
“No,” I correct him. “Geniuses.”
“My bad.”
“Try this.” He forks a piece of chicken and feeds it to me. “You like?”
I nod as I chew, and then I give him a thumb’s up.
“Good. It’s yours.” He slides that particular container my way before digging into the bag and grabbing another.
He’s in a good mood tonight. Not as broody as usual. More talkative too. In a perfect world I’d take the credit for it, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with me.
I watch him eat, admiring the way his jaw flexes, the way he picks the peppers out of his entrée. Ordinary things, but the way he does them is all his own. Or maybe that’s just something that happens when you’re falling for someone … you find every little thing they say or do adorable or attractive. If anyone else did those same things that same way, it wouldn’t make me bat an eye.
Pulling myself out of my daydream, I remind myself that this isn’t real and it never will be.
“My parents forgot my oldest brother in a Chinese restaurant once,” I say. “He was playing on one of the arcade games in the back and my other brother had just thrown up and they were trying to get us all back in the car so we could get Eben home. My dad drove three blocks before he realized we left Graeme behind.”
He laughs through his nose, once.
I’m sure the story isn’t as funny to him as it is to me—if he knew how anal my father is and how flustered he gets around any kind of bodily fluids, he’d understand.
“What about you? Any crazy childhood stories?” I ask. I don’t expect him to answer, but I hate to sit here and talk about myself.
“All kinds,” he says. “None that I’m going to share.”
“Okay.” I can respect that. “What about any good childhood memories? Something that makes you smile?”
He digs around in his entrée, pushing peppers and onions aside. And then he nods.
Is he actually going to tell me something?
“When Dev was one, she went through this stage where she was having night terrors. Lasted about four or five months. Most nights of the week it’d happen,” he says. “Only one of us that could calm her down was me. She didn’t want our mom. Didn’t want a bottle or a blanket. Just me.”
“Madden.” I tilt my head. “That's really sweet.”
He shrugs.
I wish I could have known this younger version of him, the softer Madden that the world hadn’t yet tainted.
I also wish I could ask him about Dallas.
I think about that sketch pad all the time, curiosity eating away at me. And part of me thinks it’s not so much the notebook … it’s more about what the notebook represents—which are all the things I don’t know about him.
And all the things I probably never will.
“Random question for you.” I clear my throat and head to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water.
“Nothing is ever random with you. But what is it?”
“With this new job … I’m probably looking at getting out of your hair in about four weeks,” I say. “I’m just wondering what we were going to do after that. Do we keep on keeping on … or?”
“Brighton.” The way he says my name deflates any and all hope I had that he might be open to turning this into something more. “I’m not going anywhere. You can still come over. It’s not like we have to stop hooking up after you move out.”
“Yeah, but what if one of us meets someone?” I’m sure he sees through me. I’m sure he knows what I’m really getting at. But I can’t help myself.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.” He takes another bite of chicken.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Yep.”
I uncap my water bottle. “Why are you so anti-relationships?”
“Because people are selfish,” he says without missing a beat. “And I’m no exception.”
“So you’re just going to be single the rest of your life?”
He shrugs. It isn't a yes. It isn't a no.
“It’s better this way,” he says. “This way I don’t get hurt and I don’t hurt other people.”
“Don’t you ever get lonely?”
“No.” He scoffs. “I’m surrounded by people all day.”
“No, I mean ... don’t you sometimes just want somebody to love? Don’t you ever miss the way it feels when somebody loves you?”
“Can’t miss something you’ve never had.” He shoots me a wink before getting up from the table and dumping his food containers in the trash.
“I highly doubt you’ve never been loved,” I say. “Everyone’s been loved.”
He shakes his head. “Not me.”
I could love him.
So easily.
If only he’d let me.
Thirty-Four
Madden
* * *
Brighton’s hips buck beneath me Friday night, her fingers hooked around the back of my neck as she presses moaning kisses onto my lips.
She’s been working full-time for five days now, and the last couple of nights she’s been exhausted so we’ve only fooled around a little bit, but tonight she’s making up for lost time. That’s what the weekend does to us working stiffs.
When she bites her lower lip, I know she’s getting close.
Running my fingertips along her bare outer thighs, I hook the tender spots behind her knees and place her legs over my shoulders. Fucking her deeper, harder, and faster, I watch her face as she rides me back, meeting me thrust for thrust, eyes squeezed tight and nails digging into my flesh until she finds her release.
When it’s over, I roll to the other side of the mattress, catch my breath, and stare at the ceiling.