“I dare you,” he whispered so softly, I almost missed it. Maddox looked down at his glass, his fingers clenched around it. Even in the dim lights, I could see the way his knuckles were starting to turn white.
He was giving me a dare now?
He didn’t finish his sentence, and I wondered if he was contemplating his dare. Maddox’s jaw flexed from obvious frustration. For a brief moment, I thought maybe he wasn’t angry at me. Maybe, he was angry at himself. He was fighting himself. Could it be that the problem wasn’t me?
He drank the rest of his drink in one gulp and then slammed his glass on the counter, before swiveling around in his stool to face me. Maddox stood up and walked a step closer to me, until my knees were touching his strong thighs. He leaned forward, caging me in between the counter and his body. Our gaze locked, and he licked his lips. He had me captivated for a moment until he mercilessly broke the spell.
“I dare you to sleep with him.”
I reared back in shock. Wh-at? No, I must have misheard him. This couldn’t be…
“What?” I whispered, my throat dry, and my tongue suddenly heavy in my mouth.
Maddox’s eyes bore into mine, staring into my soul. When he spoke again, his deep accented voice danced over my skin dangerously. “I dare you to fuck him, Lila.”
A trembling started in my core and then moved through my body like a storm. Not just a quiet storm. A tsunami of emotions hit me all at once, reckless in its assault. I submerged under the dark waves, suffocating, and then I was being split open, so viciously, it sent tiny cracks of my heart and fissures of my soul in all directions. I clamped my teeth together to stop myself from saying something –anything that would make it worse.
We had done too many dares to simply count on our fingers. Countless silly dares over the years, but we had never dared each other to sleep with other people. Granted, I had asked him to kiss a girl once; they made out, but it was years ago. But our dares had never crossed that line.
Sex… that was never on the table. We never explicitly talked about it, but it was almost an unspoken rule.
“What’s with that look, Lila?”
My eyes closed. I refused to look at him, to look into his beautiful eyes and see nothing but pitch black darkness. He wasn’t looking at me like he used to. The light in his eyes was gone.
It scared me.
It hurt me.
It was destroying the rest of what was left of me.
“Look. At. Me.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to see the hurt in my eyes.
“Open your eyes, Lila,” he said in his rich baritone voice.
I did as I was commanded. He crowded into my personal space, forcing me to inhale his scent and feel the warmth of his body. “Are you serious? Or are you already drunk?” I asked quietly. It was hard to breathe with him this close.
“I never take back a dare.”
And I never lose. He knew that. We were both very competitive, and to this day, neither of us had backed down from a dare.
Maddox’s hand came up, and he cupped my jaw. His fingers kissed my skin softly. He smiled, but it didn’t match the look in his eyes. “What’s wrong? You don’t want to do it?”
“I don’t play to lose.” Asshole.
Maddox leaned closer, his face barely an inch away from mine. Our noses were almost touching. My heart fluttered when he tipped my head back. Take back your dare. Take back your dare, Maddox. Don’t make me do this.
He curled his index finger around the lock of hair that had fallen out from my bun. His minty breath, mixed with the smell of alcohol, feathered over my lips. I wanted to beg him with my eyes. Maddox tugged on my hair slightly before tucking it behind my ear. He moved, and my eyes fluttered close once again…waiting… a desperate breath locked in my throat, my chest caving, and my stomach clenching.
He pressed his cheek against mine, and his lips lingered over my ear. “Don’t disappoint me, chérie.”
My body shuddered, and I breathed out a shaky breath. He tore my heart open and left me bleeding. He pulled away and stared down at me.
Maddox was mocking me. Taunting me.
He never stopped being a jerk. He just hid it behind a sexy smile and a nonchalant expression.
I thought he had left his asshole ways behind. But no, I was wrong. So goddamn wrong about him. About us.
Friends. We were friends.
I thought maybe… he wanted more. More of me. More of us, of what we were or could be. I was so goddamn wrong.
Maddox Coulter was still an asshole behind a pretty mask.
And I was the stupid girl who fell in love with her best friend.
1
Lila
Three and a half years ago
“Motherfu–” My mouth snapped shut before I hissed out another painful breath as my knees threatened to buckle under me.
The coffee table stared back at me innocently, and I glared in response. Little shit. I gave it a kick, with my uninjured leg, just for the heck of it.
My morning was a mess already, and I fought the urge to take out my anger on the coffee table. Granted, it just bruised my knees, but in reality, the fault was mine.
My alarm didn’t go off, which obviously meant I woke up late. Very late. First period classes had already ended, and it was halfway through second period. Then, in my struggle to get dressed hurriedly, I ended up tearing a hole in my white and pristine school blouse. Great. What a lovely morning already.
Scrambling away from the little table, I ran out of my grandparents’ house and quickly locked the door behind me. I had to catch the bus in two minutes, or else I was going to be mega-late. The next bus wouldn’t be here for another thirty-five minutes.
As I ran to the nearest bus stop, I quickly went over my morning list in my head. Four very important things. Phone – yes. Earphones – yes. Keys – yes. My English assignment – yes.
Everything seemed to be in order. Now, I just had to make it on time for my third period class, so I could submit my English essay on time. Or else…
I shook my head, refusing to even think of the consequences. My heart started to race and beat erratically at the mere thought of getting a zero on this assignment.
No way. It would ruin my perfect record of straight As. My grandma liked to joke and say I was paranoid and a little too OCD about my marks. My grandpa, with a proud little laugh, would say I was a perfectionist. They weren’t exactly wrong.
My perfect GPA, plus my thousand hours of community service and volunteer work, would get me into Harvard. And it was all that mattered. Harvard was my path. It was my destination, and it was where I belonged. Maybe my grandparents were right. Maybe I was obsessed with the idea of “perfection.” But I didn’t care. If perfection would get me everything I wanted, then Miss Perfectionist I’d be.
The bus came on time, and I successfully climbed in without any more bad luck. My favorite seat at the back of the bus was waiting for me. It gave me the perfect view of the whole bus, and it was a window seat. Once my earphones were in, “Hands to Myself” by Selena Gomez started to blast in my ears. I leaned my forehead against the cool window and watched the world move.
This was probably my favorite part of my morning routine. I’d always been an observer, and one could learn a lot in a ten-minute bus ride.