When class was over, Maddie jumped up, grabbed her kimono, and ran. I was hot on her heels. She made a beeline for the ladies’ room. I hesitated at the door for a second, but when I heard crying, I couldn’t help myself. I had to go in.
As I plowed through the two sets of doors that protected the inner sanctum of the ladies’ room, the gentleman in me insisted on a disclaimer. “Listen up, I don’t mean any offense, but man coming in,” I hollered.
What they say about the women’s bathroom was true. It didn’t smell nearly as bad as the men’s room, but it was still ugly. Teal and burnt orange tiles, tan stalls, and Maddie leaning on a sink, black smears of mascara running down her cheeks. I went across to her but stopped when she wept, “Is it not enough that you made me feel dirty in there? You need to fucking accost me in the ladies’ room?”
Whoa. What was happening here? Was I somehow lecherous when I looked at her? Honestly, I felt a little lecherous when I looked at her. I stayed very still. Not sure what to say. I decided it was best to ask. I kept my tone calm and even, even though I was scared that I had somehow wrecked us before we’d begun, “Okay, I’m a little lost. I see that you are very upset, and I want to understand. Please, Maddie, tell me what I did? If you can explain it to me, I promise I won’t do it again.”
She was crying hard, sniffling and struggling to catch her breath. After a few messy moments, she regained her composure and her sadness transformed into rage, “Really? You don’t know what you did? You come into my shop so embarrassed of me that you don’t want your brothers to know we know each other and you don’t want them interested in me. Why? Because I’m dirty?”
I stuttered. It never occurred to me that she would assume that I was embarrassed of her. Why would anyone be embarrassed of Maddie? She was spectacular. She didn’t give me a chance to speak.
“And what kind of man does that make you? You’re embarrassed that I take my clothes off for art, but looking at me makes you fucking hard as steel. I guess you’re a fucking perv who gets off on sluts, huh?”
That was enough of that. I had something to say now. “Stop.”
“You don’t get to—”
I interrupted her, my voice forceful, bordering on a full-blown yell, “Stop it. I won't listen to you talk about yourself like that. You’re amazing. You’re brave and willful and exceptional. I love that you model in this art class even though I want to beg the others not to look because I’m jealous. I don’t want my brothers hitting on you because I want you for myself, and the only person who should feel shame about this art class is me because I’m too scared to tell my family that I think I’m an artist, not just a rancher, so I’m hiding this class from them.”
Maddie looked at me with wonder, her mouth hanging open. Behind me, the bathroom door opened and my weasley professor sternly said, “Mr. Morgan, this is the ladies’ room. Is everything okay in here, Madeline?
A fire still burning in my chest, I turned to him and spat, “Listen up, her name is freaking Madison. Not Madeline. MAD-I-SON. You got it?”
Maddie came up behind me and pressed her hand to the small of my back. All the angry energy slipped away at her touch. She spoke to Prof. Douche Canoe, her voice soft and no longer weighed down with sadness, “Everything is fine, Rufus. Just a misunderstanding.”
Rufus was a perfect name for that guy.
His face red with embarrassment from my attack, Rufus clamored to reestablish his authority, “Very well. Mr. Morgan, you still are not allowed in the ladies’ room.” He held the door open and signaled for me to leave.
Maddie dropped her hand from my back to my palm and squeezed, “Wait for me outside?”
I nodded and strut past Rufus, heading straight for her car. It didn’t take very long for Maddie to push through the building doors. I watched her walking towards me, her blue hair was loose now and she was wearing a yellow knit cap. She looked sweet, like a girl ready to play in the snow. I wanted to build a snowman with her. You know that feeling? When you totally have the hots for someone, but you also just want to have fun with them, the kind of fun you had when you were a kid. Hearty, ruddy-cheeked, playful, laugh-filled fun.
When she got close enough for me to hear her, she said, “I feel like an idiot.”
That was to be expected but not necessary. “Don’t. It was my fault.”
She didn’t say anything.
I took her fingers in mine and briefly looked down to see the contrast of her feminine hand in my callused one. Then, I looked back into her eyes, “I’m sorry you felt all those things.”
She swallowed, looked away, and sadness crossed her face again, “I have to wonder why, right? That was quite a story I built up in my head.” She paused, and I used my hand to turn her face back to me. “For the record, I’m not a fucking psycho,” she said.
“Well, some people think I’m a serial killer, so...”
“You do have that look about you,” she flirted. She was close now. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of her body in my space.
My voice got husky and deep with my desire, “I wanna take you out, Maddie.”
She got closer, “Okay,” she answered, her breath on my lips. Fuck, I wanted to kiss her so badly. I wanted to slam her against the side of her car, wrap her legs around my waist, and make her come. But moments ago, I’d made her feel used. So, instead, I pulled her to me, hugged her against me so that we were cheek to cheek, and whispered in her ear, “I want to kiss you. And I’m going to kiss you, but when I kiss you, Maddie, you won’t question what my intentions are.”
6
Maddie
“What am I doing?” I asked Mr. Wiggles, my cat.
Mr. Wiggles, Wigs for short, was gray with icy eyes and a blue collar. We were into blue in our house. He perched beside me on the bathroom sink as I examined myself in the mirror. Luke was due to arrive soon and I was still in my bra and underwear. I’d been having the age-old underwear argument with myself. Wear a matching set or go with granny panties? This man had me all tied up in knots. Normally, I wouldn’t even consider a matching set on a first date, but dating Luke felt different than any man before him. Considering he’d basically already seen me naked and come so close to kissing me, I decided on the matching set.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I scolded Wigs. “You’re not my keeper.”
I hadn’t been on a date in a while. I didn’t even mean to be going on one now. I knew it was a bad idea, but there was something inescapable about my connection to Luke. Maybe it was just hormones. For the record, all he had to do was show up and I was reeling. Luke Morgan was the real deal, an honest to goodness panty dropper. My connection to him kept overruling my sanity. For the first time in my life, I looked at a man and thought maybe I could love someone and he could love me. It was ridiculous, I hardly knew him. But when I was standing next to him, it felt like we could be something. Only, we couldn’t be. For me, Luke was a fling at best. There’s no way I was in his future once he realized what I couldn’t offer him. But there was something about being near him that I couldn’t deny myself. This was my year of self-exploration, right? So maybe my body love journey needed to include a swelteringly hot cowboy lovin’ on my body. Why not? Seemed perfectly rational to me.