Two
Your boy’s drunk off his ass, Peach. Got in a fight. Come get him.”
From his spot lying in the old, battered booth inside Coach’s office, MJ heard Coach’s words spinning around in his head. Peach. Maddie’s nickname. “I’m not her boy,” he mumbled, incoherently. “I’m not her boy,” he said again, to make sure it was understood.
His bottom lip throbbed, and when he swiped it with his thumb, he realized it was split open and bleeding. One punch was all he let the other guy have. Or maybe it was the only one he remembered.
“Paul says you been in here talkin’ about her all night,” Coach said, putting a hand over the receiver to talk to MJ. “I’ve known you both too long to fool me, kid.”
MJ could only imagine what Maddie must be thinking, must be saying on the other side of that phone conversation. The last thing she wanted was for him to be her boy. She’d made that perfectly clear.
MJ grabbed the sides of his head. Jesus, why did she have to come back? Thinking about her sent a freight train loose inside his head. Off the tracks. Derailed. Combusted into a million flaming pieces. Or was it the music blaring on the other side of the wall, and the crack of billiard balls breaking his brain in half?
F*ck, he was dizzy. And his stomach hurt like hell.
“Thanks, Peach. The kid owes you one.” Coach hung up the phone and loomed over him, glaring down into the booth. “Your woman will be here in ten. Get your drunk ass out of that booth.”
MJ grabbed the top of the booth and pulled himself up. “You know she’s not my woman.”
Coach cocked a gray, hairy eyebrow. “She’s back, ain’t she?”
MJ couldn’t help but smirk. She was back. He didn’t know why that made him feel like grinning like an idiot while facing Coach. Maybe because he couldn’t hide anything from the man. Maybe because he was drunk off his ass.
“Make her stay this time.” Coach smacked him on the back, sending spots flashing in front of his eyes and the room spinning.
Coach grabbed a bowl of peanuts off his desk and slid into the booth across from MJ. “You didn’t come in here hell-bent on oblivion just because of her.” He rested his arm across the back of the booth. “Tell me what’s eatin’ you.”
How could he tell Coach what he’d come to the bar to drown? How could he admit that his father found out he existed and bolted without a word? Didn’t even talk to him on the phone.
This f*cking day. Why was he still conscious? “Same old shit, Coach. Just wasting time until classes start again. Had to get out of the Old Man’s house for a while.” His words slurred in his ears. Slurred or not, they didn’t sound convincing.
Chuckling and chewing peanuts, Coach shook his head. “Nah. You’ve been tame all summer long. All the sudden you get ants in your pants about getting out of that house, get shitfaced and start a fight in my bar? Who do you think you’re talkin’ to, boy? Something’s got you riled up tonight, and it’s not just that pretty Peach coming back.”
“Peach,” MJ muttered. Coach had started calling Maddie Peach when MJ was in fourth grade and addicted to playing Mario Bros. video games. Coach said MJ was Mario, the Italian stallion, and Maddie was Peach, his pretty princess—even though she could field a ball better than him back then.
MJ patted the scratched tabletop with his palm. “Really, it’s cool. Sorry about the fight.”
Coach narrowed his eyes but didn’t press him. “I’m risking my business serving you underage you know. Don’t start pulling this getting into fights shit and get the cops on my ass.”
MJ patted the table again. “A few more months, and I’m legal. I’ll keep it straight until then.”
He laid his forehead on the table. The room had just stopped rotating when the door flew open and banged against the wall. The sound was like a nail being driven into the back of his skull.
“What the hell, MJ?” He didn’t think Maddie would be happy with the call to come haul his ass home, but he didn’t expect her to be this livid.
He turned his head and willed his eyes to focus on her. “Hey, Mads. S’up?” Might as well stoke that fire. He could tell by her tight, drawn-in expression she was already in flames.
She stormed over to him and shoved his shoulder. It was all he could do to keep from falling over in the booth. “Don’t s’up me! You come here, get drunk and start a fight? Who are you?”
Her eyes were bright and wet with unshed tears. Her eyebrows, dark tilted strips making a crease above her nose. That look made him want to crawl under the table. “Don’t act all concerned. You’ve been back all of what? An hour?” He scoffed and shook his head. “Go back to Michigan and stay the f*ck away from me.”
He didn’t look at her face, but by the way her shoulders sagged and her fists unclenched and fell to her sides, he’d gotten a punch in on her tonight, too.
Good. She’d beat the hell out of him without ever laying a finger on him. She couldn’t come back and pretend they could be… whatever she wanted from him now. Friends? Not hardly. They couldn’t turn back time.
Shit, all he wanted to do is slide his hands up her bare arms and rest them on her shoulders. Kiss her pouty lips until she smiled. Would she smile if he kissed her? Who the hell knew anymore. She’d probably smack the shit out of him.
Coach cracked him on the back of his head. “Don’t talk to Peach like that. Now, get out of my bar and sober up.” He grabbed MJ by the upper arm and yanked him onto his feet. “Call me tomorrow and let me know you’re alive.”
MJ stumbled toward the door. Maddie followed behind him. “I’m parked on the street.”
“Whatever.”
“Why did I even come? I should’ve just left you here. Don’t you have anyone else to bother at…” she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and glanced at the time, “quarter ’til one in the morning?”
No. He didn’t. Is that what she wanted to hear? That he’d shoved away everyone who might want to get close enough to leave him flattened like road kill, exactly like she had? “Screw you. I’m not the one who called you.”
“Fine!” She shoved past him out the front door. “Call the Old Man to come pick your ass up. I’m out of here.”
She strode across the street, her hips twitching back and forth in tight jeans and that little black tank top… ugh. Damn. It. “Wait!” He jogged to catch up with her at her car.
“What?” She snapped around to face him. “I’m good enough for a ride when the only other option is your grandfather?”
Those dark blue eyes of hers flashed with rage. God, she was hot, and he hated it when she was mad at him.
“Screw you?” she shouted. “That’s how you talk to me now? Well, no. Screw. You. MJ.” She drove home each word with a sharp poke of her index finger to his chest.
He grabbed her finger and wouldn’t let go when she tried to tug it free. He held her eyes, praying to feel her open him up again and climb inside. He needed her there. Needed someone to care as much as she used to. “Don’t leave me, Mads.”
He saw her anger melt away, like a wave that had crashed on the shore and rushed back out into the ocean. She sighed. “Just get in.”
She had her window rolled down, and the whole way home the wind blew her intoxicating scent right in his face. There was no escaping the memories of them together that flooded his senses. The ones he’d buried so deep, he was surprised they could surface so easily.
The feel of her hair twisted in his fingers.
Her soft sighs against his neck.
The salty-sweet taste of her skin.
Jesus. The basketball-sized knot in his stomach twisted and pulled tighter. He had to get out of this car.
MJ rolled his window down and stuck his head out. There. Now he couldn’t smell her spicy-sweet whatever it was.
“What are you doing?” Maddie asked. “You’re not going to puke are you?”
“No. Just getting some air.” He glanced over at her and watched her eyes dart from him to the road and back again.
When she’d first gotten her license, he was only twelve. She’d taken him everywhere with her that summer when he came home from boarding school. He’d still been like a little brother to her. That hadn’t changed until the summer after high school. That summer was the best three months of his life. She’d just graduated college and was home again to stay. She said they’d get an apartment right off GSU’s campus. They didn’t though. She left. Gone back to Michigan, practically a thousand goddamn miles away from him.
“What?” she asked. MJ hadn’t realized he’d been staring at her.
“Nothing.” He turned his face back out the window and took a deep breath. Nothing. Nothing would ever be like that summer again. He’d never been so close to having a home with someone he loved. She offered it up like a dream and tore it away like his worst nightmare come true.
He wished she’d talk about something—anything—instead of leaving him sitting there brooding in silence.
“How’s baseball?” she asked.
That wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. “Over.”
“When does practice start for next season?”
“It doesn’t.” She needed to stop asking him personal questions. It only led to things he didn’t want to discuss.
She stopped at a red light. “What are you talking about?” Her fingers gripped the wheel tighter, like she was preparing to hear him say something terrible.
She knew him too well.
“Got kicked off the team for fighting.” MJ propped his elbow in the window and leaned his head on his hand. He studied her face, but it didn’t budge. Stone-faced Mads. It was the expression he hated the most. The one that said he’d pushed her right over the edge, and she’d erected a mental wall between them.
He wanted to kick that f*cking wall down and never see it again. How many times could she shut him out? It must’ve been the Jack Daniel’s that made him grab her wrist. “Don’t do that.”
She jerked her arm away. “Do what?”
The light turned green, and she slammed her foot down on the accelerator making his head snap back against the seat. Her hair blew wild around her face. He wanted to reach over and ball it in his hands.
“Do what?” she repeated.
“Doesn’t matter.” MJ stared straight ahead and let the lights from the other cars on the road blur and double in his drunken vision.
For the rest of the drive back to the Rocha Estate, Maddie tried to force the words out that she should’ve said over a year ago.
I’m sorry.
What did those words mean anyway? They couldn’t take back what she’d done. They couldn’t make MJ forgive her. Why bother saying them when they were meaningless?
She couldn’t change the past. Leaving was the only option she’d been given. She had to protect him from getting hurt. Maddie knew hurt all too well, and she’d always stand between MJ and pain if she could.
She’d never let him feel the twinge of fiery anguish that hit her in the heart every time her mother was mentioned. Every time she fingered the smooth silver angel pendant crammed in the very back of her jewelry box that her mom left behind. Over the past sixteen years, Maddie had relived the day her mom left a million times in her head.
The pain was still raw even after all the time that had passed. Driving down the road so many years later, it still felt like her mom had walked out on her only yesterday.
“Watch it!” MJ shouted and grabbed the wheel. “You almost hit that light post.”
“I did not! You’re so drunk, you can’t even see straight. Let go!”
He let his hand drop to his lap. Sitting beside her, MJ was painfully close. She could almost feel his body heat pulsing off his skin into hers. Or maybe she imagined it. Manifested it because it was what she wanted to feel so badly. Being so close to him and not being able to reach out and touch him drove her crazy.
But it shouldn’t. Not anymore.
Maddie glanced at MJ out of the corner of her eye. When had he become so cynical? Had she done that to him? Caused him to be so jaded and cold?
That f*cking Old Man was going to pay if she couldn’t figure out how to reach MJ, how to bridge the gaping hole between them that she’d ripped open when Enzo made her leave the Rocha Estate.
She pulled into the long driveway and parked in front of the garage. MJ had his car door open before her foot was off the brake. “Thanks for the ride.”
She scrambled out of her car, not willing to let him get away from her that easily. “Are you okay? Do you need help getting inside?” She placed a hand on his arm and felt his muscle flex under her touch.
He stepped away breaking their contact. “I’m fine.”
His tone made it clear that he didn’t need her. Didn’t want her. So much for making things better with him—getting back to being like brother and sister.
Like that could ever happen. What a dumb, desperate idea anyway. “Okay. Goodnight.”
She watched him walk away. His footsteps echoed as he walked to the back entrance of the big house. When he reached for the door handle, he stumbled and almost fell, knelt down and caught himself on the cement sidewalk. “You’re not fine,” she said, rushing to his side as he stood and wobbled from foot to foot. “I’ll help you to your room.”
“I don’t want your help,” he said, his tone less than convincing.
“Too bad.” She hooked her arm around his waist and opened the back door. “Come on.”
They stumbled into the dark back entryway. Maddie glanced down the hallway running off to the right. The double wooden doors to the Old Man’s office at the end were closed. Light poured out from the crack underneath.
She had to get MJ upstairs quickly and not run into Enzo.
The two of them walked like they were in a drunken sack race down the hallway to the front staircase. MJ raised his foot and missed the first step, then busted out laughing.
“Shut up!” Maddie hissed, jerking her head back behind them to watch for the Old Man. “Hurry.” She nudged him in the back with her knuckles and he jolted forward, laughing again. “You’re a terrible drunk.” Maddie skittered up the first few steps, taking his hands and hauling him up after her. “How do you get home on your own when you’re like this?”
“Carefully.”
They were finally at the top. Maddie let go of his hands and pushed her hair back out of her face. “Tell me you don’t drive like this. You’ll kill yourself or someone else.”
He took a step toward her, brushed her cheek with his fingertips and frowned. His dark-as-midnight eyes radiated hurt. “I don’t have anything left.”
A sharp pain hit her in the chest. “Don’t say that.” She let out a huge, shaky breath and felt the sting of tears in her eyes.
It was too much. She should’ve stayed away.
She thought she’d done the right thing. She’d left, kept the secret, and she hadn’t hurt MJ by revealing the truth. She moved on with her life. She might think of MJ and cry every single day for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t be with him and not tell him what she knew. She hated keeping secrets from him, but she could never hurt him with the truth.
So, she did the only thing she could. She resigned herself to a life without him.
MJ walked by her and opened his bedroom door. With his hand still on the knob, he looked back at her. “My dad found out about me today.”
A second jolt rocked her chest like an electric shock. He’d waited so long for his dad to find out about him—that he even existed—and she hadn’t been there for him when it finally happened.
But she was here now.
Before she could speak, he turned away and shuffled into his room, collapsing on the bed. Maddie followed and shut the door behind them. “MJ, what did he say?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled into his pillow. “The Old Man got my dad’s girlfriend to come here so he could break the news to her, use her as the messenger. She told my dad about me and he took off. She doesn’t even know where he went.”
This was the worst possible outcome, and over the years she and MJ had considered them all.
“What if he finds out about me and doesn’t want anything to do with me?” MJ asked, sitting on the branch beside her, high up in the willow tree beside the lake.
Maddie watched their feet dangle and sway, side-by-side. It was the summer after eighth grade for her. She’d be a freshman in high school in the fall. She knew everything, or thought she did. “Of course he’ll want to be your dad. Why wouldn’t he?”
MJ shrugged his boney, ten-year-old shoulders. “What if he doesn’t, Mads?”
She elbowed him in the side, making him laugh. “Then I’ll kick his butt.”
He elbowed her back. “Like you could.”
She swung an arm over his shoulder. “For you, I would.” She squeezed him against her. “I promise.”
Maddie walked over to the head of MJ’s bed. She reached out to brush a hand over his hair, but drew it back. “Want me to find him and kick his butt? I did promise after all.”
She heard him sigh into his pillow. “You made a lot of promises.”
Maddie let herself fall onto the bed beside him. Sitting at his side, she put a hand on his back. He was warm under the soft cotton T-shirt. She wanted nothing more than to snuggle up against him and make him forgive her.
She longed to tell him the truth. He couldn’t think she honestly wanted to leave him. It wasn’t fair.
But this wasn’t about her. And it wasn’t the time for secrets to come out. “What can I do?” She rubbed her hand in circles, hoping to give him some comfort.
With his head still turned away in his pillow, he reached for her and pulled her down next to him. He didn’t say a word, just kept his arm tucked around her waist.
Maddie slid her left leg over his right and laid her head on his back where her hand made small circles.
He was drunk. Maddie knew this would never be happening if he was sober, but she’d take it.
She stared at the full moon glowing between the slats in the blind covering his window. The repetitive motion of her hand and the friction of his shirt against her palm lulled her into a trance. For the first time in forever, she wasn’t searching for some answer inside herself. She was just feeling and breathing and living for each second as it came.
MJ’s steady breathing slowed and she thought he’d gone to sleep. Reluctantly, she slid out from under his arm and stood. It was time to leave, or she’d stay all night, sleep in his arms and wake to those eyes and that smile in the morning—it wasn’t like that between them anymore.
Maddie tugged his shoes off and pulled a blanket up over him. “It wasn’t a promise I wanted to break,” she whispered.