If they’d asked me, let me in on the decision that affects where I’m living until graduation, I would have told them they could both have me. That’s what I want, if I’m honest with myself. I can’t choose between them.
How could I choose Maddox and be just another girl who liked him better and treated Lennox like he’s second best?
But I can’t choose Lennox, either.
It should be easy. Lennox holds me on his knee and kisses the back of my neck, wants to take care of not just me but the whole neighborhood, and smiles at me like we’re in our own little world, where it’s just the two of us. Despite being drop dead gorgeous, he’s a bit of a nerd like me. We make more sense together. We’re both artists of a sort, though I paint with words on paper while he uses brushes and canvas. He’s incredible in nearly every way—brilliant and talented and sweet. He’s no less special than Maddox.
It should be a given.
Most of the time, Maddox just glares at us like a broody, angry, unpredictable animal that might attack at any moment. Engaging with him is always a gamble. But like any good gambling addict, I can’t quite quit him. It’s the thrill, the hope, the chance that this time, you’ll have the winning hand. The thing that keeps Lee overnight at his poker games, keeps him playing one more round. I have the same itch, the same need to try one more time because when I win with Maddox, the payout…
God, I can hardly sleep with them in the next room, knowing they’re right across the hall, knowing what they can do to me, how good they can make me feel. I try to be good, to not tempt them, because I don’t want them fighting any more than Valeria does. It’s scary. But I have to slip a hand between my legs each night and try to quench the ache they put inside me. It only satisfies me for a moment, long enough to fall asleep, but it’s better than nothing.
Sometimes, I think they’re trying to drive me insane. They play video games, inviting me to join and putting me in the middle of the couch between them. Lennox will lean over and kiss my shoulder, or hug me and give me a quick, hard kiss on the mouth like he did in the hallway at school that first time. Then he’ll see Maddox glowering and quickly let me go.
Maddox is only marginally better. He never kisses me, but he pulls my leg over his while we’re playing or watching a movie. For some reason, the contact always short-circuits my brain, and I can’t stop thinking of anything but how my legs are parted, and maybe he’ll put his hand on my knee and work it up my thigh the way he did the first night on his living room floor. Of course that would be humiliating, since I’m always soaking wet by the time the movie ends and I escape to relieve the tension he winds so tight inside me I think the coil will snap.
I take on extra newspaper dispensers at work just to get out of the house. The guys start going out more too, and though I’m sure they’re with the Murder of Crows, I’m also absolutely tormented by thoughts of them hooking up with the girls in the crew. Or hell, maybe they’re going on real dates on those nights, taking girls to the movie theater, where Maddox really can run his hand up his date’s thigh and under her skirt. He doesn’t strike me as the dating type, but Lennox might be. The thought of him taking a girl out, holding her hand and buying her dinner and kissing her goodnight like a gentleman, is somehow even worse than the thought of him fucking a crew girl.
One night I hear one of them get home at two in the morning, and I’m so tired of obsessing about them that I’m tempted to just go back to the shed. I don’t, but the next day, I cash in my rain check and stay the night with Lexi. The next week, I stay again, even though her house is full with her and her mom, Billy’s mom, and Billy, who already sleeps on the couch because they don’t have enough room. The moms both chain smoke, and the smell when I walk into the trailer the first time nearly knocks me out, but I get used to it after that.
One of Lexi’s friends has a convertible, and we go cruising on the regular, whistling at guys out the window or just driving out of town on the winding, two-lane blacktop road to the north, listening to Nirvana and Meredith Brooks, Cowboy Junkies and Sublime, at deafening volumes. She puts the top down, and we let the wind whip our hair around until we look like wild women.
I get back from one of our drives one night to find Lennox on the couch, playing Grand Theft Auto by himself.
“Hey,” I say, feeling the usual shyness I do around them now. I know I’m to blame for the tension, and I feel guilty, but I’m not sure what to do about it except to keep saving money so I can get my own place.
“Rae,” Lennox says, glancing up at me. His hands pause on the controller, and he drops it and sits back on the couch, grinning. “Where you been?”
“I went out with the girls,” I say with a shrug. “Lexi and them.”
He nods. “Have fun?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Just driving around.”
“You ever been to the rock quarry?”
“Sure,” I say. “We used to go to the swimming hole all the time when I lived in Ridgedale. Though, to be honest, I don’t love to swim.”
“The girl with the pool doesn’t like to swim.”
“Hey, I like the sun,” I protest, then flash him a smile. “Laying out by the pool, sipping a drink like a rich bitch. That’s the life.”
Lennox grins, and my stomach drops at how devastatingly fine he is. “You could do that in your backyard without a pool.”
“I didn’t put in the pool,” I say with a shrug. “It was there when we moved in. And it’s not like Ican’tswim. I did it for exercise last summer, and I like playing in the shallow end. I just… I prefer my feet on the ground, thank you very much.”
“You ever been to the quarry… When it’s not summer?” he asks, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
I swallow, remembering the stories about parties up there, someone getting wasted and falling into the pit, someone drowning… And lots and lots of people hooking up while drunk, losing their virginity, or sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend. “No,” I admit.
“Want to go?” Lennox asks.
“Is that allowed?” I ask carefully.