I run through the people I know in my head, determined to prove him wrong. My mom and stepdad. His single mom. Reggie’s single dad. Lexi, Billy, Marilyn, Lola… Not a single set of married, biological parents between us.
“Well, we live in a fucked up part of the world,” I say at last.
Maddox laughs, quietly this time. “Drink up, little girl,” he says, bumping his can against mine. “And don’t ever lose that.”
“What?”
“Your ability to believe in that fairytale shit,” he says. “Hold onto it as long as you can. That’s rarer than a happily married man.”
“Shut up.”
“Plus, it’s cute,” he says, cracking a smile at me.
Tension tightens the air between us, and my breath catches. Then a car turns onto Mill—the El Camino at last. It pulls into the drive opposite us and idles for a minute before Lennox shuts off the engine and climbs out. I wonder where he’s been. If he’s been with a girl.
And suddenly, I don’t want to go home, don’t want to hear his excuses or know if he got done waiting for me to be ready.
I swallow hard and meet Maddox’s piercing gaze. “Should we go?” I ask, bracing my hand on the roof to push myself up.
Maddox’s huge hand covers mine, pinning it in place on the rough asphalt. His eyes search mine. “Not yet,” he says. “Let the asshole sweat a while, wondering where we are.”
I can’t help the smile tugging at the corner of my lips. “Cool beans.”
Maddox lies back on the roof, his hand moving from the top of mine to my wrist. Suddenly, I can’t move. I can barely breathe. His thumb strokes the soft underside of my wrist, skimming over the sensitive skin and making my pulse race. I drop my head back and close my eyes, drawing a slow, deep breath through my trembling lips. Can he feel it, what he’s doing to me?
“Maddox?” I whisper, my heart skittering crazily in my chest. I’m ready to tell him, to let him know that I choose him, even if it means nothing to him. It will mean something to me, and isn’t that good enough? To have lost my virginity to a boy who makes my head spin and my temper flare and my heart die a little inside my chest every time I look at him?
If that’s not love, then what is?
Does it really matter if he feels the same?
What if I never find someone where the love is equal? Would I rather give it to a boy who loves me, who feels the way about me that I feel about Maddox, like he can’t breathe when our eyes meet, if I only like him and am flattered by his attention the way Maddox is by mine?
How can I ever really know, anyway? If a boy said he loved me, I’d have to believe him, but I’d never really know if he was just saying it to get in my pants. Does Lennox really care about me as much as he says? He’s been proving it to me, but what if I always have doubts?
Maddox is honest. He could have told me he cared about me, that I was the only one, worth giving up all the other girls. I gave him the perfect opening. And if he said it, I’d believe him because I want to, because I’m desperate to. He could say those things, make me trust him and believe he loved me, and then use me until there was nothing left he wanted, like he does all the other girls.
I hear about it at school, how he broke some Crow girl’s heart so badly she left the crew and dropped out of school; how some rich girl took a month off to go to Hawaii and recover from the devastation of Maddox North.
“You ever get high?” he asks, pulling his hand from mine and digging in his pocket.
The tension that weighed heavy in the thick air for a moment is gone, and I lay back on my elbows and stare up at the sharp points of starlight twinkling in the velvet blue-black night sky, relief and regret warring inside me. What the fuck was I thinking?
“No,” I admit. “Where do you even get that?”
“I have connections,” he says, sitting up. He pulls out a small rectangle and pulls a delicate, folded paper from the pack. Then he opens a baggie, and the skunky smell invades the damp cool around us. I watch him break apart the fuzzy green buds and arrange them in the crease of the paper, watch his thumbs knead and tuck. My pulse flutters when the tip of his tongue drags along the edge of the paper, and I have to squeeze my knees together.
God, the things that tongue can do…
When he finishes rolling the joint, he doesn’t offer it to me first, like a gentleman. Of course not. Maddox never pretends to be what he’s not.
He lights the joint and takes a deep drag, then picks a fleck off his tongue before exhaling a white cloud of smoke. He flicks the lighter, taking another drag to make sure it’s burning good before handing it to me.
“How do I do this?” I ask nervously.
“Just give it a little suck,” he says, smirking at me. “Don’t worry, you’ll still be a virgin.”
“Shut up,” I protest, elbowing him. “I’m not as good as you seem to think.”