“You like these, huh?” I chuckle, taking both her hands with mine.
“Mmm.” She hums. “Maybe a little, but I’d be okay if you had a blank canvas too.”
I dip down and press a kiss to her lips. “They’re mine. They’re real. I got them after I signed my letter of intent and wanted to celebrate.”
A little giggle bubbles over her. A wrinkle scrunches her nose. And I want to scoop her up and slam her down on the bed.
“What’s so funny?” I kiss her neck, asking with each passing giggle.
“Nothing. I’m just thinking about how funny it would have been to meet that Seth Aarons. Lord, that Maddie would have been so intimidated.”
“Yeah?” I smile, walking her back toward the bed, a weight lifting off my chest. “And what about now?”
“Very relaxed around you now.” She nips at my bottom lip. “You’re a teddy bear, really.”
“Mmm,” I hum against my lips, “I’ll have to see if I can change that then.”
I push her onto the bed, and she puts a hand out to stop me. “I need to tell you something too. I—um, I did something bad.” She avoids my eye, chewing on her lip, and again, I feel the anxiety spike between us.
“Whatever it is, Maddie, it’ll be okay.”
“It’s just. I made a deal with Ellie when she first got here.” She pulls at her fingertips.
My stomach sinks. “What kind of deal?”
“So before you freak out, I swear I’m not using it, but she made this deal that if I got you to fall in love with me, I could have ten minutes of my life to do over.”
My jaw tightens as she continues.
“And I know it wasn’t right, but I don’t care about it anymore. I need you to know that, okay?”
“What were you going to use the ten minutes for, Madeline?” I rub my hand along my jaw, and an unwelcome anger boils in the pit of my stomach. I’ve protected myself from falling in love with Madeline for a reason, and now that I’ve let my guard down, she’s standing in front of me, telling me she orchestrated it for some deal?
“I um. I thought I could stop you from entering my bedroom so Connor wouldn’t break up with me.”
“Fuck, of course you did.” I rake a hand through my curls and pace along the room.
“But I swear, Seth. I don’t want to use it anymore—and I didn’t—”
“So this past week, what was that? Just bullshit?”
“No, of course not, Seth—please—” She gets up to take my hands, and I step away.
Part of me wants to tell her it’s okay. I understand we were different people at the beginning of all of this. But after the jersey, my anxiety is too high to deal with this properly.
“I need a second,” I grit out, and without another word, I march through the bedroom door and shut it behind me.
Tenminutesinthefrigid night air is all I need to realize that I’m not upset with Maddie. Heck, who am I kidding? I would have done the same thing if it had been offered to me.
Ten minutes can change a lot, even though it feels like an insignificant amount of time. The ripple effect can be massive.
On my way back to the hotel, I stopped in a little café to pick up a hot chocolate as a peace offering, willing the elevator to move just a little faster.
“Buttercup, I’m sorry.” I swing open the hotel door, but I don’t sense her in the room. “Buttercup?” I ask in vain. She’s not here. I know that, but hope is a fickle thing too.
A note sits on the nightstand beside the bed with some weird hourglass snow globe. Glitter swirls inside like a miniature blizzard.
Seth,
