“I’m too much,” she repeats, a sad smile tugging at those beautifully full lips. Her eyes scan my face as she carefully speaks, trying her best not to slur her words. “Too much trouble. Too much drama. Just too much. So much so that the four guys I like felt like they had to turn themselves into bodyguards because I’m being stalked by a small-dicked ex that won’t leave me alone. And that’s the tip of the lettuce.”
Wait, what?
I pause, squinting before I suddenly understand what she’s saying.
“Tip of the iceberg, you mean?” I ask gently.
“That’s what I said,” she insists, rolling those eyes at me, the teary look disappearing as suddenly as it came. “Anyway, on top of being a handful with baggage, the craziest thing hashappened and it sucks, because it’s one of those one-way street things. Which sucks even more, because Caid said something, and then Ryan said something, and something clicked in my head and I just buried my head in the sand. Like a pigeon.”
“An ostrich,” I correct, trying to keep up and failing miserably. The most I know is that Ryan spoke to her last before she cut us off, and he said things seemed normal until they pulled up at the apartment building and Maddie practically ran off after claiming she was sick.
“That’s what I said,” she claims again, and I roll my eyes at her. She carries on speaking before I can say anything, and I shut up and listen, scared she might clam up and lock us out again. “Anyway, Ryan said something that made me realize you guys became glorified bodyguards, and it dawned on me. You guys are sticking around because I have small-penis problems, not because you actually like me. Not how I like you.”
I fucking choke, because how can she say one thing that’s so outlandish before saying something that actually wrecks me from the inside out?
My hand pauses in her hair as I cough through both humor and shock, feeling her pat my back limply as though that’ll do much of anything. It does make me sweet for her, knowing she’s trying to help, even though she can’t keep her head up on her own right now.
When I can finally talk again, I quietly ask her, “What makes you think we don’t like you?”
She shrugs sloppily. “I know you like me, but it’s like liking a puppy, right? Or liking chicken. Wait, no, that’s not comparable. Chicken is the slut of all the meats. There’s nothing like liking chicken. What else is there? Um, it’s like liking… I dunno, I can’t brain right now. What I mean is, I have huge, fat crushes on four different guys, and they all feel obligated to look after me like mighty defenders and I’m a defenseless wimp thatneeds help. And it made me realize that Toby was right. I really am too much. And it sucks, you know?”
I don’t know, because there hasn’t been a time that I’ve felt like Maddie was too much. In fact, over the past two months, I only ever want more. I want more of the laughs I hear in our apartments when she’s around, want more of our shared meals that make me feel like I’ve found a complete family for the first time in my life, and I definitely want more of Maddie’s time. I don’t think there’s been a moment since I’ve known this girl where I’ve felt like she’s too much. I can’t even seem to get enough, which is why her absence all week has pissed me the hell off.
So, with a little bit of bite I don’t mean to show, I answer, “No. I don’t know, because there’s never been a time where any of us thought you were too much, Maddie. Not once.”
That snags her attention, and she blinks rapidly at me, mouth parting with a small gasp that does things to me I can’t even explain.
I run my gaze over her face and, deciding to bite the bullet and jump farther into the deep end, I finally admit, “I don’t know where the wires crossed, but where the hell did you get the idea that we didn’t like you?”
Maddie’s eyebrows pinch, and she slowly shakes her head. “I didn’t say that. I said you liked me like someone would like a puppy.”
“Who told you that?” I push, desperate to know where the hell she got that idea.
She shrugs. “Caid said you guys liked me, but didn’t elaborate, and he said it like he was saying the weather was nice. I really like you guys. Like, all of you, but then Ryan said you were looking out for me because of Toby. So I assumed-”
Something possesses me suddenly, and I have no control over myself when I lean toward her, simultaneously tugging her toward me.
I don’t even recognize my voice when I harshly breathe, “We fucking like you, too, Maddie.”
My lips are on hers before I can think rationally, kissing her with every ounce of feeling I’ve built for her over the past two months of being near her.
It’s when she kisses me back that I fall, right then and there, head over fucking heels. I’m a complete lost cause, my lips molding against hers as I taste the alcohol on the lips I’ve thought about since I saw them in person. I’ve imagined how they would feel against mine, but nothing could have done them justice, a new obsession forming as I kiss her like she’s mine.
Because she fucking is. She’s mine, just as much as she’s Caiden’s. As much as she is Baxter’s. And Ryan’s. No more icing us out, no more hiding. Because now that I’ve had a taste, there’s no way on this earth that I’m letting my bundle of mayhem get away from me now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Maddie
I rouse from the best dream I’ve ever had in my life.
Well, one of the best dreams, because I’m woman enough to admit I have had some sexy dreams about a certain group of neighbors of mine over the months since they moved in.
But this dream? Hell, it felt so real that I’m almost sad to be waking up.
Alas, my bladder is screaming at me, my mouth is drier than a nun’s danger zone, and I’m pretty sure there’s a one-man marching band boning my brain to death. As beautiful as the dream I was having was, with soft lips, pretty confessions, and a swoop in my stomach that very much feels like the part of a roller coaster when you dip hard and fast, I’m pretty sure I might die if I don’t use the restroom soon.
Sighing into a very warm cushion, I nuzzle into it, only to freeze when I realize it feels nothing like my pillow. Pretty sure my pillows are softer, more forgiving. My face sinks into my pillows, it doesn’t rest on the surface of a heated slab that beats a rhythm that kind of sounds like a heartbeat.
