Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

“Come on. We’re just getting to know one another.”

  I sit down next to him and he grabs the back of my dress, pulling me down.

  “You ever wonder the point of this is? Life. Why we’re here? Like we both go to Catholic school. Don’t you ever wonder about God’s plan for you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Suddenly, he leans on his side, holding his head up with his hand.

  “I feel like I’m meant to do something meaningful. Not sit in an office, or worse, inventory and order sandwich meats. I want to live, knowing that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed so I don’t look back on my life and wonder what the hell I did with it, you know? I get how it is with my parents. They each came here for a better life and the sandwich place is their life.” He laughs. “And me, Cristian, and Luca. It makes them happy.”

  “So you just want to be happy?” I continue to stare up at the sky, attempting to ignore the proximity of his body heat so close to me.

  He’s just a boy, he’s just a boy.

  I see him shrug from the corner of my eye. “That’s where I’m fucked up. I want it all. The family, the house, the career. I don’t want to settle, but no one gets the trifecta.”

  A pinch in my heart has me turning my head to look at him. How can this jock, who I never really thought much of except for his hot body and beautiful face now, break off a piece of my heart?

  “What about you? Do you believe in love?” he asks.

  I look away, gazing back up at the stars and trying to keep my breathing even. “I used to, but after my parents’ divorce, I kind of agree with you. You can’t have it all, so I’d rather choose career and screw the family.”

  “You don’t want to get hurt?” Mauro is much more intuitive than I would have thought.

  “I suppose. Both my parents hurt after the divorce.” I press my lips together, remembering that time in my life.

  “My parents fight like crazy, but usually their bedroom door is shut hours later. My brothers and I flee the house while they’re making up.”

  He slides his hand down between us, running his fingers up and down my arm.

  “Will you look at me?” he asks in a gentle voice.

  I turn my head and lock gazes with him. His hand is suddenly on my cheek, and he’s leaning over.

  I squeal inside when his eyes fixate on my lips.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  “Okay,” I practically whisper.

  Lame, Maddie. Lame.

  “Relax and close your eyes.”

  Does he know this is my first time being kissed? Is that why he asked permission and is directing my body how to respond?

  As my mind is swimming with a million simultaneous thoughts, he presses his lips to mine and all those worries vanish as his tongue slowly slides into my mouth.

  I’ve long imagined what it would feel like to be kissed at all, but the fact that my first kiss is from Mauro Bianco feels like I’m in a movie or something.

  Every nerve in my body fires and he moans softly, his body weight starting to press into me as he deepens the kiss. My breasts press against his chest now and though the sensation is new and unfamiliar, I understand now why girls want to do this. I open my mouth some more, loving the sensation of our tongues brushing together.

  “Shit.” He pulls back, sitting up and pressing his hand to his lips. “Your braces.”

  Blood leaks from his lip.

  “I’m sorry.” My eyes are wide and my heart races as my cheeks heat.

  He picks up his t-shirt, blotting his lip. “It’s okay.” He stands up, working to find his balance for a second. “Want to ride the slide?”

  Just like that, the kiss is forgotten and he’s wandering away.

  “Mauro, what the fuck are you doing?” someone yells as they cross the street. “Fuck. Ma’s going to kill you.”

  “Cris, I might have had too many, but I got a ride. Do you know….?” He glances back to where I’m unceremoniously getting myself up off the grass, his arm stretched out toward me.

  I step out of the darkness and Cristian’s eyes widen for a second.

  “Hey, Maddie.” He disregards his brother beelining it over to me. “Everything okay?”

  “Um…yeah. I just gave your brother a ride.”

  The blood on Mauro’s lip is pooling now but isn’t streaming down.

  “Nothing else?” Cristian dips down to see my eyes. I can barely form a coherent sentence, let alone assure him I’m good.

  I just had my first kiss with the boy of my dreams and my braces cut his lip. I do live in a movie, but not a romance, rather a horror film.

  “Yeah, everything’s good. You can make sure he gets inside?”

  “Yeah.” Cristian heads over to his brother, hooking his arm over his shoulder. “Thanks a lot, Maddie.”

  “MADDIE!” Mauro starts singing the Barry Manilow song using my name.

  “The song says Mandy, fucktard,” Cristian says.

  Mauro laughs for a second before dead silence fills the air. “I’m gonna puke.”

  I hop in my Wrangler and glance over to the park where I see Mauro’s head in the trashcan and Cristian waving goodbye to me.

  My phone rings in the center console and I pick it up.

  “Where the hell are you?” Lauren screams when I answer.

  “Sorry, I got lost,” I lie and start my truck, getting the hell away from the Bianco house.

  The rest of the weekend felt like it crawled by. I played our kiss over and over again in my head—both the amazing part and the embarrassment of his bleeding lip.

  Even still by the time Monday rolled around I can’t help that hope that blooms inside me like a fragile flower. It’s right before homeroom that I first spot him walking down the hallway.

  I feel half nauseous, half excited and more than anything anxious to get speaking to each other at school over with.

  I pause as he approaches and smile wide at him so he’ll know that it’s okay to say hello. Instead, he walks right by me with nothing but a polite smile.

  Mortification is swift and complete, even if no one else is the wiser.

  I run to the girl’s bathroom, passing Lauren on the way and hearing her call my name, but I ignore her. I don’t want to be near anyone right now.

  When I reach the bathroom, I race into the stall and let the waterworks loose.

  I can’t believe that I actually believed, even for a second, that he could have feelings for me. What a joke.

  I should have known I was the only one who felt something that night.

  1

  Madison

  “One thousand!” Lauren stands, her paddle high in the air like she’s the damn Statue of Liberty. Actually, strike that, the paddle in her hand isn’t hers, it’s mine.

  “Lauren!” I scold, rising from my chair.

  Whose idea was it to switch our paddles and bid on a hot bachelor for the other? Not mine, that’s for sure. More importantly, why did I go along with the idea that Lauren could pick a guy for me to date at this First Responders Fallen Hero Bachelor Auction? I was out of my mind to think she’d make the right pick for me.

  That’s how she snuck the first couple of bids by me because when Mauro Bianco stepped foot on that stage, the multi-tasking function in my brain turned off.

  He still looks like a real life model. The spotlight glows over his head, giving the appearance that his dark hair holds streaks of natural highlights. His chiseled jaw is more defined than his boyish one at eighteen.

  My entire body heats with flames only he can extinguish. It’s not his broad shoulders and tight waist, the dimples in his cheeks or his luscious pink lips that undo me. It’s his eyes. The way they transform from aqua to the deepest blue of the ocean depending on what feeling is spiraling around inside him. Mix those with the bronzed skin of his Italian heritage and I’m done for.

  The MC goes back and forth between Lauren and another woman who wants a piece of Mauro. I’m not sure whether I want her or Lauren to win.

&nb
sp; The gavel lands on the podium and my muscles tense as he points to Lauren and yells, “Sold!”

  She drops the paddle in the middle of the table as though it’s a generous bundle of hundred dollar bills.

  “You can thank me at your wedding.” She smirks.

  Lauren saw me through my Mauro Bianco fangirl phase. I never told her what happened that fateful night I drove my drunk crush home—I was too embarrassed to tell even her.

  “I don’t want Mauro,” I protest even though my body is literally giddy to think about another night alone with him. One where I’m not in braces and glasses. We may not be on equal footing now, but the gap is shortening.

  Don’t get too cocky, my inner voice warns.

  “I need to be filled in.” Vanessa’s blonde hair swings side to side as her head swivels between Lauren and myself.

  Vanessa didn’t make us a trio until college after we got thrown into a quad without a fourth. She never met the Maddie who turns into a babbling mess when Mauro’s within a twenty-foot perimeter. And she won’t know her now. I refuse to morph back into the insecure girl who propped him up on a pedestal.

  “Later,” I whisper, not wanting to rehash history in this moment.

  “If this is the way we’re going to play it.” She turns to face the MC who is now introducing Mauro’s little brother, Luca. “Then game on.”

  At the end of the auction, once we’ve all pissed each other off by selecting one another’s dates, somehow, we each ended up with a Bianco brother. Lauren practically tackled Vanessa to prevent her from bidding on Luca for her and Vanessa has told me that she will not be going out with Cristian, who’s a police officer.

  Good times all around.

  After we pay for our dates, I feel a little better about things since the money is going to help such a wonderful charity. Then I spot Mauro across the room and decide I’d feel a helluva lot better if my date wasn’t flirting with some blonde who won’t stop touching his bicep. The two are entranced in a moment. Is she the other woman who was bidding? I narrow my eyes, but I can’t be sure.

  I might as well see what the action is about in the banquet room since there are more hot firefighter, police officers, and EMTs around. I leave my two roommates to fight it out with their designated dates.

  Hell, maybe Mauro will have some insanely busy schedule and be unable to go on the date. Ever.

  You don’t really wish that.

  Or maybe he’ll shuck the responsibility. It’s not like in high school he was one to follow the rules. Rules never seemed to apply to the prom king and quarterback. When others were being stopped for sneaking off school property for lunch, Mauro was waving his goodbye and peeling off around the corner. Everyone else had to carry around passes to be in the hallways during class time, but Mauro acted as though the hallways were his kingdom. We didn’t have any classes together, but word was he was usually asleep in the back row.

  A callused hand lands softly on my forearm. “Excuse me,” a deep voice says.

  I stop and circle around. My entire body shuts down for a second as Mauro Bianco stands front and center only a couple of feet away from me, his eyes just as transfixing as years before.

  “I heard you were my winning bidder. Well, not for me, but a date. Which I guess is technically still me.” He shakes his head, chuckling to himself.

  I giggle.

  Like I’m still sixteen. Ugh.

  He holds his hand out. “Let’s start over.” His smile is infectious, his eyes—alluring. His muscles, worth salivating over. I’m back to being a sophomore again. “I’m Mauro Bianco. Thanks for coming out to support such a good cause.”

  “Hi. I’m… Ma…Ma…Mad…ison Kelly.”

  His smile grows and my gut twists. My palms sweat while my heart pounds against my chest like a bass drum in a rock band as I wait with baited breath.

  “Nice to meet you,” he says, ignoring my stutter.

  My insides deflate like a balloon with a slow leak, hope streaming out with a slow hiss.

  Of course, he doesn’t remember me.

  I was always invisible to him.

  2

  Mauro

  Great, I get the drunk girl. I’ll be calling Luca later to give her mouth-to-mouth. She’s a little unstable like she can’t decide if she wants to pass out or throw up.

  Add on the fact she’s staring at me like I approached her at a bar while she was partying with her friends, and I’m thinking either she’s not the girl who bid on me or she’s regretting it now.

  “You know we don’t have to go out. I mean if you think it was a mistake,” I say, offering her an easy out.

  Her eyes scrunch and her lips dip. She’s cute. More than cute. The girl next door type, but there’s a sexiness under her forties garb that hides her curves.

  “Do you not want to go out with me?” she asks.

  The weakness in her voice pulls my eyes away from her heart-shaped lips to her eyes. Gray with small specks of blue. Like a cloudy day right before a storm.

  I shrug my jacket on, glancing at my watch. “Sorry, I’m due on shift in an hour.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you free tomorrow? Maybe lunch?” I offer since she didn’t take the out.

  Again, her lips dip but she quickly sips from her straw. “Sunday?”

  It’s then I realize my days are all fucked up.

  “Shit.” My fingers thread through my hair. “I covered for a guy last night and we had five calls from two to four. I’m lagging. Monday then?”

  “I work.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Could I be blowing this anymore? She’s nice enough to bid good money on me, the least I can do is a weekend night. Let’s see…I work tonight, and then Wednesday.

  “I can do Friday night.”

  She continues to sip her drink, the liquid slowly lowering in her glass.

  “So, is Friday okay?” I draw out my sentence to make sure she’s understanding me. I’m starting to wonder if she’ll remember this tomorrow.

  She nods and her eyes pop open again. “Yes. Friday’s good.”

  I pull out my phone. “Can I have your number? That way we can text later in the week. I can pick you up or we can meet. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  Her lips stay on the straw, her eyes glued to my chest. I want to wave my hand and say ‘eyes up here.’

  Girls becoming tongue-tied and googly-eyed used to make me feel like king of the fucking world. Now it’s a major turn off.

  She swallows and places her drink on the nearby table.

  “Oh.” She pulls out her phone from her purse. Except with her phone comes the entire contents of her purse. We both watch as everything falls to the floor.

  Instead of bending down, her eyes fix to mine and her cheeks flush. Something oddly familiar tugs in my gut but I can’t place it.

  I bend down and she quickly follows suit. I scoop up the lipstick, her wallet, a pill case. Holding her checkbook up in the air, I decide to lighten this meeting up. “Plan on winning tonight no matter the cost?”

  I smile.

  She doesn’t.

  I hand it over to her and mumble, “I’m kidding.”

  She tucks it back into her purse along with the tampons which I ignored. “Thanks,” she murmurs.

  Once we’re standing again, she slides her purse under her arm. Her dress reveals nothing. Not her tits or her waist or her ass. The thing hides all the goods.

  She holds her phone in her hands for a moment, not asking for my number to text me hers. Instead, I pluck it from her grasp.

  “Do you mind?” I ask.

  Her face pales. “No.”

  I text myself and my phone goes off, the sound of a girl moaning and a slapping sound coming from my pocket.

  “Fuck!” I hand over her phone and dig for my own. Grabbing it after all the heads in a twenty-foot perimeter turn in my direction, I press to view it before it does it again.

  She giggles across from me, her e
yes casting down to her phone.

  “My brothers think this shit is funny.”

  Looking up at me through her long eyelashes, there’s a brightness that wasn’t there moments ago. “It kind of is.”

  “So, you’re cool if I keep that as your text notification ring?” I raise my eyebrows and the flush deepens to a coral across her cheeks.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  I quickly change the ringtone before I forget and she texts me when my mom’s around. No need to deepen the permanent bruise from where she slaps me on the back of the head already.

  Tucking the phone back into my pocket, I rock back on my heels. “I’ll call you midweek and we’ll set something up then.”

  “Sure.” She’s a little more alive now and I feel a small amount of hope at the prospect of our upcoming date.

  I nod, the awkwardness wrapping around us like a roll of cellophane.

  “Okay, talk to you then,” I say and smile.

  “Okay.”

  Finally, I walk out of the banquet center, not even bothering to say goodbye to my brothers. They can go blow themselves after putting that notification tone on my phone.

  Heading to the firehouse to work my shift, I can’t help but feel like that girl seemed familiar in some way, but I don’t know a Madison Kelly. I really hope I didn’t pull her from a burning building at some point and she’s got some hero complex because I am not a hero by anyone’s standards.

  Walking into the fire station, the aroma of curry masks the scent of testosterone.

  “Fuck Patel, that shit messed up my stomach last week.” Donovan breezes through the kitchen area to the weight room.

  “Then make your own dinner,” Patel spits back and glances over at me as I sit down at the big table. “So, how did it go? I didn’t hear SWAT being called to the Hilton on the scanner, so the ladies weren’t fighting over you?”

  I chuckle. “Nope. Just two bidders and the one gave up quick.”

  “You disappointed?” he asks before he turns his back to me to return something to the fridge.

  “Please. Standing on stage being bid on based on how attractive the audience finds you? It’s for a good cause though and one date isn’t going to kill me.” I play with the napkins in the center of the giant table.