I still couldn’t remember his name. I could barely even place which party I’d met him at. Not a surprise since I’d been blinded by love at the time. All I’d been able to see was Alex—his handsome face, his smooth voice, his quick smile, his sweet endearments.
I’d been such an idiot.
When he tried to lean in closer, I put a hand up to ward him off. That made him grin. “Aw, come on, Maddie, don’t be like that.” He gave me a knowing look that made me want to vomit. “Alex told me all about you. I know you like to party.”
I blinked at him. “He told you that?”
It was ridiculous that I could still be hurt by Alex, but there it was, an old stab of pain that my ex was talking about me and clearly not giving a great impression.
“Oh yeah,” drunk guy drawled. “He told me all about you.”
His nasty tone had me pushing him off me…hard. He stumbled back a bit.
Maybe Alex had failed to mention that I played softball. Even during the off-season I trained and worked out. I might’ve been on the short side, but if he thought I was weak, he had another thing coming.
For some reason being pushed made him laugh. “Come on, babe. Don’t be like that.”
I cringed at his tone, at his expression. He was acting like he knew me. Like I was some sort of joke.
He leaned back in and lowered his voice. “Alex told me you’re easy, so don’t go making this so hard.”
My stomach sank to the floor as my mouth filled with saliva. I was going to faint. I was going to vomit.
Oh crap, I was going to cry.
It was the casual way he’d said it that really twisted the knife in my gut. He didn’t sound like he was trying to be cruel, just like he was stating a fact.
Alex told him I was easy.
“What do you say, babe?” His voice had turned wheedling, childish even. Clearly this was not a guy who’d heard the word ‘no’ often enough in his life.
“Get away from me,” I managed, as I shifted away from him so my back was no longer against the wall. Or the table filled with Solo cups, as it were. I was mortified by how weak my voice sounded. My normally loud voice was a fraction of its normal volume because my throat was closing in on itself.
“What?” the guy said.
I would not cry. I willed the tears away. I hadn’t shed a tear since the day Alex had dumped me, and I sure as heck wouldn’t start now. I opened my mouth to say it again, hopefully louder this time, but someone beat me to it.
“She said, go away.”
Ox. His voice was even quieter than mine had been but his wasn’t breathy and high-pitched. The rumble of his low growl could be felt a million miles away.
Relief flooded through me so quickly my knees went weak. Luckily there was a large, stone slab planted behind me. Oh wait, that was Ox. He put a big hand on my shoulder and pulled me back, holding me against him as if he knew I wasn’t quite able to stand on my own two feet just yet.
The drunk guy’s face would have made me laugh if I wasn’t hanging on to my sanity by such a thin thread. His jaw had fallen slack and his eyes had widened to saucers as he stared over my head at the guy who quite literally had my back.
“She said,” Ox repeated slowly. “Go. Away.”
I could feel the rumble of his voice through his chest, and somehow that vibration against my back, combined with his warmth and his presence, gave me the boost of courage I needed to straighten up and cross my arms over my chest.
I tilted my chin up and stared down my nose at the drunk guy even though he was taller than me. “You heard me,” I added.
He didn’t need another nudge. The dumb drunk turned and stumbled, quickly swallowed up into the crowd.
I turned to face Ox, but I couldn’t quite meet his eyes. How much had he heard? I tried for casual as I stared at his right ear. “You ready to go?”
I saw his nod.
“This party is lame,” I added as he steered me toward the front door.
I heard his grunt, which I assumed was in agreement. I had a feeling he hadn’t stuck around tonight because he’d been having such a great time drinking water and watching drunk people mingle.
He’d stuck around because he was my friend.
The thought only made the knot that filled my throat expand into something so painful I couldn’t speak at all. So it was in silence that we left the frat house and walked the couple of blocks to his truck.
Unlike on the way here when he’d given me a hand to take the giant step up into the passenger side, this time he made quick work of opening the door for me and then picking me up and depositing me on the seat.
Under normal circumstances I might’ve complained. We little people didn’t enjoy being manhandled by those who are not vertically challenged. Tonight, however, I just wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible.
Ox didn’t say a word when he got into the driver’s seat and started the car. This wasn’t a surprise. Ox rarely spoke and when he did it was usually in response to me badgering him until he caved and gave me a one-word response.
He wasn’t a big talker, but that was okay because I had a tendency to talk enough for two. Except for tonight. Except for right now. I took a deep breath in through my nose as we headed down the dark tree-lined streets of Fairfield toward my neighborhood. As we drove away from the campus, the houses grew smaller and the yards separating them practically disappeared.
I didn’t live in one of those nice, new neighborhoods, and come to think of it I had no idea where Ox lived.
It was easier to focus on the passing houses than the emotions that were threatening to come out of hiding. I’d thought I’d banished them. I’d ignored them; I’d stifled them and extinguished them before they could burst into life. I’d thought they were gone for good.
But there they were, nagging at my gut, climbing their way up my chest until it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Count the houses. That always worked. Counting always helped me concentrate. I’d reached the fifth house on the street that led toward my neighborhood when Ox broke the silence for the first time ever, as far as I knew.
“You okay?”
I stiffened at the sound of his voice as much as the words. He never talked first. Ever. I couldn’t look at him. The slight hint of concern that laced his gruff voice was already undoing all my hard work with the counting.
I narrowed my gaze and focused on counting mailboxes instead.
“What did he say to you?” That concern I’d thought I’d heard was replaced by a dangerous edge that made me shiver.
Did that mean he hadn’t heard? Or did he just not hear all of it?
Alex told me you’re easy, so don’t go making this so hard.
Oh God, please say Ox hadn’t heard that.
I felt his gaze shift from the road to me as he waited for an answer. I pressed my lips together. Couldn’t he see that I didn’t want to talk? Surely he, of all people, could understand that. Four mailboxes, five mailboxes, six mailboxes…
My mailbox was the eighteenth. When we came to a stop I reached for the door handle but froze when his hand covered mine on the seat between us.
I froze for so many reasons. One, because he wasn’t exactly a touchy-feely guy. A simple hand touch from him was the equivalent of a bear hug from anyone else. Two, that little gesture of kindness was the last straw, probably because it was so unexpected. That simple touch broke through the wall of self-preservation I’d been painstakingly rebuilding after that run in.
Crying has always been painful for me, which was why I never did it. Well, rarely. Not if I could help it. And at this particular moment? I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t have stopped the flood for anything in the world.
The first sob came out as a choking sound and I wouldn’t have been surprised if Ox had given me the Heimlich.
He didn’t, thank God. He probably would’ve broken a rib. But he did reach for me. His hand on mind held on and tugged as his other arm reached around my
waist and pulled me toward him.
This was so embarrassing. I was not a pretty crier, and I wasn’t even sure this could be called crying. I totally lost it. Sobs racked my body and I found myself making these pathetic little mewling sounds as I tried to stop the flood of emotions that I’d kept buried for a year. Shame, guilt, regret, hurt. They all surfaced with a vengeance at the memory of my ex and my former, delusional self.
I’d thought I’d loved him. I’d thought he’d loved me. Why had I been so freakin’ stupid?
I made a half-hearted attempt to fight Ox’s kindness. I mean, I didn’t want anyone to see me melt down like this let alone some guy who was only grudgingly my friend because I’d forced him into it. But when he turned me toward him and tucked my head beneath his chin, I officially lost the battle. There was only so much fight I had in me and right now all reserves were needed to gather the pieces of my broken pride and shove them into some semblance of order so I could go inside and face my parents and my little sisters.
Had Alex really called me easy?
I shouldn’t have let my mind stray there. I should have counted the number of times Ox’s big meaty palm slid over my back, up and down, up and down. Soothing and warm, just like the sound of his heartbeat beneath my ear. Somehow I’d wound up cuddled to his chest as he held me.
Ox’s touch was completely different from the guy I was crying over.
Alex and I were hot and heavy, for sure when I’d dated him, but I hadn’t slept with him. We would have, eventually. I’d been thinking about it, just waiting for the right moment. I’d thought I was in love and he would have been my first.
He dumped me before we could take that step. I guess I should have been glad that he’d ended it before I’d done something I couldn’t take back, but that was little consolation then and now.
I’d fallen for the wrong guy. Me. The girl who’d predicted all the great romances in our school. The one who’d seen my best friends fall in love ages before they’d even admit they had romantic feelings for their significant others.
I was beyond humiliated that I could have been so wrong about someone. On top of that I battled guilt because I’d never even told my friends about him, about us. At the time it had been so nice to have this delicious little secret that was just between me and him.
That’s how he’d spun it. Keeping our relationship a secret had been Alex’s idea.
Of course, I found out later that he wanted it to be a secret because I wasn’t the only girl he was seeing. I wasn’t even the first in line. He had a girlfriend, he informed me. Apparently she’d found out so he’d had to end it.
I clenched Ox’s shirt in my hand as another wave of emotion swept over me. I hated that selfish, lying, manipulative jerk who’d led me on and lied to my face. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually fallen in love with a guy like that. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was, I hated myself just a little because I was still heartbroken that he didn’t love me back.
Ox’s shirt was soaked by the time I calmed down. And by calmed down, I mean I exhausted myself from crying. God, how did people ever do this on a regular basis? It was the worst. My eyes were puffy, my head throbbed, and I had to wipe my nose on my sleeve or ruin Ox’s opinion of me forever by getting snot all over his collar.
I pulled back but I couldn’t bring myself to meet Ox’s eyes. He didn’t say anything and when he made no move to push me away or get me out of his truck, I felt a totally irrational surge of anger.
Realistically I knew it wasn’t his fault that he’d seen me cry. I was positive if given an option he would have opted out of this little cry-fest. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t like he’d sat around waiting to watch me cry.
But still… This gigantic silent brute had seen something no one else had ever witnessed—well, not since kindergarten, at least.
I couldn’t deal if I looked up and saw pity in his eyes, and I had a horrible suspicion that I would. I’d see it now and I’d see it every time that dark, glowering gaze of his met mine in the hallway at school.
“I’ve got to go,” I mumbled, scrambling off his lap with as much grace as I could muster.
It wasn’t much. Scrambling off laps within the tight confines of a truck was beyond the scope of my grace and agility. I ended up sort of tumbling toward the passenger side door and I moved to open it before he could do it for me like he’d done earlier tonight. The jerk. What kind of guy opens car doors in this day and age?
It was a flimsy sort of anger but it was better than feeling pitied so I stuck with it. But then that voice of his—the one I so rarely heard but kind of adored—came out of the darkness again. “Did he hurt you?”
I turned back around because quite honestly his voice scared me. “What? No,” I said quickly.
“He made you cry.”
I stared at him with my mouth partially open. I forgot for a second that my face was a puffy mess and my nose was red and runny. I was more interested in seeing his face, but it was masked in shadows. I could see his eyes, though. They gleamed in the dark like some sort of predator, and the anger there made my breath catch in my throat.
He was angry at the drunk guy.
On my behalf.
My heart and my belly went into turmoil. Some of my earlier hurt came back, along with shame and guilt and a million other annoying emotions that I didn’t want to face. Not again. But above and beyond all of those was a warmth in my chest that made breathing physically impossible.
“I’ll kill him.” He said it so simply and with a creepy lack of emotion and that was enough to shake me out of it. Irritation rose up again, this time with myself. I was a mess tonight. I needed to get away from him and every other guy on this planet until I could get my head on straight.
“He doesn’t deserve it,” I said, making another move for the door.
“If you want me to talk to him—” he started.
I cut him off with a short laugh that held very little humor. “You? Talk?” When I looked back he was glaring at me, but I knew he wasn’t angry with me. He was just a guy being a guy—he wanted to hurt someone and I could understand that urge well. I kind of wanted to hurt someone myself. But I wouldn’t because I wanted something else more than I wanted revenge.
I wanted Alex and the heartbreak he’d caused to go back to the dark recesses of my heart where they belonged.
Tomorrow I’d go back to normal. I’d hang out with friends and I’d get to work on my next charity project and, and… I just had to take care of one thing first.
Turning back, I met his gaze. “Don’t get involved, okay?”
He didn’t respond. Suddenly he was back to being mute. How convenient. I sighed. “Seriously, Ox. He was just a drunk idiot. He’s not worth it.”
He didn’t nod or disagree, but I took his steady silence to be assent.
“Okay then,” I muttered.
It wasn’t until I was in bed later that night that I realized the truth of the matter. I couldn’t stop reliving the whole sorry event. Not just the drunk guy—actually, little of my stewing was over that creep. No, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ox. About the way he’d looked at me, at the protective anger in his voice on my behalf that bordered on possessive. On the way he’d held me against his chest, the way he’d stroked my back and let me cry.
I nearly hyperventilated at the memory of it all. By the time I fell asleep one thing was clear. I couldn’t face Ox. Never again.
I’d just have to avoid him forever.
To continue reading, check out The Perfect Score
About the Author
MAGGIE DALLEN IS a big city girl living in Montana. She writes romantic comedies in a range of genres including young adult, historical, contemporary, and fantasy. An unapologetic addict of all things romance, she loves to connect with fellow avid readers. Subscribe to her newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bFEVsL
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Love at First Fight: Geeks Gone Wild #1 Page 18
