Wrong Side of Town

was sure she was going to snap her seatbelt in half.

Fixing her with a reassuring smile, I grabbed my bag and shut the door. “It’s okay. If he was going to do anything to me, he would’ve done it by now.”

“He’s a Madden!” Mariah shrieked, as though that was her winning argument.

“I’m fine, Ray, honestly. We’ll talk about it later.”

Mariah stared at me as though I had lost my mind, but she could tell there was no way she’d change my mind, especially since I was technically known as the responsible one in our group of friends.

“So, do I pick you up from here?”

Before I could respond, Vincent spoke from somewhere behind me. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take you home when you’re done.”

He was closer than I’d expected, and his voice sent a line of tingles running right down my spine. When I turned around, he was standing right behind me.

“You’re taking me home?”

Vincent gave me a casual shrug. “I figured I might as well pick up my jacket while I’m there.”

I turned back to Mariah, trying to gather my thoughts. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Vincent knowing where I lived. Then again, he was in a criminal gang, so I’m sure he had ways of finding these things out. He probably already knew my address, my date of birth, and the name of my first grade teacher.

“Jacket?” Mariah mouthed at me, looking as though she might pass out.

I waved her off. “I’ll call you when I get home, okay?”

Mariah shot me daggers. “You better freaking call me.” She didn’t say anything to Vincent as she straightened back into her seat again.

As I turned back to Vincent, he started walking back towards his bike again and I hurried up to match his quick strides.

“Where’s Dylan? Is he already inside?” My eyes sought out the adorable blonde-haired boy who looked so different to his brother.

“He’s at home.” Vincent reached his motorcycle and grabbed the helmet hanging from the back.

I stopped walking. “So, when is he coming here?”

“He’s not. We’re going to him.” Vincent turned and tossed me the helmet.

The helmet fell into my open hands, but I didn’t put it on. I just kept staring at Vincent as he climbed onto his bike and gunned the engine.

“I am not going to your house! This wasn’t part of the deal!”

Vincent shot me a glare. “Believe me, I don’t want you at my house, but Dylan’s sick and there is no way I’m letting him go out in this weather.” He gestured with a hand as though to emphasize how cold it was. “He’s having a breakdown about how he’s failing his classes, and because I won’t let him go out, he wants you to come over and tutor him.”

What Vincent was saying made sense, but I still didn’t know if it was such a good idea to be going over to the Madden’s house. It was the Madden’s house—the headquarters for all the criminal activity that went on around these parts!

“I don’t know…” I trailed off, glancing back at Mariah’s car, which was still stopped in the parking lot.

Clearly, she didn’t trust to drive off just yet either. I could still get away. I didn’t have to go through with this. No sane person would go through with this.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Vincent snapped, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

He furiously punched in a couple of numbers into his phone, his brow furrowing, and held the phone to his ear. “Hey, kid, talk to your tutor. She’s being a stubborn ass.”

I bristled at the fact that Vincent had just referred to me as a stubborn ass, and gingerly took the phone from him.

“H-hello?”

There was a violent fit of coughing on the other end. “Estella? Is it okay if you come to our house? Vin said I can’t go out when I’m like this and I reeeally wanted to study today.” The coughing resumed, and I waited until Dylan quieted down before speaking.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Your brother doesn’t seem to want me to go to your house, either.” I chanced a look at Vincent, but he was pointedly staring in the other direction, refusing to make eye contact with me.

“Please, Estella. Pleeeeeease!” Dylan started coughing again.

“Sweetie, did your mom make you some chicken soup for your throat?”

Vincent’s head shot up, and he deliberately turned his head side to side as though he was trying to tell me something. Was this a topic I should be avoiding?

“Our mom left us,” Dylan said in a small voice.

My heart shattered into tiny pieces. Sure, my mom had done more or less the same thing, but I had been a teenager when she’d left us. During my childhood, she had been wonderful and attentive and loving. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like to not have your mother around at such a young age.

Tears were starting to prick my eyes, but I ignored them and tried to force a smile into my voice. “Never mind, I’ll make you chicken soup. How does that sound?”

Dylan sounded happier when he spoke. “Really? You would do that?”

“Of course, sweetie. I’ll pick up some groceries on my way over.” It barely crossed my mind that I was now voluntarily going to the Madden house. In all honesty, I couldn’t stand to disappoint Dylan. “But I have one condition. Tell your brother to be nice to me.”

Vincent’s bottom lip curled as I handed him the phone, and I tried to hide a smile at the look of confusion on his face as he listened to what Dylan was saying. “Yeah, Dil, yeah. I am being nice. This is my nice voice. Whaddya mean ‘nice face’? Yeah, okay, we’re coming now, boss.”

Vincent hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket. Then he shot me a look of pure loathing and irritation. “I don’t do nice.”

While I secured the helmet onto my head, I matched the expression on his face, not allowing myself to be intimidated by him. “I know it’s probably hard for a big, bad, tough Madden to be well-mannered, but that’s my condition. You have to be nice. If it makes you um-wussy or whatever you call it, then get over it.”

There was an awkward silence, and Vincent continued to stare at me like I was a specimen in a lab. Then the edge of his lip curled up just the slightest. “Get on the bike, Stelle.”

The butterflies in my stomach intensified at him using the name he always called me. It was the way he said it—like I was his Stelle—that made me fluttery inside.

Vincent climbed on and waited for me to mount the bike. I stared at it in half trepidation and the other half in fear. I had never been this close to a bike before. Did I just climb on? What did I hold onto? What if I fell off?

Gulping, I approached the bike with wide eyes, and gingerly swung my leg over the other side. Then I planted myself firmly in the seat and grasped the edge of the seat with both hands.

“You gotta grab on with both hands, darlin’.” Vincent turned his head just the slightest. Obviously, he was blind. I was grabbing on with both hands.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“No,” he growled, his tone causing more shivers to race down my spine. Then he reached around, grabbed both my arms with his firm hands, and wrapped them around his waist. “Like this.”

Heat crept across my body at having my body pressed against Vincent’s. It probably wasn’t a big deal to him—he was probably used to girls touching him all the time—but to me it was like a fire was slowly heating me from the inside out.

“And, Stelle?” he asked, turning back to face the front.

“Yes?” I managed to choke out.

“On my side of town, we don’t say wussy.” There was a teasing lilt to his voice. “We say pussy.”

The heat exploded inside me, and I had no words to say. Thankfully, Vincent gunned the engine, saving me from turning into a spluttering fool, and he sped out of the parking lot with me gripping onto him for dear life.

The wind whipped past my face and the world was a blur of colors and sounds. Once the initial fear of being on the bike wore off and I opened my eyes, I was amazed by the way the world shifted and moved around me,