Maddox narrows his eyes and relaxes just a little but remains safely on the other side of the counter. “I’m listening.”
“It sounds so fucking stupid now.”
“Fucking hell, dude, if you backtrack now I’ll deck you,” he snaps before I can say more.
I sigh. “Fine. You remember how skittish she was about me playing with her ass last weekend, right? Every time I try, she brushes me off.”
He snorts. “It’s her body. If she doesn’t like ass play, it’s her loss.”
“Right. Well, she finally offered. She said she’d let me fuck her ass, except . . .” I meet his gaze, look away, clear my throat, then decide I have to look him in the eye when I come out and say it. He’s more relaxed, leaning both elbows on the counter now, a knowing smirk on his lips, and I have a feeling he’s already guessed where I’m going with this. “Except she wants me to go first. As in, get fucked in the ass. By you.”
The motherfucker has the audacity to grin. I glare at him, and then he laughs, but it’s a humorless laugh, almost manic. I stare at him in confusion, unsure whether I should join in or not because I don’t find the moment particularly amusing. I’m mortified, if I’m being honest with myself, and my erection has disappeared, the arousal replaced by faint nausea.
“No fucking way,” he finally says when his laughter subsides.
“What do you mean? I thought you were bi.”
“Jesus Christ, Leo. You can’t distill me down to my sexuality and expect me to perform for your entertainment. I’m not a goddamn toy. Yes, okay? Objectively, I’d love to fuck you, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. I could spend hours listing all the reasons why it’s a bad idea. But I’m done here.” He backs up and points to the elevator. “You need to go. Maybe Celeste will take pity on you and let you live out your little anal fantasy. Or, I don’t know, maybe you’ll decide it really isn’t that fucking important in the grand scheme of things.”
I grit my teeth, unwilling to admit defeat. I’m well out of my comfort zone already and determined to see it through, to at least get to the heart of his resistance.
“What’s so fucking complicated you can’t take the risk, huh? Tell me that and I’ll leave. It’s just sex.” I round the counter and position myself in front of him, filling the few feet of space he’s put between himself and the counter again. He still has the upper hand, and I even shove mine into my pockets so he doesn’t perceive me as a threat.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” His voice is gruff, almost pleading, and he shakes his head. His eyes are red rimmed, and I frown when his jaw clenches hard. “It isn’t just sex.”
“Tell me what it is, Maddox.”
He clenches his fists and roars at the ceiling. “Fuck!” He’s breathing heavy when he looks at me again, eyes a little wild, nostrils flaring. “Remember that day of the photo shoot? The first one, just you and me and your tattoo. The day I told you I was bi. When you showed up I was with someone . . .”
“I remember.” I nod, glad he’s finally talking. “You wanted me to think it was a dude you were with.”
He’s shaking his head. “No, I just didn’t want you to catch on to who it was. It was Celeste, Leo. Celeste was the girl. Then I had to come up here and watch you take your clothes off and flaunt that.” He waves his hand at my body, eyes focused at my hips.
But I’m frozen by the revelation, mouth dry as it sinks in. I try to speak but the words catch and I cough once, then manage to say, “You fucked her that day?”
His shoulders sag. “No. I might’ve if you hadn’t shown up. I just ate her out, then she came to her senses and left. I haven’t fucked her since we were teens. I—I loved her back then. So goddamn much. I still do.”
This is a lot to process, and so much more than I was prepared for when I asked him to talk. I decide to focus on it a piece at a time. “You only said she was your first kiss.”
“I lied, okay? She was more. So, so much more. You’d spent all night confessing your undying love for her. I wasn’t about to tell you the truth, because it didn’t fucking matter. I just wanted you to know that I knew who she was. That I understood the risks of getting close. That you weren’t alone.”
I’m incredulous. “How can you stand it? The night Manny died . . . we were in your bed. We made love in your bed.” I furrow my brows and stare off toward his bathroom, a hazy memory skirting the dark edges of my mind. Their voices together in there with the shower running, my despair at the belief that I’d lost her too, then the certainty the next day that it had all been a bad dream when I woke up with her beside me. “You could have had her the night I got shot, couldn’t you?”
“Not if I didn’t want to destroy you.” He looks dejected, lost, his hands hanging by his sides.
“I don’t understand. Why would you do that if you love her? Why stand by and let me have her all this time?”
“Leo,” he chokes out. “Don’t you get it? I love you too.”
28
Maddox
Those are the three words he was never supposed to hear me speak. His knowing the truth doesn’t fix a goddamn thing. It complicates everything. But he asked, and I relented, because there was no way I’d
