Saving Maddie (12 page)

“You should have said something. Maybe I could have changed….”

She laughed. “Come on, Joshua. Let’s be honest here.

You are who you are.” Then she looked thoughtful for a minute. “Actually, that’s not fair. Maybe you could have changed. But deep down, I don’t know if I wanted you to. Part of me worried that sex would change you—that you’d no longer be one of the good guys. And I didn’t want to be responsible for that.”

I shook my head. “This is crazy. One minute, you’re telling me that you wanted me to be different; the next, you’re saying that you wanted me to stay the same?”

She smiled at me—a real, genuine smile. Then she grabbed my hand, and I stiffened. “I wish we had had this conversation earlier,” she said. “Maybe things would have been different. Maybe it could have worked out. Maybe—” Jenn quickly released my hand as something behind me caught her eye. “Hey, Rodney.”

I spun around, and was immediately face to face with Jenn’s giant of a boyfriend.

“Is there a problem here?” he asked. He was so big, his muscles had muscles.

Jenn batted her eyelashes at him. “No problems, Rodney. We were just chatting. Catching up.”

“Chatting? Really?” He narrowed his eyes. “It looked like a lot more than that.”

I began to back away. “Listen, I was just about to leave.”

“Hey, don’t run off on my account.” He advanced toward me, the red punch in his cup sloshing to and fro. “Clearly, you and my girlfriend have a lot to talk about.”

“Rodney, stop it,” Jenn demanded. “We were only—”

“There you are,” Madeline said, suddenly appearing at my side. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Rodney paused as Madeline wrapped her arms around my neck and pushed her body into mine. She leaned her head into me, her lips intimately close to my ear.

“You okay?” Each word she spoke tickled my skin. “Maybe we should get out of here. I’m ready whenever you are.”

I nodded. Then Madeline unfolded herself from my body, took my hand, and led me out the door.

chapter 10

“T
hanks,” I said when we had made it safely to the car.

“I assume that was Jenn, with the way y’all were carrying on,” Madeline said. “Her boyfriend was over there with me, staring you down the entire time.”

“Jenn said she loves him.” I put the key into the ignition but didn’t start the car. “She said it’s okay to have sex with someone if you love them.”

Madeline watched me, no doubt waiting for me to continue, but I was too wrapped up in my own throughts to speak. If Jenn had wanted to sleep with me, did that mean that she had loved me, too? And had I loved her?

When Jenn and I were dating, I never once uttered the
L
word, and neither did she. I liked her a lot, and was sure
one day
I would fall in love with her. But no, I honestly didn’t know if I could say that I loved her.

However, that didn’t mean she hadn’t loved me.

“Maybe she does love him,” Madeline said. “Or maybe she just wanted to have sex, and that’s how she justified it.”

I didn’t believe that. I didn’t
want
to believe that. Jenn shouldn’t have been having sex, but it seemed…better if she was sleeping with someone she loved.

“I guess it’s not impossible, the idea of her falling in love so quickly,” I said. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Well I think it’s mighty convenient that—” She stopped, and the frown on her face faded away. “You know, it’s not important what I think. You’re happy and she’s happy, and that’s all that really matters.” Madeline reached over and started the car, and a blast of hot air jetted out of the vents. “You
are
happy, right?” she asked.

I laughed, trying to lighten things up. “Yeah, I’m happy. Especially since I didn’t get beat down by Jenn’s boyfriend.”

“Once Rodney started toward y’all, I figured it might be a good time for us to make our grand exit.” She grinned. “Good guys tend not to be the best fighters.”

My arms jerked a little as I pulled away from the curb. “I wish people would stop saying things like that. There’s more to me than being just a good guy.”

Madeline’s bright brown eyes drilled through me. “That really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“Sometimes I don’t think anybody understands me.” I focused on the road and tried to ignore her gaze. “I don’t think anyone really understands how it feels to be a preacher’s kid.”

“I understand.”

I knew Madeline was being sincere, but I wasn’t in the mood to discuss how pathetic my life was. “Sorry for pulling you away from the party. You looked like you were having a good time.”

“It’s okay. After a while, all the parties are the same. Same dumb guys saying the same stupid things. If anything, I wish I had taken Hershel up on his offer for that beer.” She settled into her seat and pulled her purse from the glove compartment. “Did you enjoy the party?”

I thought back to how comfortable everyone else had looked. “I would have had more fun at the nursing home.”

“Well, to hell with that lame-ass party.” Madeline flipped on my overhead light. “Now where are we going?”

“I assumed I was taking you home.”

“Are you kidding? The night hasn’t even started yet.”

She pulled a tube of lipstick and a compact mirror from her purse. “You promised to take me to a party, and I intend to hold you to your word. You’re taking me dancing.”

“Dancing? You mean, like, at a club?”

“Well, I’m not going to dance in the middle of the street.”

“But what about Frank?”

“How many times do I have to tell you—Frank’s not my boyfriend.”

My fingers choked the steering wheel. “Of course he isn’t. Y’all just do
stuff.”

Madeline remained quiet as she applied a fresh coat of lipstick. I knew I should have apologized, but I didn’t want to. I was only repeating what she had said herself.

After seconds of painstaking silence, Madeline closed her lipstick and snapped her mirror shut. “Pull over.”

“But it’s dark. And we’re not even close to a side street.”

“Pull over. Now.”

I gulped, turned on my signal light, and veered onto the shoulder of the road. Cars whizzed past us at an alarming speed, but that didn’t stop Madeline from opening her door and marching to the front of the car. She stood with her arms crossed and glared at me until I got out.

“Madeline, I’m sorry,” I said before I had even reached her.

“Joshua, I know you’re upset and angry and hurt, so I’m giving you a pass.” She jabbed her finger into my chest. “But if you ever say anything like that again, I’m gonna stick my foot so far up your ass, you’ll be licking my toenail polish off your tonsils for a month.” Then she smiled. “Now give me your keys. I’m driving.”

Not being one to argue with eighteen-year-old baristas in red sundresses, I handed her the keys and we returned to the car.

Madeline didn’t even check the rearview mirror as she pulled back onto the road. “You’d better buckle up.” She floored the gas pedal. “I like to drive fast.”

*    *    *

“Stay here,” Madeline said as we walked up to the edge of the club. “I’ll be back in a second.”

I stayed in the shadows of what must have been the seediest-looking building in Conway. Broken beer bottles littered the cracked asphalt pavement. There was a tinge of smoke in the air, and I wasn’t naive enough to believe it was solely from cigarettes.

Madeline sashayed toward the bouncer. She was tall, especially in her heels, but he towered over her. She beckoned to him with her finger, and he immediately doubled over so that they were face to face. Madeline placed her hand on his shoulder and said something to him. He looked at her for a few long seconds, and finally nodded.

Madeline smiled and waved me over. The bouncer looked even bigger up close—Jenn’s boyfriend was a dwarf compared to him. His black T-shirt struggled to contain his biceps. He sported black and brown dreadlocks and an ugly scowl.

“This is my friend Joshua,” Madeline told him. “Like I said, he forgot his ID.”

The bouncer sneered at me. “Give me your hand.”

I extended my sweaty hand to him, palm up. He grabbed it, flipped it over, and plastered a rubber stamp on the back of it. “If I see you with a drink, I’m throwing you both out.”

“Yes, sir. No drinks. I promise.”

He nodded toward a much smaller guy standing
behind a counter just inside the building. “It’s a ten-dollar cover charge.”

My hands trembled as I pulled the money from my wallet. I handed the cashier two tens, but he shook his head and handed one of the bills back. “Just ten for you,” he said. “Free for her.”

Madeline took my stamped hand. “It’s usually five for girls, but Patrick and Ross always let me in for free.” She winked. “I’m something of a celebrity around here.”

Madeline led me inside the main room of the club, which basked in flickering neon lights. The entire room vibrated with every downbeat of the reggae music pumping through the sound system. I was afraid she was going to pull me onto the dance floor. Instead, she led me to a worse location—the bar.

She pushed her way past a couple of guys and leaned against the bar, her chest resting on top of the dark wooden veneer. “Hey, Chris,” she said. “Let me have two tequila shots.”

I hated the way the bartender leered at her, his dark eyes glued to her chest. Once he turned from her and began to pour the drinks, Madeline smirked at me. I didn’t smile back.

“Don’t be like that, Joshua.” She stood upright again. “I’m trying to get us drinks without having to show ID.”

“Maybe you forgot, but I don’t drink.”

She rolled her eyes. “And I thought you said you were tired of being a saint.”

The bartender came back, drinks in hand, eyes on Madeline. She handed him a few bills and took the drinks,
a wedge of lime teetering on the rim of each glass. “Come on. It’s too crowded over here.”

I followed her to the far end of the bar. Madeline removed the lime from one of the glasses, and without even pausing, she downed the shot. Her face scrunched up for a half second before returning to normal. Then she placed the lime in her mouth and sucked long and hard.

At that instant, I knew I would be jealous of limes for the rest of my life.

“Hmmm.” Madeline ran her tongue over her lips. “Good stuff.”

I wondered just how good those shots were. I mean, if Madeline and the guys from youth group and just about everyone else in Conway could drink, maybe it wasn’t that big a deal.

Hey, even Jesus turned water to wine, right?

Maybe Madeline sensed a shift in my thinking, because she nudged the other shot toward me. “You can have it, if you want it,” she said, her voice low and throaty and dead sexy. But before I could decide whether to reach for it or not, she pulled it back. “No, you’d better not. Someone has to drive.”

Yeah.
Lucky me.

She knocked back the second shot, and the same pained expression came to her face. “Yuck! I may as well be guzzling gasoline.”

“Then why even drink it?”

She placed the shot glass next to the other one, both stained with lipstick. “Because it’s fun.”

Madeline sat down on one of the stools, and I just
about came unglued with the way she straddled that seat, that dress of hers barely hiding her shiny brown thighs.

“I don’t bite.” She patted the stool next to her. “You can sit beside me.”

I sat down and Madeline took my hand. She laced her fingers through mine and held my hand in her lap. Her red dress scorched my skin.

Madeline swayed in her seat for the next few songs, and I sat there watching her sway, wanting to be pulled along with her.

I could have sat there forever and watched her, but when the DJ played a different, more upbeat type of reggae, Madeline jumped out of her seat. “I love dancehall!” She started toward the dance floor, lugging me behind her. “Come on,” she coaxed. “Dazzle me with your greatness.”

I was so busy watching her walk, I almost tripped as she weaved through the crowd forming on the dance floor. “I’m not much of a dancer,” I yelled over the music.

She stopped in the middle of the floor and placed my sweaty hands on her soft hips. “Just move from side to side. Sway a little.”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I swore I could make out a pair of lace underwear beneath her dress, beneath my fingers.

Madeline moved her body, perfectly in tune with the music. I shuffled my feet and tried to do the same, but the song was too fast. I focused on my feet, watching them stumble back and forth, side to side.

After a few seconds of me floundering around, Madeline stopped moving. “You’re thinking about it too hard.”

I kept staring at my feet. “The music’s too fast. I feel like I’m making a fool of myself.”

She took my face in her hands and made me look up. “Stop worrying about what other people are thinking. Nobody’s looking at you.”

I glanced around. It was true—everyone else was too busy grooving to the music to pay attention to me.

“Close your eyes. Listen to the music. Let it take over your body.”

I closed my eyes and tried to relax. My feet moved from left to right. My hips swayed in rhythm to the beat of the song. I breathed in the music, letting it pump through me.

I opened my eyes to see Madeline beaming. “Much better,” she said.

We continued to dance—if you could call what I was doing dancing—for two songs. Just when I felt like I was gaining control over my rhythmic spazzing, the DJ switched to a slow song with a soft, pulsating beat.

I stopped dancing, unsure what to do with my hands, with my body. “We can sit this one out if you want,” I said. “I don’t really like slow songs.”

She grinned. “What? Don’t you want to get close to me?”

“Well, I…”

Madeline slid her arms around my neck and leaned into me, and I lost the ability to speak. My arms tightened around her waist, my palms resting on the curve of her bottom. Her scent engulfed me.

“You’re a good slow dancer.” She laid her head on my shoulder; her body melted into mine. “I like the way you hold me.”

I liked the way I held her as well.