I can feel my face flush. I try to play it off and roll my eyes. “You know you’re sexy, John.”
He smirks then, and I slap my hand across my mouth. It’s one thing to admit he’s handsome, but I just straight-up called him sexy. I pull my hand away. “I mean... obviously you know you’re good-looking. You have women falling all over you all the time.”
He looks almost disgusted. “They do not.”
I barely resist rolling my eyes. I lean toward him to whisper, “Look across the aisle.”
He turns his head, and we both look at the woman openly staring at John. He gets a lot of looks anyway. A man with that many tattoos is obviously going to get looked at. But this woman is obviously interested in him. I giggle. “See, I told you so.”
He picks up my hand again, threading our fingers together and bringing it back to his lap. He gestures at our intertwined hands to the woman, and when she looks away, he says, “Yeah, women look at me, but never the woman I want.”
I want to ask him about it, but he lays his head back and closes his eyes. I should pull my hand back, but I don’t. We ride most of the trip hand in hand, and I try not to think about some woman that John’s obviously given his heart to.
4
John
This is too much. For years, I’ve kept my distance from Madison. She’s my younger sister’s best friend. She’s off limits, and I know she is. But yet, here I am sitting next to her, snuggled up to her, holding hands. I don’t even know who I am in this moment. I’m not a cuddler or even a person that shows much affection, but I can’t force myself to let go of her.
We’re quiet for so long I begin to wonder if Madison is asleep. I open my eyes and watch her, taking in her long hair, long eyelashes, pert nose, and full, pink lips. A small twitch in her breath lets me know she’s awake. “Why didn’t you come to me about Ethan?”
She inhales deeply but doesn’t open her eyes. “Why would I? I mean, I’m your sister’s friend. I just recently moved to Tennessee... I know you deal with a lot of shit with your job... I didn’t want to add my shit to it too.”
“Jenna said that Ethan’s friends roughed you up in LA.” I try to control my breathing, but just thinking about someone laying their hands on her is enough to make me crazy.
She shrugs, and her voice almost sounds bored. “It wasn’t a big deal. That’s one of the reasons my brother left California for Florida. It was a new start. I guess it didn’t go as planned. I really can handle this.”
“Look at me,” I tell her. There’s no way she knows what she’s dealing with here. Surely, she wouldn’t plan to meet up with a drug cartel.
She doesn’t open her eyes, and I say it again. “Look at me, Madison.”
She sighs, open her eyes, and turns her head. Our faces are inches apart from each other. “You shouldn’t be dealing with this. You shouldn’t be going to Florida to deal ... with this.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You never did like that I was friends with Jenna. I know you think I’m trouble, and you wish I’d stayed away from her like you told me to.”
I try to remember ever saying that. I search her face. The hurt is evident, and knowing I put it there does a weird thing to me. The fact that I could have hurt Madison is eating me up inside. “I never said that.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, you did.”
I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t. I search my memory, and it all starts to come back to me. I did say that to her. Fuck, how did I forget that? It was the night of her and Jenna’s senior prom. Jenna and Madison had been friends since grade school, and it was only a few months before prom that my feelings started to change toward Madison. I didn’t look at her as my pesky sister’s friend anymore. She was beautiful and sweet and so full of sassiness she kept me on my toes even then. But it was wrong, I know it was. I was home on leave and watched as they were getting ready to leave. I stewed all night, wondering who she had danced with and if her date was trying to kiss her. I almost followed them and had to talk myself out of it. When she got home, I was a complete bundle of nerves. I didn’t know how to react to her, and when she called me out on staring at her, I said the one thing that would piss her off. I told her that she was a bad influence on Jenna. Which wasn’t true. Jenna’s always been sweet and a little naïve. Madison was good for her. She was gutsy, and no one ran their mouth to her. I was glad Jenna had her on her side. But I didn’t say any of that. I said the exact opposite.