Asshole!
It had taken me a long time to get over what he’d done, and even today it still stung and made me wary of forming attachments to men. What if they decided we weren’t compatible again? Or what if they couldn’t live with my issues?
That had happened three years ago when I was nineteen, and I hadn’t said yes to a date since then. I was pretty sure people thought I was frigid or a lesbian, but I didn’t care. I was wary of someone else doing what my mom, Ronnie and Ian had. People got dumped and left behind all the time, but they’d picked up on specific points I considered personal weaknesses of mine, so it had struck harder. Plus, I’d let Ian into a place where I hadn’t let anyone before and had given him something I could never get back, so that really did hurt. Were their actions on me? No, but I doubted there was anyone in the world who wouldn’t be wary if that happened to them. It was like a little niggle in the back of my brain that periodically turned into a siren.
Why was I letting Madix get close to me then? Because he was special. Maybe our weaknesses balanced each other out?
We’d now known each other properly for five weeks, and I hadn’t once looked at him and felt scared or like I should run for the hills. I vaguely remembered making out with him at the New Year’s party, but I’d been up for thirty-six hours by that point. We’d had a fleet of rental cars that had needed serviced before they could be rented out, and the paperwork had been a killer. Add on the glass of Jack Daniels I’d had with the guys as we celebrated finishing the cars in record time, the eight shots of tequila that my friend Sarina had made me have when I’d arrived at the bar for the place’s party (which had also been held in honor of the owners who’d just bought the place from the previous ones), as well as a few beers and I’d been G-O-N-E. I might be twenty-one, but I hadn’t really allowed myself to let loose and party, so alcohol was a phenomenon to my body – one it hadn’t liked.
I really wish I could remember more about that damn kiss. Like, what did it feel like pressed up against him? Had I smelled of the garage?
Oh my God, what if I smelled of oil or exhaust fumes? That had happened before.
Just as I was working myself up into a panic and getting ready to call Bonnie in Florida to ask her how often I smelled like a car, the man himself walked through the door of my office. I’d noticed he was smiling a lot more nowadays than he had when I’d first met him. It was probably down to the fact that he was settling down here more. Maybe the Townsends had shaken the grumpy out of him?
“Babe, wanna come help me with something?”
Well, color me intrigued!
“Where are we going?”
“On an adventure!”
Pausing as I reached for my purse, I turned to look at him warily.
“The last time that line was used, your sister ended up strapped to her husband and plummeting to her death from a plane in Vegas.”
It was true. Noah had asked her on an adventure and had taken her skydiving in Vegas. Granted, the video of it and the things that came out of her mouth was hysterical, but me no stupid. I wasn’t falling for that shit!
Chuckling, he shook his head and looked at me with twinkling eyes. He seemed to have shaken off whatever weight he had on his shoulders when I’d first met him, and the relaxed look he now wore whenever I saw him looked good on him.
“Can you imagine me jumping out of a plane with a parachute?” he asked, pointing his finger from his head to his toes.
“You’d probably touch the floor in two seconds,” I snorted, although I wasn’t sure if that was far from the truth. He was just so tall! “Hey, can you see the weather from up there?” I asked him as we made our way toward the exit of the building.
“Huh?”
I grinned over my shoulder at him as I reached for the bar that opened the exit. “Well, you could probably see what weather was coming, right? In fact, you’re so tall, you might even be able to see into the future. What am I wearing tomorrow?”
His roar of laughter triggered my own, and I tripped over my own foot, right into the door. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and braced myself for whatever was going to happen next. All that happened was a pressure on my stomach as I was heaved up over Madix’s shoulder. This gave me the perfect view of his ass, which was totally edible. That was actually a disgusting expression when you thought of it, but damn it – it was so true. It also did not suck one bit that his hand was on my thigh, just under my own gluteus maximus. This meant it was also near an area of me which was growing slightly wet due to the proximity of his digits. The feel of his various muscles and body parts touching a majority of my body also did not suck.