Masquerade (17 page)

She’s been out of bed about an hour. I can’t stop thinking about her. Not only her but also me. Her and I. Whatever the fuck we are, if we’re anything. I’ve never let myself overthink shit because nothing has ever really mattered except for the stuff with my dad and my sister. But here I am thinking about her and wondering about the way she’d suddenly tensed against me, the little moans that snuck past her lips, and wanting to fucking erase her ache.

Instead, I let her go… That’s me, though, isn’t it? I didn’t do anything about Dad and I haven’t done anything to be there for Bee either.

The crazy part is… I want to. Want to learn how for her because she ties me in knots in the best way. I actually want to be with her and even though it’s scary as hell, I think she’s worth it.

Still, I haven’t left her bed. Haven’t walked to find her or tried to be a man and take care of her. I’ve been trying with Laney ever since I let them all down. Things with Bee are on a whole other playing field because I want to wipe her tears and make love to her until she forgets about all those secrets she keeps locked away from me.

The same fucking way I do with her.

Still, I want to try.

My eyes are drawn to the door, seconds before she walks through it. Her shadow, dark in an even darker room as she makes her way back to the bed and climbs in.

I can tell she’s on her side, facing me, but her skin hasn’t come in contact with mine. I want to wrap her inside me where we can both pretend we’re not fucked up and lost. The urge to ask her where she was for so long begs to fucking break through my lips. I don’t let it.

“You’re awake.” Her voice breaks through the night.

“Have been ever since you left.”

Ask her what’s wrong. Ask her where she went.

“Sorry.”

“Why? You want to get up, then you get up.”

“Ooookaay.” The bed dips as though she’s rolling away from me to get up. Need surges through me and I reach for her. Touch her soft fucking skin and pull her to me.

Tell her you want her. That you want to try.
“You were making noises.”

“Strange dream.”

On instinct, I run a hand through her hair, lean forward, and press my lips to her forehead. “What was it?”

Before she has the chance to reply, my cell rings. A fist lodges itself in my stomach. They called at night when Mom tried to kill herself the last time. We didn’t find out about Dad until night too. All I can think of is my sister—of something having happened to her.

“Get it.” Bee gives me a light shove as I move away from her. A light comes on from her side of the room, right before I reach my pants and pull my cell out.

My skin tightens when I see my sister’s name light up the screen.

“What’s wrong?” I ask immediately.

Crying is my reply. Laney’s trying to speak but I can’t understand anything that’s coming out of her mouth.

“What the hell is wrong, Laney?”

“I got it, baby. Give me the phone,” Adrian says in the background before he’s on the phone. “It’s your mom, man… She’s gone.”

My hold on the phone tightens. I don’t know if I’m breathing. If my heart is fucking beating. She’s gone. Even without being told, I know she finally got her wish and her parting shot at Laney at the same time. “Tell Laney I’ll be right there. Don’t you fucking leave her alone and you tell her I’m coming, okay? I’ll be right there.”

Without another word, I hit
END
on the phone. I’m already shoving my legs into my pants.

“What is it? What happened?” Bee steps up to me.

“My mom’s dead.”

She gasps and I wonder if it’s because I lost my mom or because of the cold way I said it—detached with no feeling because I don’t know how in the hell to feel.

“Maddox, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

I shrug. “She did it somehow. What kind of mom would she be if she didn’t kill herself on my little sister’s birthday?”

Bee gives another gasp at that before she reaches out for me. I’m too angry at my mom and the situation to let myself be touched. My skin is tight with tension. I dodge her as I go for my shirt.

“I gotta go. I need to check on Laney.” My voice muffles slightly as I pull the shirt over my head and go for my shoes.

“Hey.” This time, I don’t move when she grabs my arm. “What about you?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She lets me pull away but then steps in front of me. “Let me go with you.”

And fuck if I don’t want that too. If I don’t need it. Someone there for me.
Her
there for me. “You don’t want to do that. It’s not going to be pretty.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Maddox. You know I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. Let me go with you.”

There are all sorts of reasons I should tell her no. I know Laney is going to want to go back home. There has to be shit to take care of and it’s not like I’ll let her do it alone. Bee shouldn’t have to close Masquerade. This isn’t her business and she doesn’t want ties, but fuck if none of that matters right now, because I need her. I want her, and minutes ago I tried to tell her that I wanted to be with her and didn’t know how. This time, my mouth won’t stay closed.

“Yes,” is all I say and then I pull her to me. She wraps her arms around me and for a minute, I pretend that we’re normal. That we’re like everyone else and we’re not playing this game where we pretend there’s nothing between us when there obviously is. When I want there to be.

“Let me get dressed real quick, okay?” She steps away before getting her clothes. I watch her and wish we could go back to the part where she was taking the clothes off instead of putting them on. I wish this night—no, our fucking lives—wasn’t so screwed up.

Bee grabs a bag out of her closet and puts some other clothes inside. She leaves for the bathroom, probably to grab whatever else she needs, and all I can think is she knows—she
knows
that we’re probably going to leave town and be gone for days, but she’s still coming.

When she’s all packed, we head for the door. I stop when I get there and look at her.
My mom is dead
… Thoughts fight to push their way to the surface but I shove them down. I can’t think about this. I just need to push through. That’s what I do. Close the fucking doors inside me and push through. It’s worked for years.

“Thank you.” I push her hair behind her ear because even though I can’t deal with the rest of it right now, I need her to know how much this means to me. “Thank you for coming.”

She blinks, biting her lip when she looks up at me—unsure in a way she isn’t usually. “It’s nothing.”

But both of us know it’s everything.

* * *

I’m so fucking nervous as I walk toward Laney’s apartment. Christ, I don’t know how to do this. Don’t know how to really be there for her. I’ve done a shitty job of it for years. I can’t stand seeing her upset. It makes me feel helpless.

“Are you okay?” Bee asks as we stand in the hallway.

Honesty finds its way out of my mouth. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m not like her. She’s wide open with everything she feels and this is going to kill her. I don’t know how to be there for her.”

Bee takes my hand, then goes to let go as if she’s not sure she should do it. Before she can, I tighten my grip on her.

“Don’t try to be there for her. Grieve
with
her.”

How screwed up will it be if the truth comes out there. That I don’t feel anything other than anger. That I don’t need to grieve after how my mom had treated us. “I’m fine.”

Bee looks toward the ground. “I’m always fine too… I’ve been
fine
for years. But we never really are, are we?”

It’s like I feel the walls inside me break down. Feel her break them down and find her way inside, into this place that I didn’t think was there. “I don’t know.”

She looks up at me, really looks at me, and I feel her eyes like she can see deep inside, and wonder if anyone has ever seen me the way she is right now. “Bee…” I take a step forward, reach my hand out to cup her cheek, but the door opens behind us.

“Maddy. She’s gone. She’s really gone.”

I turn to catch my sister as she wraps her arms around me. She cries enough for the both of us, her tears wetting my shirt. None fall from my eyes, though. I only hold her, be there for her, and wonder what it would be like to ever let go like this. Wonder what it would be like, to free myself from the past and help Bee through hers too.

Maddox is quiet the whole way to Stanley. It’s a few hours away, and the entire time I keep telling myself I should speak. That I should tell him it’s okay or ask him if he needs to talk but fear lodges the words in my windpipe. Even though I hate it, I can’t stop myself from wondering if I should be here right now. If it’s my place to tell him these things when he didn’t even want to hear it from his sister.

So instead I sit back and let him drive my car. Laney’s in the car in front of us with Adrian, Colt, and Cheyenne. They’re all so close in a way that’s so foreign to me—when one bleeds, they all seem to. When one of them needs something, they’re all there, and I can’t help but think about the fact that if I wasn’t sitting in this car with Maddox right now, he’d be on his motorcycle alone. They would have each other and he would have no one, and being that person to him fills this void inside me that I never realized was there. As hard as it is and as frightened as it makes me, I see his shattered soul through his eyes and I want to do this for him because even though he may not know it, Maddox has made me feel when I haven’t wanted to for so long. I owe him this.

His mom is dead and I know it hurts him. It has to, no matter what his family situation has been.

When we pull off the freeway, I watch as the other car goes left, and then Maddox turns right.

“We’re not going to the hotel?” They’d decided to meet there, no one wanting to go to his mom’s apartment.

“No. I called when we made a stop. I need to go to the morgue to ID her. I don’t want Laney to have to see that shit.”

I never thought I would be the type of girl who would say a guy made her melt. Maybe this isn’t the right time and the circumstances are all screwed up, but the way he loves his sister makes me do just that. My hand reaches for the door handle because I need something to do with it. He loves her with the kind of strength that makes people do crazy things.

“Maddox.”

His cell rings before I can say anything else. I’m surprised when he answers it but not shocked when he says, “I need a few minutes to process this. I’ll meet you at the hotel. Don’t leave without me.” Maddox tosses the cell down.

“You shouldn’t do this alone,” I tell him.

“And she shouldn’t have to.”

“What about you?”

At that Maddox glances at me. “It was her fucking birthday yesterday, Bee. My mom hung herself on Laney’s birthday after making her life shitty for years. Laney never deserved any of it. She never could have stopped all of the stuff that happened.”

Crossing my arms, I turn in the seat, fighting the urge to reach for him, to touch him, to soothe him. “You don’t deserve it either and you also couldn’t have stopped it.”

His jaw tightens and he doesn’t turn to look at me, doesn’t even reply.

My heart hurts because he’s shutting me out when he usually lets me in. Looking at him, I realize that’s what I want. He’s trusted me, and he let me come here with him. It’s scary—that part of me that wants him to continue to let me in. For it to go farther so I know even more about him. The fact that we’re here together speaks volumes for what we have become.

When we pull into a parking spot at the morgue, I push the door open and step out. I don’t make it more than a couple steps when Maddox’s hand grabs on to me. There’s not a bone in my body that even slightly tries to pull away from him. In fact, I squeeze him tighter.

“I’m not trying to be a dick. I…”

Maddox’s jaw is still tight—that angry look that makes people want to back up—but his eyes are telling a different story. It’s those that make me pull out of his grasp and wrap my arms around his neck. “You’re not being a jerk and if you were, you’d have the right. You’re taking care of your family. You’re doing something I never could.”

His hands fist in my sweatshirt, gripping me tightly to him. It feels as though he’d climb inside me if he could and I let myself revel in that.

“Thank you.” Maddox’s voice is low in my ear.

“No problem. Whatever you need. I’m… I’m here. If you want to talk or anything.”

At that he pulls away. “I’m fine. I…” He slides his hand around to the back of my neck. “I’m glad you’re here.”

My heart free-falls over the edge of a cliff. When I open my mouth to reply, no words come out. Maddox leans forward and kisses my forehead again. It’s the second time he’s done it and I feel it all the way to my toes. Instead of finding words, I grab his hand. It’s the best way I can think of to tell him I’m here for him. I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be enough.

Peaceful
. That’s the first word that comes to mind as I look at Mom’s cold, empty body. For the first time in years, she looks peaceful. As fucked up as it sounds, I almost envy her for that. I hate what she did, hate it so fucking much that there’s this crippling ache in my chest. I hate how she treated Laney. Hate that she still loved my bastard dad. That she loved me, but there’s a part of me that is glad she found peace.

When my hand twitches with the urge to reach out and touch her, I squeeze Bee’s hand tighter, so fucking glad that she’s here. I need her at my side.

“Yeah… yeah, it’s her.”

The gray-haired man standing across from us nods. “I’ll give you a few minutes alone with her.”

Fuck that. I don’t want it
, plays through my head, but the words don’t come out. He walks away, followed by the quiet click of a door closing behind him. There’s a sting in my eyes that I ignore. I haven’t cried since I was a kid and I don’t plan to start now. I hate myself for wanting to cry over her after the way she treated Laney. Still… when I look at her, I see my mom. The woman who used to play with us and laugh with us until my father betrayed her. Until I helped him do it.

I tense when Bee’s arm goes around me and she leans into my side. “I’m sorry, Scratch. So damn sorry.”

My lips don’t move but the urge to smile slips through me. Hearing her call me Scratch somehow helps. It feels normal when everything else is so fucked up.

“Me too.” That sting starts again, making me back up. Bee is right beside me as I turn to go from the room.

“You can stay. I can go out if you want to say good-bye.”

Good-bye… How do I say it to someone I both hate and love? To someone who hurt me and hurt people I care about but only because I’m the one who let her get hurt?

“I’m good.”

This is where my sister would try to get me to talk. Where she’d tell me it’s wrong and I should grieve and talk to her or whatever the hell else she thinks is important. Bee doesn’t say any of that, even though the words play in her eyes. She knows me and in this moment, that’s more important to me than anything ever has been.

We step out of the room and turn the corner, down the hall and then outside. The second we step out, I can’t stop myself from kissing her. From trying to tell her thanks in a way that is comfortable for both of us. She opens right up for me, letting my tongue stroke hers. It’s comforting and I don’t remember anyone ever making me feel like this. Fuck, I don’t remember wanting anyone to but then I think about the fact that my mom is dead inside that building. That she wrapped a rope around her neck and hung herself in her apartment and I’m standing out here being as selfish as I was when I kept Dad’s secret.

Pulling away from Bee, I say, “We should go.” The sun peeks through the clouds and sparkles off the piercing in her nose, reminding me of the ink I put in her back. I’m a part of her and fuck if I don’t like that.

It doesn’t take us long to get to the hotel where my sister got a room. Bee and I get our own before I text Laney to find out where she is. She sends a room number back to me, and even though I wish like hell I could turn around and walk right out of here, I head toward my sister. She needs me and I’ll be damned if I let her down again.

Adrian opens the room when we get there. There are two beds, Laney sitting on one and Colt and Cheyenne on the other.

“What’s up, man?” Colt nods at me. Adrian doesn’t say anything, just moves back to sit by my sister.

“I went to the morgue. Everything down there’s done. You don’t have to worry about it.”
Except for paying for the services
. He’d made sure to talk to me about that first thing.

“What?” Laney pushes to her feet and walks toward me. “You went there without me?” Her eyes are red and I wonder if she’s stopped crying since she found out.

“You shouldn’t have to do it.”

The look in her eyes changes to an anger she’s directed at me only one other time. “Fuck you, Maddox! Fuck what you think I should have to do!” she yells.

Adrian’s to his feet and by her side as Bee steps toward her. “He did something really fucking hard so you didn’t have to.”

Laney’s eyes dart to Bee as though she’s shocked she stood up for me, but I’m not. She would do it for anyone. That’s just her.

“Don’t.” My eyes don’t leave Laney as I talk to Bee. “If she has something to say, let her.”

Her voice is softer but still hurt when she says, “You should have told me you were going, Maddy! We should have done it together! I need the closure as much as you do! No matter what, I loved her and I’m tired of you treating me like I’m so breakable. I should have had the
choice.
”

Adrian’s grabbing for her, but Laney pulls free.

“You didn’t fucking need to be there! Look at you. You haven’t stopped crying and you want to go in there and see her dead?” The second the words are out, guilt slams into me.

“Don’t give her shit for feeling something because you don’t.” Adrian pulls Laney closer to him as though I’m going to hurt her. It’s a stab through my chest.

“Dude,” Bee says to him. “You need to stop—”

“Nah.” I step closer to Adrian, cutting Bee off. “Keep going, man. Say what you want to say.” Adrian moves closer, too.

Colt gets off the bed and then Cheyenne, probably expecting to have to break up a fight that would feel really fucking good to start. I open and close my hands, my eyes right on Adrian.

Don’t give her shit for feeling something because you don’t…

My anger at him, at fucking everything tries to block out those words but it doesn’t work. That’s me, right? The cold bastard who doesn’t feel anything. Just like our dad.

“It’s not the fucking time for this shit. Your mom fucking died,” Colt says to me, then looks at Adrian. “Your girl’s mom is fucking dead. All of you need to grow the hell up.” There’s a depth to his voice that I don’t understand. Pain laces his words.

Laney doesn’t stop, though. She grabs my arm with both gentleness and anger, not letting go when I jerk away. “You need to stop doing this. Adrian is wrong—I know you feel something, but you need to
stop
trying to protect me. I love you and I know you love me but I can’t deal with being babied. We’ve been through this, Maddy. She was my
mom
; you’re my brother. I should have been there with you! When are you going to see that? We’re all each other has left now, but all you do is push me away.”

Her voice cracks, splintering me apart. Because she’s right. And because I know that I’m not a good brother. I’m not as fucking
good
as she is. “You heard your man, it’s because I don’t feel anything. You want to see her, go fucking see her. I’m done.”

Bee moves out of the way when I jerk the door open.

And then she slams it behind us, never farther than a foot away from me.

She doesn’t say anything as we head to our room. Part of me wonders if she thought I would leave but I can tell she doesn’t. That she knows me better than that because no matter what I said, I won’t walk out if Laney needs me. I might not be the best kind of brother, but this is the only kind I know how to be.

“I’m texting her that we’re in our room.”

I don’t have it in me to argue. It takes me three times to make the stupid keycard work before the green light flashes and I open the door. My hands are actually shaking as I pace the room, trying to breathe, trying not to think about beating Adrian’s ass or how much I disappoint my sister.

“Don’t feel guilty about what you did. It might not have ended up being the right thing but your heart was in the right place. Don’t let them make you feel like it wasn’t.”

“Was it? Was it in the right fucking place?” My feet won’t stop moving. “I did it because of guilt. Because I let them both down and that’s not being in a right place. It’s being selfish. It’s trying to make up for all the shit that I screwed up.
That’s
what I did, Bee. Don’t try to make a hero out of me.”

Once the words leave my mouth, there’s not even a second I want them back. I’m so tired of staying fucking quiet. I want this shit out of me. “Everything I do isn’t because I’m some great guy with a big fucking heart. It’s because I
owe
people. Because I let them down and this is the only way to make amends for it.”

Bee crosses her arms. “Bullshit. I don’t believe that for a second.” She leans against the table looking almost relaxed.

“Why? Do you see the good in everyone like my sister? Do you think you can save me? Honestly, I’m not that fucked up. My kid didn’t die. My mom didn’t hate me. I’m an asshole who kept his mouth shut for selfish reasons when I should have spoken up.”

“You’ve lost stuff too. Don’t try and pretend you haven’t.”

At that, I laugh. “What? Football? A dad who I don’t give a shit about anyway?”

“A dad who was still your dad. Football, which was something you loved. And what about your mom? Your sister? Your childhood? You can pretend all you want that you’ve never been hurt before and that you’ve never lost anything, but I will continue to call bullshit, Scratch. Loss is loss. It’s not a contest about who’s been hurt more. We all have our own battles to fight.”

I’m suddenly begging my mouth to stay shut. I’m going into territory I’ve never traveled before. I wish like hell I had a cigarette on me, but since I don’t, I walk over to the window and push the curtain open. It’s something to keep me busy because as much as I’ve never wanted to talk, I know I’m about to do just that. I have to tell someone and she’s the only person I can imagine seeing inside me.

“Did you miss the part where I said it’s my fault? That I could have stopped it?”

“Well I’m about to get to the part where I say it doesn’t matter.”

Her reply almost makes me laugh but it’s stuck inside me. She doesn’t get it. How much everyone has lost. Turning around, I look at her—at her blond hair and the determined look on her face. At her gorgeous fucking body and know that I want her to know me in a way no one else has. That even though I never thought I would fall for anyone that I’ve somehow fallen for this woman.

That I love her… because everything almost feels okay with her standing with me. Going to the morgue was easier and seeing Laney too. There’s always this anger inside me that she somehow soothes.

She deserves to know who I am.

“I knew, Bee. I knew Dad gambled and I went with him—races, illegal games, whatever he could find. I found out later about the cheating and I never told. I let myself believe he wasn’t going to hurt Mom anymore and let him continue to lie about his trips out of town so he could make money for me. Because I wanted football so fucking bad and scholarships weren’t a guarantee.”

She takes another step closer to me, so close I feel the heat of her and wish I could lose myself in it.

“You were a kid. It wasn’t your job to fix it. He put you in a bad position with all his secrets.”

Nausea turns in my gut at what I’m going to say next. At the thought of how much my silence has hurt other people. “I knew he wasn’t where he said he would be the weekend he killed Adrian’s son. I knew and we fought and he told me to keep my fucking mouth closed and I did. I sat back and pretended he was working when I knew he wasn’t. I let him go and lied to my mom. He got in that car with another woman and killed Adrian’s kid!”

The words are almost choking me now but I can’t stop them from coming out. My heart is beating so hard my chest hurts and I see Adrian’s son’s eyes, which are engraved into my brain after as many times as I’ve looked him up online over the years.

The same man who loves my little sister more than anything. Who takes care of her better than I ever could despite the fact that she’s connected to the worst fucking moment of his life—not knowing that one word from me could have stopped it all. I hate it that I let myself be a silent bystander.

“He was two years old when he died.
Two
. And even though I hated my father and stopped playing ball with him, I still let my stupid fucking dream get in the way of doing what was right. I let him go and he killed Ashton and broke Adrian and I’ve
still
kept my mouth shut this whole time. I don’t have the balls to step forward even now.

“I’ve hated Mom for being so broken all these years when it was partially my fault. When she died, I almost felt… Christ it was almost a relief because she won’t be hurting anymore and she can’t hurt my sister. What kind of guy feels relief when his mom kills herself?”

We’re standing only a few inches from her. I’m breathing heavy, my chest heaving in and out, my fists tight as I wait for her to tell me I’m as weak as I know I am. For her to be disgusted because I’ve let so many people get hurt and I treat them all like shit, even though I could have stood for something important for once in my life.

When everything went down with Adrian and Laney, I accused him of being a pussy, when I’m even worse. I’m weak and I’m a liar.

“He was a kid, Bee. And Mom… fuck, she loved my dad. I hate her for how she treated Laney but she really fucking loved him. My sister lost both her parents and lives with the knowledge of what our dad did every time she looks at Adrian. One word from me could have changed everything.”

We could have been happy. People didn’t have to die.

My eyes find Bee again, afraid of what I’ll see there. I wait as she crosses her arms, looks up at me before she finally speaks, her words completely unexpected. “Are you done now, Scratch?”