Page 69 of Cry Madness
“Your laughter. You need to do it more often.”
“I will, I promise.” The flush starts in my heart and flows through me like a warm river. I take a mental snapshot of this moment—this perfect moment—needing to preserve it, and when the tears finally fall, he tenderly wipes them away.
“No more crying, Alice,” he rasps.
I shake my head. “No, no more crying.”
We stay like this, wrapped in each other’s arms, swaying to the music as if we’re the only two people in the room. But when I catch sight of Ivory and March still on the dance floor, I see how tightly he’s holding her. At how he’s staring down at her like she’s his favorite meal and he’s starving, refusing to take a single bite. Ivory glances at me, a broad smile breaking out across her face. I wink back at her as the song draws to an end.
The very second Maddox and I untangle ourselves, I groan out a curse at my mother barreling toward us. “Annnnd, here she comes.”
“Who?” Maddox turns and spots my mother weaving through the crowd. “Oh.”
“Yep,oh,” I sigh. “I swear to God, it’s like she’s compelled to ruin every pleasant moment in my life.”
Maddox’s kiss is quick, a peck really. “Only if you allow her to.”
“Clearly, you’ve never faced the full blast of Katherine’s temper.”
Katherine comes flying up to us, her brown curls floating around her surgically altered face. I’m all for a nip and tuck, but she looks filled to the point of absurdity. Her stretched skin looks positively painful, and when she practically skids to a halt, the ebony silk of her clingy, mermaid-style gown swishes around her ankles. “I’d like a word with you.”
“No shit,” I drawl.
Katherine Wentworth hates anything and everything that gives me joy, so when she nails her hands on her hips and throws Maddox a scathing sneer, I’m not surprised by her open rancor. “Do you know what she told Stanley Meyer?”
“That old fart?” Maddox drawls, clearly unaffected by my mother’s disdain. “Other than ‘go fuck yourself,’ I’m fresh out of guesses.”
My mother’s entire face flames an angry shade of splotchy red. She grabs me by the arm and hauls me off the dance floor. Maddox follows us, and once we’re out of earshot of her guests, she declares, “Alice told Mr. Meyer she has chlamydia.”
I burst out laughing, but Maddox feigns horror and cups his crotch. “Oh, shit, does that mean I have it now, too?”
“You are abominable!” she hisses.
“True.” He drapes an arm over my shoulders, hugging me against his side. “But Alice likes me this way, and that’s all that matters.”
“She would,” my mother spits out. Then, “Alice Anne Knightly, you will curb your disrespect when speaking with my friends.”
First of all, Katherine Gale Knightly does not have friends. She amassed a collection of powerful tools she can use to advance her social status.
“Or what, Mother? You’ll lecture me on what a disappointment I am? We’ve already had that conversation, ad nauseam and at length. Besides,” I add with a smirk, “Stanley’s a pervert who asked my cleavage if I wanted to dance. I figured it was necessary to give him an incentive to stop staring at my tits and to leave me alone.”
Maddox howls out a laugh, which my mother doesn’t seem to appreciate. At all. “Anowould have sufficed,” she huffs.
“Probably, but sarcasm seemed the better choice,” I drawl.
“Or you could have told me, and I would have given Stanley a permanent incentive to stay far the fuck away from you,” Maddox chimes in with way too much glee.
My mother jabs a finger in his face. “You stay out of this. In fact, I’d like to speak to my daughteralone.”
As if I’m not going to relate every word she says to me the second she’s done lecturing me.
Or more likely, berating me.
But Maddox doesn’t walk away until I lay my palm on his chest. “It’s okay, this shouldn’t take long. I’ll be fine.”
“Fine, fine? Or f-i-n-e, fine?” he asks, saying the words differently. Stressing each letter to see if I’ll genuinely be okayor if he needs to hover close by because my mother always has a way of pushing every one of my buttons.
“The Merriam-Webster definition,” I assure him.