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Turning to look, I find her and Rita, wearing the tightest skinny jeans ever made and matching tank tops cropped from the team jerseys practically saran-wrapped around their waspy torsos.

And they’re both melting as Rhue finishes high-fiving and congratulating his teammates, then heads towards them.

I didn’t know they were on friendly terms, now.

Not after how they defended me. This entire scene fails to make sense, and by the time Rhue spots me, the girls are both planting congratulatory kisses on his cheeks while I’m gawking like an idiot.

“Fudge,” I mutter and decide to walk away, instead.

Sure, I came here with peacemaking intentions, but that trio moment between Rhue, Lindsey and Rita tells me that my friends might not be my friends, after all—or not anymore, at least.

I cannot risk getting their attention, now. I feel like prey and judging by how they’re giggling when they’re close to him, Lindsey and Rita are ravenous hyenas.

This was so stupid. I picked the wrong place and time to try and bury our hatchet.

“Madison!” Rhue calls out just as I’m on the outside, eager to leave the rest of the world behind me. I need solitude and silence. But the way my name comes out of his mouth, almost like a stern command, I am compelled to stop.

“Madison,” he says again upon reaching me.

I’m unable to move, just staring at my sneakers and praying for all this to be over quickly.

If I look at him now, if I give him even an ounce of my attention, I will lose my focus.

I will lose myself because Rhue is a fucking whirlwind that sucks everything in. “Hold on.”

“What?” I reply without peeling my eyes off the ground. My skin feels tight. The predator has set his sights on me.

For all my talk of fighting back and not letting him ruin this for me, I sure am quick to freeze up like a deer just as the cougar’s fangs find the carotid artery, the crimson elixir of life flowing freely, seeping into the ground.

“What were you doing in there?” he asks.

I give him a brief scowl. “Am I not allowed to be here?”

“I just didn’t peg you for a hockey fan.” He seems amused.

“Unlike Lindsey and Rita, you mean?”

Rhue chuckles, but it doesn’t sound malicious like before. “It wasn’t my intention to steal your friends.”

“They’re obviously not my friends since they find you to be good company,” I scoff and move to walk away. His hand shoots out. He grips me by the upper arm, and ripples of scorching heat blow through me like an incendiary backdraft. “Let go.”

“I just wanna talk, that’s all,” he says. I don’t know why I’m foolish enough to want to believe him, but my hesitation becomes his cue to keep talking. “It’s time we put this behind us, don’t you think?”

My fear morphs into befuddlement. With the former, I’d know what to do.

With the latter, I’m stumped. He has never left me this speechless nor confused before.

Rhue has made me swoon. He has caused my heart to flutter and my pussy to get wet whenever he crosses my mind at night.

I have thought about him more than once while pleasuring myself, though not much of that has felt right for the past year, but those are my demons to handle.

Rhue has made me angry, and he has broken my heart, too.

Yet he has never left me wondering like this.

“Consider this a call for peace? A temporary truce, at least?” he adds upon noticing my silence. My words are nowhere to be found, still.

“Um…”

“Do you wanna know why I made friends with Lindsey and Rita?” Rhue replies.

“No.”

“It’s the only way I thought I could get closer to you,” he says.

“We’ve hurt each other deeply, Madison. I have hurt you in ways that nothing and no one could ever make right, and I may never forgive myself for the agony that I have caused you and I things aren’t much different on your end, I’m sure. ”

I can feel my lips parting, a long exhale leaving my lungs in pure shock. “This is some kind of sick dream.”

“No, it’s just me coming to my senses,” he says, half-smiling. “I’m tired, Madison. I’m tired of this toxic hatred, this anger between us. Aren’t you?”

“I’ve been tired for a year, now,” I reply, nervous and unsure of how safe it is for me to go along with the sudden change of energy between us.

Until now, I have felt it red hot and furious, hateful and poisonous—the very air unbreathable whenever we’re too close to one another.

Yet now… I inhale deeply, and I realize that the ache in my soul is dimming, ever so slowly, losing its vigor as I begin to contemplate the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be like this anymore.

That Rhue might find it in his heart to forgive me. Only then might I find the strength to forgive myself.

“I’ve been furious for too long. Hating you. Hating anyone I could find, looking for people to blame for what happened. My dad is a bastard. My mom couldn’t take it anymore. You were a victim, and I should have known better.”

Am I really hearing this? “I’m starting to think that somebody spiked the bottled water,” I murmur, staring at him in sheer disbelief.

“No, nothing like that, I swear. Look, I had this dinner with Laura and my dad. A lot of ugly stuff came out, and yeah, my family is basically elitist garbage, but Dad did make a point to remind me of Mom’s mental instability and of how good she was at hiding it.

You were never the catalyst, Madison, and I never should have treated you as such. ”

“Okay,” I say hesitantly.

I glance over his shoulder and notice Lindsey and Rita stealing glances at me.

They’re smiling in a hopeful manner, as if waiting for me to smile back and suggest that things are going to be okay between Rhue and me.

It’s like an entire ecosystem is waiting for the two of us to make peace.

I can’t say I dislike this sensation. If anything, I like having this kind of power.

But I have been hurt and humiliated and bullied into a corner so many times, it’s hard for me to recognize a genuine offer of peace when I’m offered one.

“I mean it, Madison,” Rhue says. “Hating you takes too much of my energy. It doesn’t feel right.

And you made a good point yourself when you mentioned how important this place is to you.

Mr. Willis helped get you here, and he never wronged me, personally.

Jeopardizing your academic performance in any way would hurt him.

It’s wrong. There’s only more suffering to come out of this conflict between us. So, why not end it?”

It takes me a second or two to properly wrap my head around the arguments he’s making. There is so much sense, I’d be a fool not to consider his benevolence at this point. Maybe he is tired. Maybe he does want this to be over. I know I certainly do.

“I’m all for peace and harmony,” I tell him.

“Good,” Rhue replies, allowing himself to smile.

He’s more handsome than I remember him. He has grown into his new life.

Maybe he’s a little taller, too, and there’s a certain darkness that lingers on his shoulders and in the tenebrous blue pools of his eyes.

This is a man, not the Echeveria boy who first caught my attention with his brazenness and playfully demonic smiles.

That version of him was enticing enough on its own.

This new version, however, it makes my temperature rise.

Rhue dominates everything in my life, though I never wanted him to.

I doubt he’s even aware of it. But from the moment we first met, I knew, deep down I knew, that nothing would ever be the same again.

I only wish the change were not accompanied by so much pain and unhappiness, by all this shame and muted anger.

“I really hope you mean it,” I tell him. “Because I am exhausted, Rhue.”

“It’ll be okay,” he whispers. Before I can react, he bends down and then his lips are on mine, burning the kind of fire that I’m not sure I want to be put out.

Time stands still. The cheering and laughter of post-match euphoria fades into tomb-like silence.

All movement stops. The world around me becomes this elaborate sculpture with hundreds of people sprinkled about.

My lips feel raw, as if the delicate skin were peeled off, and I can feel Rhue’s lips on a subatomic level.

I can feel the energy of him pouring into me.

My breath is gone.

My mind, too.

I taste the minty sweetness of gum chewed more than an hour ago.

I taste the sweat and the exhaustion riding the coattails of a heavily played lacrosse game.

I taste the potential of a great man forging his path through life, and I pray to all the gods and supernatural entities that he may find a direction that leads him as far away from his father as possible.

My insides come alight as he deepens the kiss, his tongue slipping through. He consumes me, inside-out, his arms coiled around my waist as he pulls me closer. We haven’t kissed since that day––the kiss before it happened. The kiss before the break.

I am melted butter, gushing and soft in his embrace, though I can definitely feel the hardened bulge in his pants.

Oh, god, this is unbelievable. This…no, this shouldn’t be happening.

It doesn’t make sense. But I like it too much, my pulse is racing, I don’t want it to stop.

Hell, my hands are moving of their own accord.

I cup his face and lose myself in this kiss, in this sweet and dangerous moment because it is the only thing I can do.

“Madison,” Rhue whispers against my lips.

“Mhm?”