Page 10 of Never Dance with the Devils
Not that I’ve shared any of those thoughts with Maddox.
Despite our sharing everything, I’ve kept this to myself for the last two months, initially distracting myself as best I could with a busy schedule of games and travel, and once the season ended a month ago, with daily sessions in the gym, torturing myself with heavier and heavier weights, putting on a lot of solid muscle in just the last few weeks.
I don’t know why I haven’t told him. He wouldn’t judge me. He’d probably tease the fuck out of me, buthe’d also help me get my head right… again. He’s good at that. When my mind slips to dark places, like how I’m not worth the oxygen I breathe, Maddox is always the one to pull me back from the brink with good-natured taunts and surprising insights to my psyche. Not that my brain is all that complex. I’m half-Neanderthal as it is.
Weights on the bar, I lie down on the bench and set my hands, prepping mentally and physically for what I’m about to do.
“Fuck you too, then,” Maddox murmurs under his breath. I hear the beep of the treadmill’s buttons and his footsteps start landing harder as he speeds up.
He’s so tired of my shit. I guess he can join the club because I am too. Tired of looking at every blonde I see, hoping it’ll be her, and then being disappointed time after time when it’s not, because it never is. Tired of waking up with my arms empty and my cock hard, wishing she were here with me. Tired of wanting to talk to someone, and even though Maddox is here, staying quiet because I want her sassiness and fiery comebacks, not his jovial bro-shit.
I unrack the bar and brace, lowering it to my chest with full control, pausing for a half second before I fight with everything I have to slowly start pushing it up. It’s heavy, too heavy, and there’s a point when I think I’m not going to make it. A noise rumbles in my chest, and instantly, Maddox is hovering over me. “You got it. Push, push, push.”
I make it up—barely—and he helps me get the bar back into the rack. “What the fuck are you doing? Trying to kill yourself? I can’t even spot you on that shit, man.” He gestures at the plates stacked upon each end of the bar that exceed what I should be lifting and are definitely more than what he can lift.
I sit up, fresh sweat rolling down my face from the adrenalin dump. “I had it,” I counter.
He could’ve lifted the bar if I’d gotten into real trouble. Spotting someone isn’t a heavy lift, it’s giving that extra ten or twenty pounds to help out. If I’d lost control, I trust that he would’ve handled it. He always does.
“If you want to do stupid shit like that, leave me out of it,” he sneers. He stomps across the room, grabs his towel and water from the treadmill, and pushes the button to stop it. I didn’t even realize it was still going. He must’ve literally jumped off to come help me.
I should feel bad about that—for ruining his workout, for scaring the shit out of him, for pissing him off… again. But as he storms out, turning the corner at the end of the hall and leaving me alone, all I feel is angry—at myself, at him, at everything. Even at… Kay.
How could she bail like that? She vanished without a word. Did she regret our night? She must’ve, considering her disappearing act. But she had to have felt that something special happened between the three of us. There’s no way she didn’t feel that.
I did. I think Maddox did too.
But where I’m angry she left and have been punishing myself, Maddox brushed it off and carried on. I don’t know how he does it, but he always has.
Lose a game? We’ll get the next one.
Things don’t go to plan? Be flexible. Spontaneity is the spice of life.
Perfect woman leaves your bed without a word? Smile and shake it off.
I swear he’s like a fucking Golden Retriever of aperson, believing everything is fine, it’s all good, and things will always work out in the end. He’s probably singingWalking on Sunshineor some shit in his head. Meanwhile, I’m all ‘Hello Darkness, my Old Friend’over here.
I wish I could be like Maddox, but it’s not how I’m hard-wired. It never was, and these days, after everything I’ve been through, I’m even less inclined toward easy-going, good-natured outlooks. I’m more the ‘don’t get your hopes up and be surprised if it works out’ mindset.
I stare at the door where he walked out, my mind racing. I can’t go on like this. I have to find her, with or without Maddox’s help. I need to see if I’ve built this thing up in my head into something it wasn’t, or if I’m right and Kay is the woman who might finally be worth taking a chance on.
MADDOX
“If you came in here to tell me to go fuck myself again, you’re wasting your breath. I already did this morning. Twice.” I hold up two fingers to drive the point home, then chug the rest of my smoothie. It’s some spinach-banana protein thing the team’s strength coach recommended, and it’s disgusting. Not because of the veggie-fruit combo, but because the chia seeds get stuck in my throat and the supplement blend gives it a dirt-like aftertaste. I still drink it every damn day and don’t even pinch my nose like a kid, though I’d really like to.
“Sorry.”
The apology is gruff at best, but it’s a start, and given Riggs isn’t one for emotional monologues explaining what’s going on in that thick skull of his, I’ll take it as the near-outburst declaring his affection for me that it is. Especially since this conversation is about to go from hard to kill-me-now. I need to know if I’m right about what’s been bothering him.
“Sorry for what, exactly? Being an asshole today or ingeneral? For nearly killing yourself or not saying thank you like a fucking human with some home training?”
He angles his head like he’s thinking through his options but finally sighs. “Yeah, that. Sorry.”
Two apologies in one day? Has hell frozen over? Fuck, if we’re being precise, it was two in one minute, and that must mean pigs are flying through a frozen hellscape filled with unicorns shitting out rainbows and dragons tossing out gold coins like the most expensive golden shower ever.
“Apology accepted.” I’m not gonna dwell on the unexpected gift of his words and instead, choose to move forward, knowing there will be some two-stepping to get a real answer from Riggs, my tight-lipped best friend. “You’ve been pretty fucked up lately,” I state as though saying it’s raining outside. Just a matter of fact, nothing to dispute here. “Any guesses as to why? Or would you like to jump to the portion of the conversation in which I” —I spread my arms wide like the ringleader of mischief that I am and continue— “your handy, dandy, always available Riggs-whisperer, tell you what I think is going on?”
His frown says option two.