Page 23 of Heartache & Playdates
They brought him to her house, he packed a bag, and was put in the system.
I met him ten years later. And then he loved me and I hurt him, just like they had.
My therapist told me that I was also a child with my own issues from being treated like property instead of a person and going to forty different schools from kindergarten to twelfth grade. ButI didn’t believe that gave me a pass to treat someone I loved like that.
I had my reasons at the time, and they were good reasons. But they didn’t change the fact that I’d hurt him.
“And now the king and queen will share a dance,” Melinda announced.
I watched as the dance floor cleared. Maddox offered Julianna his hand and helped her down the stairs. He guided them to the center of the dance floor and placed his hand on her hip as they swayed to the music.
He looked so different and yet exactly the same. He was a man now, clearly, but when I looked at him, I still saw that teenage boy.
“Peyton?” I looked up and saw Brett Wilson.
He looked…good. His cherubic face had slimmed down revealing a square jaw that was covered in stubble. His reddish-brown hair was cut shorter than he wore it when we were kids and, unless my memory had totally failed me, he’d grown at least four inches. He had to be standing at well over six foot now. When we were kids, he was barely taller than my five-foot-four stature.
“Brett, how are you?”
“Good. Johnny said that he’d seen you but that you disappeared. Again,” he chuckled.
“Yeah, I had um…a call to make,” I lied.
“How have you been?”
“Good.”
“I’ve wondered about you… a lot. You were there one day and gone the next.”
“Oh, um, yeah.” I brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “It was all very sudden. I had to move overseas with my parents.”
“Oh, wow, okay.” He grinned. “The rumor going around was that you were in witness protection or that you got pregnant.”
His words hit me like a punch in the gut, but I forced myself to smile. I was trying to think of a way to excuse myself when a familiar voice sounded beside me.
“Hey Brett, sorry to interrupt, but I was going to steal her for a dance.”
I turned and saw Maddox holding out his hand to me wearing his patented bad boy grin. Just like that, all the anxiety that had just risen up in me was gone.
“Aren’t you supposed be dancing with Julianna?”
“You know how I feel about rules.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Being a lifelong rule-follower myself, that was part of what had made mine and Maddox’s relationship so exciting. He was the only person who had ever persuaded me to break a rule. Like sneaking out of Nonna’s and going to see him at the group home.
I’d gotten away with it for months, but then my father had a security detail put on me and they told him what I was up to. That’s why he’d come to San Francisco and taken me to Germany. He’d known that I was seeing Maddox.
“Shall we?” Maddox asked.
I placed my hand in his and my entire body relaxed and came alive at the same time. I turned to apologize to Brett, but he was gone.
As we walked onto the dance floor, the rest of our classmates faded away as well. It was always like that with Maddox. When we were together it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist.
9
MADDOX
My hand restedon Peyton’s hip as I pulled her into me and wrapped my arms around her. She melted against me and I could feel her body trembling. Her breaths were coming in short pants.
