15. Maddox

“Are you ready to talk about it?” Connor asked me and I bristled. Last night, I stormed back into the bar and demanded we leave. I knew I was being a dick, but I didn’t even wait to make sure Ryan got back inside safely. I couldn’t face her after what I did. I told myself I’d be better, that I would show her that I deserved her and respected her, and I blew that all away with one kiss.

One perfect, life changing, hot as fuck kiss that I was still replaying in my mind over and over.

“Leave it alone, Connor,” I warned.

He folded his massive arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes, not at all intimidated by me and less than impressed at my slamming cupboards open and closed looking for some goddamn food.

“You need to calm the fuck down,” he stated as if that were the simplest thing in the world to do. Gritting my teeth, I inhaled deeply trying to exhale all of my self-loathing and demons in one giant breath. It didn’t work. Just as I was about to tell Connor to fuck off for at least the tenth time this morning, there was a knock at the door.

Shoulder checking Connor as I walked by him towards the front door wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it’d be considering I barely even moved him, but at least I got out a little bit of my irritation. I pulled open the front door to a smiling Shannon holding a basket. “Hey, Maddox. I figured you and your friends were starving in that house. Your dad has never been one for taking care of himself or you, so here,” she said, the words pouring out of her as she thrust the basket into my arms.

I looked down, peeling back the cloth covering the still-warm muffins piled inside. Smiling my first real smile of the day, I stepped forward and hugged her gratefully as my stomach growled. “Thank you so much for this, Shannon. You were right, we’ve been wasting away.”

She laughed. “So I hear. Well, I won’t keep you but don’t be a stranger. Our house is always open to you, you know that.”

I did know that, but it wasn’t that simple. Especially after last night. Still, I always appreciated what a goddamn saint Ryan’s mom was. “You still make your famous pot roast on Sunday nights?” I asked.

“I do. I think Alex and the kids would riot if I ever stopped,” she joked.

“I might just have to stop by then,” I said, hoping by next Sunday I’d have figured my shit out with Ryan. She was getting married in less than a month and I needed to convince her to give me a chance. And I needed to figure out who the fuck she was marrying. I assumed it was that Quinn guy because he was the one on her social media, but it was clearly not him. The way he eyed Zen last night told me all I needed to know.

So who the fuck had stolen my girl?

Shaking myself out of those thoughts for now, I said another thanks to Shannon before carrying the basket of muffins into the kitchen, swiping a blueberry off the top and shoving it into my mouth. “Thank fuck,” Connor said, snatching his own muffin out of the basket and practically inhaling it. As he reached for another one, I yanked the basket out of his reach. “We’re going out back,” I declared, and spun on my heel, taking the muffins with me.

It was still early and while it was always hot as fuck, it wasn’t stifling just yet. Grabbing the bag and pistol I left on the back patio before I went in search of breakfast, I stuck it in my waistband and lifted the bag, marching toward the open pasture. Connor followed close behind me but was smart and didn’t say anything. I wasn’t in a talking mood right now and he never wanted to talk about heavy shit. That made this morning’s jabbing from him even more fucked up. I must be a disaster if he actually wanted me to talk.

Eventually I’d have to figure out what the hell I was going to do, but first I needed to blow off some steam in the best way I knew how: shoot some shit. I strode right up to the fence, dropping the bag and basket of muffins into the soft green grass. I leaned down and pulled out a couple of cans I found lying around Russell’s house and lined them up, walking along the fence and placing them on every post. Finally, I picked the basket back up and walked back to where Connor stood, several yards back from the fence.

He glanced over at me before reaching out for another muffin and I rolled my eyes as he devoured it. The dude could eat like no one I’d ever met. Once he dusted the crumbs off of his hands, he reached around and pulled out his own pistol, checking the clip and safety. We did this so many times together, we didn’t need to talk. He stepped back and I took aim, squeezing the trigger and feeling the kickback as the can fell off the post in the distance.

For just a few minutes, I forgot all the hard shit and just breathed, focusing on the shot. It was pure fucking relief. I emptied my clip, hitting almost every target I set out before I exhaled and then went to reset for Connor.

Once he finished, we both sank down onto the grass. “This place is actually okay,” Connor said finally and I chuckled. “High praise.”

“You know what I mean,” he growled. “Why are we here? Why didn’t you come home after the first day?”

Plucking a long piece of grass out of the ground, I stuck it between my teeth and sucked on the sweet tip while I gathered my thoughts. “We’re here because I’m finally ready to show Russell that he can’t fuck with me anymore. I’m going to take this place from him,” I disclosed.

Connor sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the one safe place he’s always had, this ranch,” I elaborated, sweeping my arms out wide. “It’s going to be mine because I know what his weakness is and I’m ready to exploit it.”

“Why now?” he asked.

“I was never ready to face this particular demon of mine before. But when Joel called, I didn’t have a choice. Now that I’m here, I want to sever the last hold Russell could ever possibly have on me. I want him to fucking suffer knowing he’s lost every goddamn thing he ever had in his life to his addictions. He’s made his choices, and now I’m making mine.”

Connor looked thoughtful. “What does that look like? You’re not exactly farmer material.”

“No shit,” I sneered. “Once this place is mine, I’ll figure it out from there. The first step is confronting Russell and giving him no choice but to sell it to me.”

“When’s that happening?” Connor asked, looking out at the fields surrounding us instead of at me.

Shrugging, I watched as the breeze blew the blades of grass until they were swaying all around us. “Fuck if I know. Whenever he decides to show his pathetic face.”

“I hope I’m here when he does,” he said menacingly, making a show of cracking his knuckles. I might have laughed if I didn’t know he’d killed men with his bare hands before.

Wanting a change of subject, I turned my attention to him. “What about you? How long are you staying here?”

“Until Z says it’s time to go, unless you need me to stay.”

“Let’s play it by ear,” I suggested.

“The new guys I’ve added to my team are holding their own right now, so I’m okay spending some time here if you need me. Say the word.”

“Thanks, man,” I said and I meant it. Connor had been the one by my side for almost the entire last year. He slowly replaced True and Zen as my best friends as they found their wives and peeled away from our group. I still considered them brothers and nothing would ever change that. Jericho, too. But things were different now. Connor and I were in the same place: Fucked up in the head and too stubborn to deal with it.

So we shot shit, got drunk, and fucked as much as we could. It worked for us, but now that I opened the lock box of feelings I carried around for Ryan, and now that I’d tasted her again after all these years, I wasn’t so sure I could go back to the way things had been before yesterday.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“I should actually get going. I’m supposed to be watching Z’s back and not out here fucking around with you,” Connor said with a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Not my fault he keeps your ass on a tight leash,” I insulted him.

Lifting his huge body off the ground, he ambled back toward the house and disappeared inside. I got up and collected the cans and the basket of muffins before I started making my way back. Before I got to the back porch, I glanced next door, wondering what Ryan was doing right now and if she was thinking about last night as much as I was.

After a shower, a restless nap, and scrolling aimlessly through Netflix but not actually watching anything for what felt like hours, the sun was starting to set and I wondered if I should call the guys and see if they wanted to hit up the diner in town. Instead, I turned my head toward the lights that had just flashed across the living room wall through the huge bay window.

I stood up, raking a hand through my hair before bracing myself, my muscles tensing and my senses on high alert. I peeled two of the blinds apart and watched my father stumble out of the driver’s side of his old beat up Chevy. Fucking finally. I could confront the asshole that gave me life and hopefully be done with him once and for all.

By the looks of him as he stumbled his way up the front porch, barely staying upright, he was not even close to sober. I flinched, remembering the kind of damage a drunken Russell inflicted on me as a kid. Suddenly it was like I was twelve years old all over again, small and cowering from my strong and angry-as-a-tornado father who took out every injustice he felt the world had handed to him on me.

My palms went clammy and my heart rate skyrocketed as I waited for him to swing the door open, slamming it against the wood paneling of the wall behind it as he did so many times before. I couldn’t stop my body from reacting to the inevitable slam of the front door as I practically jumped out of my skin. Fuck. I hated the fact he still got to me.

I watched as my father stepped into the room, his gait uneven as he steadied himself on the wall, watched as his eyes locked with mine. “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my house?” he bellowed, his words slurred. Anger simmered in my veins. How could he not recognize his own son?

“It’s your son, you fucking alcoholic,” I answered.

“Can’t be. The one good thing my fucking cunt of an ex-wife did was get rid it. Sacrificed him to the devil like I done told her to do. So, I’ll ask you again. Who the fuck are you?” Russell glared at me from across the room.

This was pointless. He was clearly out of his mind high on something and the fact that even fucked up like he was he looked glad to have been rid of me was a fucking gut punch, even if I knew my whole life he felt that way. It didn’t feel good to hear it again.

“You’re too fucked up to talk right now, so I’ll see you in the morning,” I fumed before trying to push past him to get outside. There was no fucking way I could stay here tonight with him like this.

“The fuck you will,” he thundered, pulling a knife out of a holder on his belt loop and holding it out toward me, a few inches from my face. Blinding rage tore through me. “I need to send you back to hell. They’ve been looking for you, whispering all the things they’ll give me if I spill your blood. And look, here you are. Didn’t even hafta look.”

Goddamn, what the fuck was he on?

“Last warning, Russell. Back the fuck off.” My fists clenched at my sides and my eyes narrowed into slits, tracking his every jerky movement. He looked hyper now, his eyes darting around the room, his breathing fast.

“Or what, demon? Hell’s got a spot waiting for you and I’m about to send you home.” A maniacal smile broke out across his face and I wanted to vomit. This shit right here was why I pushed Ryan away. What if I was looking at my future?

While I was figuring out how to get out of this house without my dad going completely psychotic, he decided he’d had enough waiting and lunged at me, knife slashing through the air. I caught his wrist and bent it back until I heard a pop but he didn’t drop the knife. With my other hand, I punched him in the face and he laughed as blood poured out of his nose in a river that turned his skin red and dripped onto his shirt.

Instead of falling back or recoiling, he punched me in the ribs harder than I thought possible considering he looked frail as fuck, like he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in years. Between the alcohol and whatever the hell he was on right now, I doubted he had. I kicked out, trying to sweep his legs from underneath him so I could pin him to the floor but he was fast and moved out of the way.

While I still held his obviously broken and dangling wrist, the one that held the knife, he took advantage of the fact I wasn’t watching his other fist and it connected with my cheek just below my eye. Fuck, the old man could pack a punch, just like when I was a kid. My skin split and hot blood dripped down my cheek. I needed to end this shit now.

The fact he was freakishly strong was throwing me for a loop. It had to be whatever drug he was on. I’d have to do something fucked up but I didn’t have a choice. I jerked my knee up and connected it straight with his groin, dropping him instantly. As he moaned and writhed on the floor, I jogged into the kitchen and grabbed a zip tie out of the junk drawer before running back and trapping his hands behind his back.

I sat back on my heel as he glared at me with so much hate, it burned through me, consuming any thoughts I might’ve had that someday my dad might actually outgrow his demons and realize what a fucking mistake he made all these years. That maybe someday he’d actually be proud of me. With one glare, every small fraction of hope I held on to throughout my life went up in smoke and I didn’t have the energy to feel anything.

Panting, I stood up, unsure what to do with myself. My legs moved on their own and before I could process where I was going, I stood outside Ryan’s bedroom window. My hand moved as if on its own accord and I found myself tapping on the warm glass. Less than ten seconds later, Ryan was there, lifting the window and leaning out of it like a breath of fresh air.

“Maddox? Are you okay?” her voice was concerned as she looked over my battered face, her forehead wrinkled with worry.

“I don’t even fucking know,” I answered honestly.

“Come in,” she demanded, leaving no room for me to argue with her. I climbed into the window and she slid it shut behind me. I looked around her room, the floral quilt covering her bed and the thousand throw pillows of all different colors made the room bright and cheery. It was the same room I’d been in a hundred times as a kid, only more grown up. This was a woman’s room now.

“Sit,” she ordered, pointing at her bed. I lowered myself onto the pillowy mattress and looked up at her. My mind had gone completely blank and all I could focus on at this moment was Ryan. Her soulful brown eyes locked onto mine, her sweet, plump lips turned down slightly in a frown as she inspected my cheek.

“I’m going to get the first aid kit. Stay here.” She turned and left the room, shutting the door with a soft click. I blew out a breath, not even sure where to start with processing everything that happened in the last hour with Russell. This was why I left and never looked back. Russell was toxic, poison of the always fatal variety. Subjecting myself to him was asking for drama and a lot of fucking pain.

I dealt with a lot of shit in my life, made a lot of problems disappear. I’d done things I wasn’t necessarily proud of, but I was a protector at heart. I always had been. And when someone fucked with my family, I was the one who stepped up and fixed shit. But when the problems were mine, it was different. Ever since I opened my heart to Ryan, I’d been obsessing about how to make her mine. How to make her see that she’d always been mine.

But the reasons I left still held true. Just look at what happened tonight with Russell. No matter how bad I wanted her, I would never put her through what I just experienced at the hands of my father. No fucking way. I needed to rid myself of the weight on my life that was Russell Everleigh for good before I could fully be the man Ryan needed me to be.

The door swung open and she walked in carrying a white box. Shutting the door, she crossed the room until she stood in front of me, kneeling down until she was at my eye level. Her creamsicle scent wrapped around me and as her fingertips brushed across my cheek, I closed my eyes.

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but this is going to hurt,” she stated, pressing an alcohol wipe against the cut. I hissed, but as quickly as the sting started it was gone. I watched her as she took care of me, a deep longing settling in my chest. I’d never had anyone to take care of me except Ryan when we were kids. Flashes of memories ran through my mind as I watched her. We spent so many nights like this as kids, Russell taking every bad thing life threw his way out on my body and me fleeing to the safety of Ryan’s house.

She bandaged up my face and wordlessly cleaned up the supplies. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, looking up at me from her spot on the floor.

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to talk about. Shit never changes.”

She bit her lip and I watched intently, wanting to take that plump lip between my teeth like I had last night. Every whimper, moan, and taste we shared during that kiss had branded me for life, the heat of the moment leaving a raised scar with her name across my soul.

I watched as thoughts crossed her mind. Her face had always been so easy to read for me. She brightened up suddenly, her eyes twinkling. “Blanket fort?” she suggested.

I chuckled, the first cracks of sunlight breaking through the blackness of this night and she’d been the one to punch through. “We haven’t done that since we were kids.”

Ryan sat up even straighter, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “I know, it’ll be awesome. C’mon, Maddox. Pleeeaaase?” she begged, her hands clasped together under her chin while she batted her eyelashes up at me.

Truthfully, the idea of spending time in a blanket fort with Ryan was both a dream and a nightmare and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep my hands to myself. I wanted a repeat of last night more than I wanted anything, but it wouldn’t be fair to her on so many levels. But was I strong enough to resist?

I sighed heavily. I was way too emotionally drained to go back to Russell’s right now or deny myself more time with Ryan. “Depends. What movie are we watching?”

She smiled wide because she knew she had me. “What else would we watch? Jackass , duh.”

I grinned despite the pain in my face and the darkness still lingering inside me. Jackass had been our favorite movie as kids. Her parents told us we weren’t allowed to watch it, but we got our hands on a copy and never let it go. We watched it so many times we both knew all the words.

I stood up off the bed, grabbing the quilt and tossing a few of the pillows onto the floor. “I’ll make the fort, you grab the popcorn,” I suggested.

“You know if I go make popcorn, Quinn’s going to smell it and be in here right in the middle of us, right?”

Quinn seemed like a good enough guy when I met him last night. He’d been looking out for my girl when I wouldn’t let myself. But I didn’t know if I liked him enough to spend the night cuddled up next to him in a tiny fort. “Better try to avoid him then,” I said with a smirk.

She laughed, shaking her head. “You obviously don’t know Quinn at all.”

“Obviously not,” I agreed, tossing more pillows on the floor. Why did one person need so many goddamn pillows?

I watched as she darted out the door and it took me all of five minutes to set up the structure. I did this so many times when I was a kid it was like riding a bicycle. Everything came right back like I never left at all. When it was done, I crawled inside, kicking off my boots and arranging the pillows and blankets on the floor into a makeshift bed.

The door closed softly and the buttery smell of popcorn wafted into the fort. Ryan’s freckled arm shot out, holding the bowl out for me to grab so she could crawl inside. She settled next to me, pulling a blanket up over both of us as we laid back against the pillows. My left side was touching her right side, the heat of her skin searing me through my clothes. I wanted to pull her into my arms, hold her close to my body and forget about everything outside this fort. But I couldn’t.

I was quickly realizing this night was about to be torturous as fuck.

“Ready to watch?” Ryan asked, looking up at me with bright eyes and a smile. I loved that she knew exactly what I needed right now. She didn’t make me talk about it, she didn’t ask questions. She knew I needed to forget, to distract myself with something good. I grabbed a handful of popcorn and tossed a couple kernels into my mouth, nodding at her.

She leaned back pressing play on the laptop she’d pulled in with us. As we settled in for the movie, she moved closer to me, resting her head on my chest and lacing her fingers with mine. My breath caught as every cell of my body was hyper aware of Ryan and how close she was to me right now. She looked up at me with such compassion in her eyes, I fell into them, lost in a sea of warmth and caring that no one else had ever shown me. Her gaze darkened and I knew she wanted me to kiss her, to lean down the couple of inches separating her lips from mine and show her exactly what she did to me.

But Ryan was my future. I didn’t want to just sleep with her, I wanted to wake up next to her. One night with her would never be enough and that was why I wouldn’t let myself kiss her now. Not when she was tying herself to someone else. Not until she admitted that she’d always been mine and that she would always be mine.

Instead, I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her closer, closing my eyes and enjoying a few minutes of peace before the world inevitably shit on me again. She wrapped her arm across my stomach and when I cracked open one eye a few minutes later, her eyes were closed and her breathing was steady. She’d been going through a lot lately, too, and I wondered if she was getting much sleep. I studied her face, every freckle, every dark eyelash fanned out on her soft cheek wanting desperately to trace every line with the tip of my finger. Instead, I closed my eyes and let myself succumb to exhaustion.

Waking up the next morning, heat enveloped my body. I looked down and Ryan had completely wrapped herself around me, our legs tangled together and she gripped my shirt tightly in her fist as if she were afraid I’d leave her while she slept. Her breathing was still slow and even, and despite the fact I spent the night on the floor, I felt surprisingly rested. I needed to get home, though, and deal with the fallout of last night.

I let myself have one more minute watching Ryan sleep, enjoying her closeness. She had always been the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen and I doubted that would ever change. If I could wake up every day like this, there would never be anything else in my life that could compare. But for now, I had shit to handle.

So I gently peeled Ryan’s clenched fingers off of my shirt and untangled my body from hers. I immediately missed her warmth as I watched her curl up under the blanket. I pulled it up over her and leaned down, ghosting a kiss over her forehead. It was all I’d let myself have for now. Crawling out of the tiny fort, I slid into my boots and lifted the window up as quietly as I could. I climbed out and started the walk back to my childhood home.

The last place I ever wanted to be.

The place I had to go if I was ever going to be free.

I trudged up the front porch, dread creeping into my body, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead. This was it. All the planning I’d been doing for the past week would hopefully payoff today. The old screen door creaked as I swung it open, not bothering to be gentle or quiet. If Russell had a hangover and the loud noise pierced his skull that would be just fucking perfect.

Right on cue, he yelled out, “What the fuck, boy?” Ah, so he did remember who I was afterall. My teeth grinded together as I clenched my jaw to keep from lashing out at him. I needed to stay focused. That was the only way I was going to rid my life of the man who reluctantly gave me life once and for all. Instead of answering, I marched through the house to the room I’d been staying in. Predictably, it was ransacked, no doubt as Russell searched for money to fuel his habits. At least I kept my wallet on me last night.

I grabbed the envelope that contained the key to my freedom and walked back to the kitchen. My heart was racing a million miles an hour. I’d never been good at standing up to or confronting my dad. He held some weird, sick power over me that I fucking hated him for. I tossed the thick envelope down in front of where he sat at the kitchen table.

He lifted his bloodshot eyes to me over the rim of his coffee mug. Whatever he had in there wasn’t coffee since there wasn’t any in the house. “I saw what you did to my room. You had no right to go through my stuff,” I gritted out. I didn’t know why I even bothered, but I was starting to boil over with anger and I needed to say my piece.

“No right?” he scoffed. “I have every right when you barge into my house and make yourself at home. I didn’t ask you to come here.”

“No, you didn’t. Joel did since you can’t manage to take care of the animals that you’re responsible for. So I stepped in. Again. And how the fuck did you get out of the zip ties?” My fists were clenched at my sides so tight that they were starting to go numb.

“Broke a beer bottle.” I looked at his wrist, spotting the dried blood where he’d missed and cut his skin instead.

His eyes turned calculating and then he smiled up at me as if he flipped a switch from the monster to an actual human being. I knew better than to be fooled. “Well, thanks for taking care of the feed. I appreciate it. You know, if you could just lend your old man a little bit more, I could really turn this place around,” he tried.

I threw my head back and laughed. Was he fucking serious? I had to hand it to him, he had balls. At the sound of my laughter, the monster was back and he was glaring at me, his livid expression almost funny.

“You must be out of your goddamn mind if you think I’ll give you one more cent to blow on alcohol and whatever drug you were high on last night,” I scoffed before shifting my tone into something more neutral. “You know, if you want money and to be free of this place, I may be willing to help.”

I watched as he perked up, the predictable fucker. “Help? How?”

I nodded toward the envelope that sat untouched in front of him. “Open it.”

He reached his shaky hand out, but I knew the shake wasn’t from nerves. The tremors would only get worse the longer he went without feeding the beast that lived inside him. He pulled out the papers and scanned over them before his nostrils flared and he slammed his fist down on the table, shaking his mug so the liquid inside sloshed out. “No fucking way,” he shouted.

Shrugging, I studied the worn and faded room around me, not wanting to give him any sort of indication how badly I wanted this. “Fine, have it your way.”

I reached to pick up the papers and he snatched them out of my grip, his eyes narrowing. “How much?”

I grinned like the goddamn Cheshire Cat because I knew I had him. “Fair market value, minus the repairs needed and the amount I already paid for the feed and upkeep this week.” I wasn’t offering him a dime over what I thought was fair. And I knew he’d accept because he was completely consumed by his demons. Nothing was more powerful in his life.

Not one goddamn thing.

He sat in the chair stewing and I could practically see the steam rising off the top of his head, but finally he sagged in his chair. “Never wanted to be a rancher anyway. Fine, you’ve got a deal,” he reluctantly agreed and internally I pumped my fist in the goddamn air. I was about to be free of my nightmare.

“Sign here,” I pointed to the sticky arrows my attorney had placed in every spot a signature was needed and handed Russell the pen I’d stuck inside the envelope. I didn’t want even one second to allow him to hesitate. I watched as he scrawled shaky signature after shaky signature and after the last one, I blew out the breath I’d been holding.

I pulled a check out of my pocket and slid it across the table to him, his greedy eyes lighting up at the amount even if it was almost nothing to me. “You’ve got twenty four hours to get the fuck out of my house,” I said, reaching down and stacking the papers neatly in a pile before sliding them back into the envelope.

I didn’t wait to hear a response from him before walking back to my room to shower, change, and go into town. There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be spending any more of these last hours in this house with Russell. Our ties were officially severed.

I was officially free.