Page 44 of Finding Fate

I turn my head farther to look at him. “It was simple for me. You’re worth having a part of.” . . . And then I stamp his open, shocked mouth with a kiss.

Twenty-Six

Maddox

Iglance over at Gabby in the passenger side of my truck, chewing on a piece of gum and trying to stay focused on the road but finding it difficult, a smile already spreading as a feeling of déjà vu washes over my mind. She’s sitting on the edge of the black leather seat holding onto the ‘oh shit’ handle to the right of the dash in one hand, moving her upper body to the beat of the music as she raps along withAll The Girls Wanna Rideby Jawga Boys like I’m not even here.

The funniest part is she knows almost every word. For someone that came from wealth and class it doesn’t take long to pull her redneck out like she was born one of us. That one is a country girl through and through, which is likely the exact thing he didn’t want her to be. Too bad, asshole. Shouldn’t have moved her to a place like south Mississippi. She likes mud riding and slinging dirt more than me.

I thought I was going to nut on myself the night I saw her wearing some of my old camo the week of homecoming when she told her dad she was staying with her friend to study for a test so I could sneak her toEgg Warswith me, which is nothing more than an egg fight at night between juniors and seniors every year at a battlefield—usually a field or woodsy area—that remains secret until it’s time. We take it very seriously; have shirts made and all for the freshman and sophomores to pick a side. Then we go to war. Fights break out. Partying and drinking are going on at the end. Parents think it’s nothing more than a rite of passage. It was the perfect opportunity to take her with me for a little fun with people my age. With a ball cap pulled down low and it already dark from the night, no one asked questions. Every guy usually has a girl with him, and a lot of them are from the surrounding schools. She loved it. Good fucking memories.

The second we got in my truck to go to the store she confiscated my phone and started reminiscing our past with all the songs I used to play when she was riding shotgun in my truck. Some I haven’t listened to in years, mostly because there is so much music to discover now it’s hard to remember everything. The only thing that’s changed is our age and my truck. I no longer have my dad’s hand-me-down F-150. I guess we’re a Ford family. Too bad we can’t take the backroads back home to relive it. I miss those days a lot. You have no problems at seventeen outside of the high school walls. Life was simple when we were together. Even though lying and hiding are wrong, we were happy to just be left alone. She was always game for anything as long as it was me and her.

I grab her hand and pull it across the middle console, kissing the back. “I’ve missed my closet redneck.”

She’s trying not to smile, making it even more obvious. “Just because I like your redneck rap, or hick-hop, or whatever the hell it’s called, doesn’t mean I’m classy by day and a country bumpkin at night.”

I laugh, realizing how damn accurate that is, constantly looking between her and the road, the bitterness over everything else fading a little more with each day we’re together. “That’s exactly what it means. The real version always comes out when no one is around. Don’t deny your true character, baby. It’s hot. I’ll keep your secrets from Daddy. Do you know how many times we’ve been spotlighting for deer and you were the one holding the gun? Rich, city boys wouldn’t know what to do with you, girl.”

Laughter is dancing in her dark eyes. “Bet they wouldn’t let me drive through mud tearing shit up like you.”

“Drive through mud in what? A bitch car like your dad drives? Hell naw. Then they’d have to call people like me to come get their ass unstuck. Country boys only drive trucks with mud tires.”

She smirks, pulling her hand out of mine to turn toward me in her seat. “You tried this one out yet? This truck is fine as fuck.”

I adjust in my seat and switch hands on the wheel as I prepare to turn into the grocery store parking lot. “No.”

I pull into an open spot, the sudden playfulness gone with the question. She narrows her eyes at me, confirming she is aware of the mood change. I can see it from the corner of my eye. She knows it used to be one of my favorite things to do. Me and her went all the time after a heavy rain. We got creative in how she could get out of the house to be with me. Looking back now, I don’t know how we weren’t obvious. My truck would come back covered in it. It pissed Dad off, always griping I’d tear it up. I didn’t work to buy tires with big mud grips for nothing. “Why not? You took me all the time. You didn’t take any of your slutty sluts mud riding? You were always the hottest when you were dirty. The tailgate and the bed of that truck saw a lot of action.”

Images are flickering in my mind.Please don’t let me get hard right now. I’ll beg. I’m not giving her that glory.They won’t stop, just angering me more. The memories of us are always so vivid in my head, like a movie, including sex. My mind is full of our porn.

I jerk my head toward her. God, she knows how to piss me off. She can go from the most loving person you’ve ever met to the biggest bitch in two point five seconds. It’s a skill. “Don’t fucking do that, Gabrielle. I told you what those girls were to me. No one got me the way you did. I didn’t take girls to our places. I didn’t date them. I didn’t fuck them without condoms. I didn’t put my mouth between their legs or let them suck me. You were with guys in ways too, goddammit. Drop it. This truck is still basically new—new truck smell and all still lingers,” I say, dodging.

The bitch smiles. I’ve never wanted to strangle and make out with someone at the same time so bad. She knows if I use her full name I’m pissed. Instead of backing off I think it fuels her. I hate for people to yell at me. It sets me off like a bomb. She’s always liked that I’m hot-headed, and only God knows why. “One thing I can always count on with you is your guilt. You’ll never be able to cheat on me and live with yourself, but it’s easy for you to drop it. I’m the one that has to think about it when I don’t want to. I saw some of the skanks you brought home. I’ve proven my loyalty to you and your dick. No dildo is the real thing. How do I know you aren’t going to miss having two-for-one nights?”

“Are you fucking serious? That cunt of yours is like crack. I almost went to jail for it. Since you, all a girl makes me feel is dirty. Cheat on you. Shut that shit up. You have enough personalities and shades of crazy to keep me busy.” I rub my hands up and down my face. “You’re going to drive me to drinking. I don’t know how I’ve lived this long without you.”

As soon as I shift it into park she reaches over and kills the engine, snatching the keys out of the ignition. “Back to the subject. When have you ever cared about property over pastimes?”

I huff. She never forgets anything. “Since I grew up and had to be a man, Gabby. Grown-ass men don’t go destroy shit they work hard to pay for. It’s irresponsible.”

“That sounds like some dumb shit your dad would say.” Her look turns hard like she thought of something. She can see straight through me. Always has. “Maddox Leroy Burns! Lie to me one more time.”

My chest is starting to heat. If it wasn’t my damn grandfather’s name I’d hate my middle name, but he is a good, respectable man, which makes it hard. I reach for my keys and she holds them back like the bitch that she is when she wants to be. My shoulders drop. “I knew your dad was never going to take me seriously for you by acting like an immature teenage boy or he would have let us stay together. I work hard, even on days I feel like crap. I save and don’t overspend, and I rarely do stupid shit. I hold back my temper when sometimes I’d love nothing more than to beat someone’s ass. I try to be a good guy. I keep myself clean cut, wear nice clothes, and keep my tattoos hidden. I watch my mouth when I’m not around my friends. Before I moved here, I was in church every damn Sunday, even if I had been drinking the night before.”

I’m starting to yell unconsciously from my emotions being heightened, so I lean back against the seat to calm down and drop my head back. “I lived in my parents’ house for low rent because I was saving to buy a house. It was their idea since they have the camp too. They put my rent money toward the utilities that I used, only making me pay it to get used to paying a monthly note since I didn’t have a truck note at the time it started. I sat down with Riggan’s mom at the bank when I moved back from my brother’s. I was going to buy a house before a truck. She told me I needed to save at least ten percent of the list price that’s in my budget, preferably twenty. Where we’re from a two-hundred-thousand-dollar house on private land is a lot of house. That’s a minimum of twenty grand I gotta come up with for the bank to loan the rest. Had we gone on that band’s tour at the time that Abby died, I’d already have it. I put money in multiple accounts every month. I’ve been trying to be a decent human being to get you back since the day I left. And to further drive my point home, my parents aren’t stupid. Just because I don’t admit it doesn’t mean they don’t know what I’m doing, so the next time you think anyone on this damn planet could possibly hate you, you can remember that this entire time we’ve been apart, they’ve helped me plan for a future with you in ways even if they didn’t believe it’d happen. I was praying for a miracle and living like it’d come true.”

She wipes her cheek. “So, what? You didn’t come back for me because you wanted to buy me a fairytale first? That’s bullshit. We could live in a trailer for all I fucking care, Maddox. That stuff isn’t important to me. What we’re doing right now—the fighting and the loving—is what I want.”

“Hell no, we aren’t living in a trailer.” The words feel like fire on my tongue. “I didn’t lose you and my son and all that time to put you in a doublewide. I’m going to prove to him that I deserve you as much as any other prick he has picked out if I have to work myself to death to do it. I’ll never like him and he’ll never like me unless God steps in, but I will earn his respect. You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved, Gabby. I can’t stop. It was never about the sex for me. I didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘I think I’ll fuck a thirteen-year-old today’. He made us dirty. He made us wrong. He made me feel like a sexual predator. He made me out to be a criminal when all I wanted to do was love you.”

I press my fingers against my closed eyes with the moisture buildup, stopping it before it can fall. “Shit,” she whispers, and then the truck door opens and slams. I scrub my fingers down to make sure my eyes are dry before blinking to clear my vision as she rounds the front of the truck, coming toward me. I can’t see much of her head because of the lift on my truck. It has the Rocky Ridge package on it. I bought it brand-new and loaded out in the spring last year, making it a year and a half old. It’s not cheap, but it’s what I wanted, and my old truck wasn’t dependable anymore.

My door flies open and she jerks on my arm until I get out, not missing a beat before wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling her legs up and around my waist, forcing me to hold her. Her lips are locked with mine before I can ask what she’s doing. She draws a groan out of me and I’m hard before I can even think about it. I turn, sitting her on my seat sideways, and let my emotions go. My hands rake through her hair. We kiss, we devour each other, and we feel every inch of skin we can without removing clothes.

My lips run down her smooth neck that’s back to her natural olive skin tone, no longer an orangish shade from whatever the hell she kept putting on it as I slip my hand beneath her bra. Her heavy, warm breath coats my lips when she speaks. “You can’t change the parts of you that I fell in love with. You’re not going to cheat me. You want all of me? I get all of you.”

I kiss her again, because it never seems to be enough, always feeling like I need to kiss her one more time in case it’s the last time. It’s a tormenting feeling to live with. I hate it, but when something is stolen from you how do you feel any other way? I want the piece of paper that says she’s mine and not his. “I promised myself if I got you back I would do anything it takes not to lose you again. I need you more than I need anything else. I’ve been operating on an ‘all work, little play’ mentality for years now. Ever since you told me of that conversation with your dad about him wanting to arrange your marriage, I wake up sweating at least once a night dreaming about it. I’m worried you’ll give in to him at some point to make him happy. You can’t marry someone else, Gab. You’re supposed to marry me.”