{18+ COMPLETE} For the past three years, Bren Hadaway has been preparing to die.
When he was sixteen, he watched his dad murder his mom. And ever since, he's been counting down the days until it was his turn to be at the end of a gun. And Bren has...
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I didn't care that Madie had yelled at me for talking to her professor. No doubt I should have let her know that I stopped by his office.
But there was one thing she'd said that was tearing me up inside.
If you really wanted to protect me, you'd be here.
If I really wanted to protect her, I'd be there.
Fuck, it made me want to say screw everything and drive to Oakland tonight. Did she know? Did she know how much I wanted to be there?
My birthday was shit after I called Madie. I left work shortly after we talked—if you could even call it talking—and I spent the rest of the afternoon sulking on the couch. Around seven, the doorbell rang at Caroline's, and my arm hairs stood on end.
But then a sly grin slipped onto Car's face, who was standing with a glass of wine in the kitchen, and I relaxed a little.
Pizza, cake, and a six-pack of craft beer awaited me on the other side of the front door, all presented by a tired-looking DoorDasher. I took it, though not without a fair bit of hesitancy, and then my phone rang.
Considering my full arms, I fumbled to swipe open the screen. But when I finally managed, it was to see Madie, Nessa, and Beau.
I should have known Beau was involved. Dude had his ways of always supplying for a party. Even, apparently, a FaceTime party.
Before I could even say a thing, they screamed happy birthday, and I shook my head with a smile. Beau lifted up his own beer as if in a toast, and Madie gave me this shy little grin that told me she wasn't mad anymore. Or she'd pushed it aside for now.
"We thought maybe we could join you for dinner," she said. Her hair fell in pretty waves over a black top. Blue eyes assessed me, and I found it hard to look away from her even though she was only a tiny dot on the screen. The three of them were squished on Madie's bed with their own pizza box open in front of them.
I glanced at Caroline, and she waved me off with a smile.
"You go on upstairs and hang with your friends. I'm just gonna read a book with my wine and pretend I don't see that six-pack. You've still got one more year until your twenty-first, Bren."
"It's probably root beer," I lied.
"It's definitely not root beer," Beau called out, and Caroline couldn't help but laugh at that. Because it was hard not to laugh at Beau.
But I still wasn't taking my chances. I zipped away from Caroline, heading up to settle on my bed. I propped my phone against a stack of textbooks, freeing my hands to pop the top off a beer.
I took a sip, slipping my tongue into the bottle opening as cool, hoppy beer washed down my throat. Lowering the drink again, I kept my eyes on Madie while I licked my lips and swallowed. A flush rose on her face.
