Rise Like The Sun

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

NICK

"Wait, you brought your own alcohol?" Nick snorts with laughter.

Beside him, Maria is still clutching her bottle to her chest but she chuckles lowly with him. "Madison said we couldn't trust anything here," she tells him. "Said the drinks would have herpes or something."

Instead of answering, Nick pauses and a genuinely amused smile pushes at the edge of his lips. It was exactly like Madison, he thought. She really is a control freak. He wonders what that makes him.

When Will appears, Nick feels guilt lurch within his stomach and he leans forward. "Hey, Will, look, man." He's not truly apologetic but Madison's words ricochet around his head like an annoying fly. "I'm sorry about what I said about your dad." And for the way that I, with the help of Madison Sutton, of all people, destroyed every shard of his reputation, thanks to the Internet. "It was a stupid thing to do and I let my anger get the better of me. I'm sorry, man."

"Hey, you know, it's fine," Will says heavily. "Mum's – Mum's – she's happy now."

"Huh?"

"Yeah," Will says, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I – I guess I never saw it before. Or, well, you saw it before I did. She was so – but now it's like, like she's free of him." Maria leans heavily against Will, beginning to fall asleep. "And she wants to thank you for giving her that push. So do I. I was so wrapped up in my own feelings that I forgot my Mum has them, too."

"Hey, man, it's fine. It's cool," Nick says and he feels relieved.

Will attempts to wake up a slumbering Maria worriedly. He mutters about how Madison Sutton is going to have his head on a platter, if she sees Maria like this. "Madison Sutton is going to kill me, Maria. You need to wake up before she thinks I've roofied you," Will is telling Maria, who shakes her head.

"Yeah, she's ...crazy and a control freak," Maria slurs slowly. She blinks sleepily up at Will. "Why doesn't she just get that?"

Nick snaps his head back to Maria. He furrows his brows in confusion. "What –," he begins heavily, before he realises there's too much emotion in his voice and breaks himself off. He clears his throat awkwardly and tries again. "Did you call her a control freak? To her face?"

Maria nods. "Yup," she says, smacking her lips as she sinks against Will's body tiredly.

Will begins to laugh, but Nick is still, his forehead creasing, as he suddenly sobers up. Something uneasy lurches within the pits of his stomach and Nick looks at Maria, who is giggling with Will. He can't imagine how Madison might have felt. It's okay if he calls her a control freak because she doesn't care enough for his opinion to matter. But her friends?

He knows – heck, everyone knows how much Madison Sutton loves her friends. Everyone knows that when Madison Sutton loves, she loves deeply, unconditionally, impossibly. How could Maria break her heart like this?

He's about to actually say some of this to Maria, when someone brushes heavily past him. Nick's a pretty big guy so it takes a lot to make him fall. But the amount of alcohol in his system, combined with the disoriented state that thinking of Madison usually gets him in, makes him crash painfully into the table. Nick is burning with anger and when he sees the guy who bumped him, he realises he recognises him.

It's the same guy who grabbed Madison's arm at the staircase. Already, the thought of Madison's face creased with the flicker of pain makes him hot and bothered. Nick was glad that she managed to pull the guy off her because he had been seriously considering breaking through the rush of the crowd and beating the guy to a pulp.