Page 20 of Risking it All

I didn’t like the hives, her hurting herself by scratching, and the idea she was worried over me. Without thinking, I placed my hand over her scratching fingers, and my heart popped out of my chest with the feel of her soft skin. Her eyes shot to mine, I met her gaze, and I couldn’t breathe as we stared at one another.

At first, Macie flinched under my touch, but she stopped scratching, and now her muscles relaxed. I slid my thumb along her wrist, and my pulse went into overdrive when she moved her finger along one of mine. That one caress shot straight through my body like lightning. Damn, I had never wanted to kiss anyone more in my life.

Gianna moaned, and we withdrew from one another. I sucked in a deep breath to clear my head, but I only drew in Macie’ssweet scent of roses. My hand burned from her touch, and that left me nearly speechless. I glanced back at her passed-out friend. “You need help with her?”

“Yes, but I’ll handle it. Thank you again for your help.”

“Get me the job, and we’ll call it even.”

As I opened the door to exit the car, Macie called out, “Relic?”

I paused and looked over at her. The dome light gave a soft glow to Macie’s already gorgeous face. “I had fun with you tonight.”

“Me, too. I’ll text you to let you know when I get home. If you want, text me back.”

My chest squeezed with the smile I wanted to think she had created for me alone. Not trusting myself to say anything else, I left, and the entire walk back I thought of nothing other than Macie Hutchins.

Chapter eight

Macie

“We need to call Gianna’s parents,” Mom announced, and I convulsed as if I’d touched a live wire.

“We definitelycannotdo that.” I threw my arms out to emphasize how much we could not cross that line. Any hope I had of returning to school a somewhat normal person in the fall would collapse and die if Mom called Gianna’s parents.

Yes, Gianna was the one who chose to drink. Yes, she was the one currently puking in the toilet of our downstairs bathroom. Yes, this was the fallout of all her choices.

But if my mom called her mom, then Gianna would no doubt blame me for her punishment, and then she’d tell everyone else that I snitched on her. Because let’s be honest, only two people who I went to school with initially knew I was the one carjacked, and Ariel wouldneverbe the one to gossip about me. Especially when Ariel was the one who refused to leave the ICU waiting room for the entire week I was on a ventilator. Isaiah had to literally pick her up and carry her out to force her to go home toeat and rest. Ariel and I were that close. I had thought Gianna and I were that close, too, but evidently everything about my life had changed.

I stood at the sink as Mom crouched next to the puking Gianna and Dad hung back in the hallway, completely pissed and disgusted.

“Did you drink, Macie?” Mom asked, and I could tell there was no judgement in her voice, but I felt Dad’s red-hot stare.

“No,” I snapped. “Why would you even think that?”

Mom gave a glance at Gianna, and I pushed out my hands to punctuate each word. “I don’t need to make her bad choices. I do a good enough job with my own.”

“Noah,” Mom said as she rubbed Gianna’s back. “Get my cell.”

I swung around and slipped in front of Dad. “Please don’t.”

Dad placed his hands on his hips like he did when he was attempting to not be angry. “She’s puking in our bathroom. She’s drunk. She could have alcohol poisoning. If this were you, I’d want to know.”

Oh my God, when did Dad get dramatic? “She doesn’t have alcohol poisoning. Yes, she had too much, but she didn’t have that much. She had a beer, one shot of liquor, and then a little bit of wine.”

For some reason when I said she had beer and then liquor, Dad rolled his eyes and then rubbed his head. “Get out of my way, Mace. We’re calling her parents.”

Panic welled up inside me, tears burned my eyes, and the sensation rattled me. I hadn’t cried since before February. Never once, and this overpowering flood of emotions mangled me to the point of implosion. “Please don’t. Please. I don’t understand, why are you so angry?”

Dad’s pissed-off eyes widened. “Angry? Have I yelled at you?”

“I can tell you’re angry with the way you’re glaring. You don’t have to yell for me to know you’re angry. You’re angry.”

Dad shook his head as if to push away the anger I clearly saw in him. “This is the first time you’ve gone out, and your best friend chooses to get drunk instead of being there for you. That alone pisses me off. Which then, by default, tells me that your other friends were drinking, which then makes me wonder what the hell has been going on all this time.”

My stomach sank as I shook my head. “No, no, no, no. You don’t understand. This has never happened before. They never drank before…” My throat closed up before I could say “February,” and I coughed as I choked on the word.

“Noah,” Mom said as a gentle warning, but Dad kept going.

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