Page 8 of Masked Darling

Kade:

Fine with me.

Thoroughly aggravated, Kade finally went into his contacts and pulled up Madison’s information. But, just as he was about to send her a message, another one came through.

Maddie:

Are you still awake?

Taking a deep breath, he considered calling her. The truth was, he didn’t know what to say… because what did you say after having a night like they just had? How could their quiet little friendship go from nothing to everything in such a short amount of time? He knew he was in college, but fuck. He was used to taking girls home from the bar since he was sixteen and feeling like a god with a fake ID, but he didn’t care about them. There was too much pain in his past thanks to the only woman he ever loved and he’d be damned if he got too close to one now.

Kade stared at the screen, seeing her chat bubbles grace the rectangular piece of technology before disappearing almost a dozen times. He started to sweat, worrying about what she was about to say to him. He clenched a fist. Unclenched it. Bit his bottom lip.

Is she mad? Is she disgusted? Are we no longer friends?

For all his talk about not giving a shit, he couldn’t lie to himself that he did.

He knew Madison. He knew her as a beautiful young woman, inside and out. She was the first one to hand in an assignment and there on a scholarship to pursue journalism because she believed so firmly in the power of truth and helping others. There wasn’t a mean bone in her tight little five-foot-nothing body. She handled his hectic schedule with grace and flexibility when they worked on the school paper and studied for their classes the last year.

The real truth was that Kade liked her.

He was studying to be a Mechanical Engineer and used his electives on writing courses and joined the paper to be close to her, for Christ’s sake. All because he saw her at The Serpent Pit for her 21st birthday that first week he’d moved back to Jersey so he could finish getting his degree a year late and she’d been the most incredible human he’d ever seen. He flirted with her all night, complimented her every time he got to make her a drink instead of Sadie. When he found out that he’d be attending the same college as her that upcoming semester thanks to her tipsy oversharing of information she gave him all night–he, for lack of a better word, had stalked her. Found out her schedule. Became friends with her friends. Inserted himself into her life.

This was what he had craved as an outcome so why the sudden panic?

Because he didn’t think it would actually happen, that’s why.

After ten minutes of staring at the screen, he placed the phone by his side. Almost immediately, a text notification sound filled the room. He brought the phone up so quickly that he almost dropped it on his face and looked at her reply in shock several times before it clicked.

This was not the text he was expecting.

Maddie:

Want to come over?

CHAPTER THREE

Kade had simply responded “Yes” to both her messages, nothing more or less than that, but her body was tingling from his response nonetheless.

Madison tossed her phone beside her on the white faux leather couch Alison had bought at the high-end furniture store in town and groaned. She tangled the fingers of her right hand in her black wig and pulled it off, throwing it to the side to join her phone and glared at the empty flask and half-empty bottle of cheap Pink Moscato sitting on the small white end table beside her.

Everything in this freaking apartment was white. And silver. And cream.

“This is all your fault,” she spat at the inanimate objects, blaming them for her state of lust and momentary lapse in sanity when she texted her classmate-turned-first-sexual-encounter, Kade Wilder.

Madison quickly unfastened the bobby pins from her scalp that helped hold her natural curls in place from under the wig she wore that evening. She had changed when she got homeabout two hours ago, but had taken a minute to drink before tackling the wig. The thong and hem of her dress had been soaked by theactivitiesshe indulged in at the party, and she was super uncomfortable as she made her way to her apartment. Luckily, it was only a five minute walk from Kade’s place since Alison made sure their apartments were close when they decided to move off campus last year. She said it was so everyone could study together, but it was obviously so she could be close to her boyfriend. At least it was just her and Alison in their apartment, so it was quiet most of the time. The boy’s apartment was always loud with Christian and Jesse throwing party after party, especially since they used Kade’s access to his brother’s bar all the time.

Feeling more relaxed now, Madison sat waiting in a pair of pink velvet shorts and a white T-shirt that Kade had left here on one occasion when he’d spilled pasta sauce on it.

She smiled for a minute, thinking back to that memory, remembering how she was supposed to go over their notes with him while he hurried to eat the lunch she had made before an exam a few weeks ago.

Kade was a very sexy distraction sitting in all black in her very bright kitchen. He was nose-deep in her charts, highlighting points that she told him were sure to be on their test. When he looked up at her to tease her that learning about writing shouldn’t be quite so organized, the spaghetti dropped from his fork onto his stomach.

Madison jumped up and demanded his shirt before she could stop herself.

“Give it to me. I know how to get the stain out,” she said, holding her hand out to him from across the table. He looked from her hand back up to her face and dropped his fork back on his plate.

“Madison, we don’t have time. We have to leave in less than five minutes, or we’ll be late,” Kade mumbled as he undid the Renegade Rebel leather jacket from his waist, careful not to get anything on that as well.

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