Page 94 of The Meaning Of You

I shook my head at the endearment because, really? It was never a name I’d used with Davis. He’d hated it. But with Mads it fit somehow. He was blunt and independent to a fault, sure, but in many ways, he felt more vulnerable than Davis ever had.

This is crazy.

The idea of Mads and me having any kind of future together.

How the hell did that work?

I hadn’t seen it coming. I hadn’t seenhimcoming.

It was all too soon after Davis.

Too soon to start feeling again.

Too guilty to see it for what it was.

And yet here we are.

Losing Davis had been eighteen months in the making.

Meeting Mads at the very end had been a gift I hadn’t expected.

It had to mean something, didn’t it?

Hehad to mean something.

The way he touched my face that morning.I see you in there. I feel you in here.

The raw truth of his words had stunned me. Mostly because I knew they were true. Hedidsee me. The real me. I’d felt that all along. And I’d wanted nothing more than to crush him to my chest and demand he say it all over again. To kiss him until we both couldn’t breathe.

Well, I see you too, Madigan Church.

And I feel you like you wouldn’t believe.

Maybe I was right and itwasfoolishness to think anyone got two chances at a love like I’d shared with Davis, especially someone like me. But the way Mads looked at me. The things he did to my heart. I’d never fucking know if I didn’t give it a chance.

Davis wouldn’t give a fuck about the timing; I knew that to my core. Not that he had a leg to stand on since it was hisactivitiesthat had put me in this position in the first place. But Davis would want me to be happy, no question. Although he’d be laughing his ghostly little socks off at the idea of another bookish guy in my life. He’d think it was karma, the fucker.

But I knew he’d want me to try. With Madigan.

To not let the chance pass me by.

Just likehe’dknow that I’d fight it all the way.

And I had.

I’d let fear and guilt muddle my heart.

But that was a mistake I had every intention of correcting.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Madigan

The cramped bunkroomwas a degree or so short of a Finnish sauna and reeked of stale sweat. With a thick layer of tape over my mouth, I could barely breathe, let alone stretch—forced to lie on my side with my wrists cable tied to each other and then to the frame. A slick film of sweat ran down my throat to my blood-stained shirt and my mouth tasted like a litter tray. A full glass of water stood just out of reach on a dresser, and I was too close to spewing for comfort.

It felt like days, not hours, since I’d been dragged out of my house and thrown into the back seat of a car. One of the men drove while the other sat in the back with me. He put a blindfold over my eyes, tape over my mouth, and forced my head down onto my knees. A blanket over top completed the camouflage, while the gun muzzle pressed hard against my ribs kept me quiet.

We’d travelled mostly in silence, forty minutes, no more. Bent almost in half for so long, my back cramped and my stomach rebelled. I fought nausea the whole way, swallowing bile every few minutes, my ears still ringing from the blow, myhearing completely gone on that side. At least the bleeding had stopped, even if my shirt looked like a wardrobe prop from some gruesome horror flick.

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