Page 3 of Mad As Hell

“Then you’re not fucking helping, friend,” I hissed. I shoved him back a step and Court and Linc got up.

“Ry, man, chill,” Court warned, his dark gaze snapping between the two of us.

“Ash needs to back off,” I growled, dangerously close to decking my best friend.

With a snarl, Ash slapped my chest with his laptop. “It wasn’t Maddie, you fucking idiot.”

White-hot rage flushed through my body at her name. Rage and… fuck me. Want. My dick stirred to life, despite the copious amounts of alcohol that should have made me captain of the S.S. Limp Dick.

But of course, one mention of Maddie, and I could picture her sprawled out on my bed as I slammed my hips into her over and over. The glazed look in her eyes and the flush that ran from her cheeks across her perfect tits seconds before she came like a damn freight train beneath me.

I wiped a hand over my mouth as a bitter taste tinged my tongue. I’d seen only a few seconds of her sex tape with Dean, but it was forever burned into my brain.

“Don’t say her damn name,” I seethed, my hands shaking with the need to break something or someone.

“Who? Maddie?” Ash smirked at me.

I lunged for him, but Court and Linc kept me back.

Barely.

“Jesus, Ryan, he played you,” Ash snapped. “He played you, and you fucking let him, bro.”

“What are you talking about?” Court demanded, grunting as my elbow landed on his ribs.

“Dean,” Ash spat, shaking his head. “Dean fucking set Maddie up, and you fell for it.”

His words penetrated the red fog around my brain and I slowly stopped fighting against my friends.

“What?”

Ash gave me a disgusted look and opened his laptop, flipping it around so I could see the screen frozen on Maddie riding Dean’s dick.

I flinched away from the visual and glared at Ash.

“If you would’ve waited a fucking hour, I could have told you that the tape had been doctored,” Ash informed me. “Whatever video he sent out? He slapped the timestamp on it, but all I had to do was look under one layer and see the real timestamp. Unless Madison was fucking Dean last fall? This isn’t her in the video.”

“It’s Madelaine,” Linc murmured, looking a little shell-shocked.

Court groaned. “Fuck me. Why didn’t we think of that?”

Shock froze my system as I narrowed my gaze on the screen and noticed the correct time in the lower right corner. Ash was right; the video was from last year.

“But… she had the same sweater,” I stammered. “And Josh said—”

“Josh said he saw her going into Dean's room, but how long was she in there? You think Dean isn’t devious enough to set this shit up so Maddie happened to be in his room when a witness walked by?” Ash scoffed at me. “Wake the fuck up, Ryan.”

My eyes drifted closed as the weight of what Ash was telling me sunk in.

No, no, no.

If he was right, then I’d fucked up bigger than I ever had in my entire life.

“Madison didn’t cheat on you, asshole,” he confirmed, but the bite was gone from his tone and replaced with something that reeked of pity. “She didn’t do a damn thing, and you threw her to the wolves.”

“The playbook,” Court argued. “How the fuck did Dean get that unless Maddie gave it to him?”

With an aggravated sigh, Ash clicked onto another screen, and I recognized the hallway upstairs. Dean stood in his doorway, waiting as Maddie came out.

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