Page 66 of Dev Girl

A pang echoed in my chest at the reminder.

Not much later, I tossed two steaks on the grill, next to two huge potatoes wrapped in foil, and Maddox and I pulled up patio chairs to wait for the food to cook.

“Can I hear what you were working on?” I asked Maddox. Sometimes he was willing to share as he went, and other times he wanted to hold his musical creations close until he felt like they were in a good shape. He was insanely fucking talented, obviously since he composed for a living.

But on top of that, I meant what I said to him last night. He wasn’t adrift, even if he was drifting. He was at his best when he got to be him.

“Of course.” Maddox pulled out his phone, and a moment later the light strains of acoustic guitar blended with his deep, soulful voice, and filtered from the tiny speaker. The music was only about a minute long, and stopped abruptly.

The lyrics themselves weren’t sad—they were about a boy making a kite. Needing string, and a ribbon for the tail. Watching it soar. But the delivery, the way he sang, was heartbreaking.

I’d heard enough of Maddox’s music to expect there was a metaphor in words. “Do you know what happens next?” I asked.

He frowned. “I was thinking about the string coming loose. The kite breaking away. But the lyrics aren’t working for me.”

“Maybe the breaking away is more about freedom than loss?” Or maybe I was reading too much into things and the song wasn’t about the three of us at all.

Maddox raised his eyebrow. “It’s just a song about a kite.”

“Uh-huh.” I went to check the food.

“You ever fly kites when you were little?”

I flipped one steak then the other. “Once or twice. Just those cheap ones they sold at the grocery store.”

“My mom used to make kites.” The shift in Maddox’s tone was subtle. Sad. It was rare that he went into details about his mother, and when he did, it was always clear how much losing her when he was little had impacted him. “They were works of art—fabric and plastic and wood and aluminum. They didn’t only look pretty, they flew, too.”

“I never knew…” Of course I didn’t, but what else was I supposed to say?

Maddox shrugged. “Dad boxed up a lot of her stuff and stashed it out of sight, but Aunt Rosie wouldn’t let him hide those. She has them on display at her place, with some of Mom’s other art. It’s like its own mini museum…”

Maddox stared at something I couldn’t see, then shook his head, and focused on me. “You know, if you cut the string on a kite, it’s free for a little while—it soars and dips and climbs wherever the wind takes it,” he said. “But it always crashes back to the earth eventually.”

“But it does that even with the string attached.”

“Good point.” Maddox furrowed his brow.

I studied him, and in the evening sunlight he was cast in something I usually didn’t let myself see. Desire pulsed through me, but it wasn’t carried on lust. I felt a potent need to let Maddox walk through the world the way he saw it. It was almost a… protective feeling?

Maddox didn’t need to be protected.

But he did deserve to soar, and have someone there to catch him during those times that gravity won out. Even if the kite fell back to earth every time, it didn’t have to be a rough landing.

The rush of impulse inside wanted me to be the one who kept him from crashing.

Except I’d already destroyed that chance. I wouldn’t be here, and I didn’t have a right.

20

Maddox

I sat at the bar that ran the length of the front window in the coffee shop, the morning sunlight striking building tops and teasing a gorgeous day. I couldn’t stop thinking about my friends. I was falling—had fallen?—for Alys. For Onyx.

Looking back, it was clear that my world had revolved around them for a while. But with the threat of Onyx leaving, and Alys pulling away, go figure that would push me to figure out how much I wanted them.

How much I needed them, each for different reasons and in different ways.

I wanted to tell them both. Together. Apart.

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