Hush - Anne Malcom Page 0,75
She wished she could swallow them back down—too much of herself was out there. “I’m never going to be right. I’m never going to be normal.”
Maddox’s eyes danced with light and darkness, hope and fear. “Nice to meet you, Orion,” he said, voice slightly rough. “I’m Maddox. I like pineapple on my pizza. The only thing I can cook is ramen. I drink too much whiskey. Don’t sleep enough. I have a short temper. I’m a cop because I want to save everyone, because I want to make up for the one person I didn’t save.”
The words thrummed between them, beating like a living thing.
“Nice to meet you, Maddox,” she said, her words small.
They stared at each other for longer than was appropriate, longer than was safe.
“Guess the no license thing means you need a ride?” Maddox asked, a lightness to his voice that they both knew was a lie.
Orion wanted to collapse with relief. She didn’t need any more truths right here, in front of her best friend’s grave.
“Yeah, I’d like a ride,” she said quietly. “Thanks.”
They didn’t speak on the ride home.
Maddox put on music that was familiar to her and comforted her. Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age, Green Day. Orion wondered if he’d created the playlist on purpose.
He didn’t press her. Drove easily, one hand on the wheel, the other resting lazily on his thigh. She spent a lot of time pretending not to look at his hand. A strange pull kept her eyes from going there. She didn’t quite understand her fascination with that hand.
No, that was a lie.
She did.
She knew that she was imagining what it might be like if that hand was resting on her thigh. It might’ve been more realistic to imagine what it’d be like to grow wings and fly around. She was never going to ride in a car with a man’s hand lazily resting on her thigh, Maddox or not.
That possible future had been stolen from her.
An easy touch from a man was nothing but a fantasy. Even if she worked up enough courage to let a man touch her, it would never be easy. His fingertips, his hands, would be touching places already bruised, battered, and ruined by the men who came before him. They’d be like irons, burning her flesh.
She spent the rest of the drive angry at herself for thinking about Maddox’s hand on her thigh minutes after burying her best friend. She should have been focusing on other things. More important things. Like revenge.
“I can teach you,” Maddox said.
They had stopped, Orion just realized that. They were parked in front of her apartment complex. She’d even blanked on him entering the gate. It was good security too. She would’ve had to reach into her purse to show her brand new ID. She must’ve done that, though she had no memory of it.
“Teach me?” she parroted.
“To drive,” he said. “And before you immediately say no, I’m a good teacher. I taught April. She only screamed at me once.” He shrugged. “Never crashed though.”
Maddox was right. She was immediately going to say no. Today—getting in the car with him, offering him information—was an exceptional circumstance.
Temporary insanity.
Orion had already made promises to herself regarding Maddox. Promises about never being alone with him, cutting him out as much as possible.
But she paused before she uttered her refusal because who else was going to teach her? The only other person on earth she felt comfortable with was Shelby and she couldn’t drive either. He dad was teaching her. Orion didn’t have a dad. By the time Shelby could drive, Orion imagined she’d have changed even further. She’d be nothing more than a stranger who she shared a past with.
Orion imagined her brother would’ve taught her.
A pang of sharp and unbearable pain unexpectedly speared her heart. She almost cried out but swallowed the sound. She missed her brother with a pain that was physical.
She hated this fucking life.
Maddox was watching her. She knew this. And she also knew he was dissecting her with that stare. That cop stare.
He was expecting her to refuse, most likely. Hoping she would accept, for what reason? To quell more of that survivor’s guilt? Give himself some power over her? Watch over her for signs of addiction? Insanity?
He was good at looking at her, seeing things. Orion knew this because her skin rebelled every time his blue eyes fastened on her. Everything inside her tried to escape, to transform into something that wasn’t dark and ugly,