Page 23 of Forever Home

“Why are you crying Jaxson?” she asks, not skipping a beat. “Did someone make you cry?”

“I wasn’t crying,” I snap, curling my fists in my lap as I look away from her. “I got something in my eyes, is all… What are you doing here? I want to be alone.”

Moving forward a little more, she takes a seat next to me and shrugs her shoulders. “I always come here. It’s our treehouse…”

Lifting my eyes slightly I take in how she’s still watching me. The smile on her face grows with every second that passes. She isn’t like my siblings. They only like to take things and break them. Then Mama gets onto me and yells at me for it. Every day, I’m getting yelled at. I hate it.

“You can talk to me if you want to,” she says softly. “I’m a really good listener.”

Sighing, I nod. “I’m hiding from my family.”

“You are… but why? Don’t you like your family?”

“Sometimes…” I shrug. “They don’t seem to like me much.”

“That can’t be true!” she exclaims. “They’re your family. They have to like you.”

“Nu-uh,” I reply, tears forming in my eyes again. “I don’t think they would even notice if I ran away.”

This makes her quiet for a moment, her hand reaching over to grab mine as I look into her eyes. “I would.”

“You would?”

“Of course I would!” She laughs. “You’re my friend.”

Her words bring a smile to my face as I watch her pull a plastic container from a bag at her side. I don’t know what she’s doing, but when she pulls off the lid and there’s cookies inside, excitement fills me.

“Do you want one?” she asks.

I nod, taking one of the cookies she holds out to me. “It’s good to know I have you as my friend.”

This makes her giggle before quickly placing the cookies in between us as she stuffs one into her mouth. “Do you want to play ‘would you rather’ while we eat?”

“Okay.” I nod quickly. Her first question fires off as the laughter began to flow between us and the sweetness of her mother’s treats filled our bellies.

Chapter Ten: Madison

The moment he’s gone, I all but collapse onto the boxes that are already packed. My heart races as my fingers brush over my bottom lip thinking about what almost just happened. To think that once upon a time, I used to dream about kissing him. And now…

It wasn’t just my imagination, was it?

Jaxson Rivers really just tried to kiss me?

To think I almost fell and completely busted my ass in front of him. But he stopped it. He wrapped me within his grasp, his arm around my waist as he pulled me close to him. Thinking about it now makes me wonder what my fingers would have felt like brushing against the hard ridges of his stomach.

Holy shit…

“Madison!” Knox’s voice pulls me from my thoughts of Jaxson that were tempting to the point of insanity, and my composurein Mrs. Kendall’s house. Standing quickly, I straighten myself out, my hands smoothing down my hair as I make my way towards the top of the stairs only to find him looking up at me with a gaze of confusion.

“Yeah?” I ask, trying to keep myself together so I don’t give away that something sort of just happened between Jaxson and I.

“Did Jaxson just leave?”

I open my mouth to speak, but don’t get a word out before Kylie appears and looks between Knox and I. “Jaxson left? But the pizza hasn’t even gotten here yet.”

“I know,” Knox replies, shaking his head. “He was supposed to hang out with us longer.”

Kylie seems to take a moment, her eyes drifting towards the front door before gazing up at me once again with slight scrutiny. “What did you say to him?”

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