Page 22 of Madd Love

He takes a step forward, daring to get on this elevator with me.

“No. Don’t you dare.” I hold up my hand to stop him.

The doors start to close, and our eyes are locked. The only thing on repeat in my mind comes out of my mouth.

“I trusted you with my heart.”

SIXTEEN

Maddox

I strum the guitar angrily. It feels like every lyric I sing, every chord I play, is coming straight from my broken fucking heart. The crowd before me screams and sings the words back to me.

Fucking Tricia. I could choke her ass.

Jacob came back and found me entirely passed out on the couch. Tricia was taking off her clothes, and my shirt was already off. He is new to our tour, so he didn’t know any better than not to intervene. I don’t blame him. I was relieved to learn that absolutely nothing happened but sleeping.

Well, drugged, out-cold sleeping.

And Tricia? She really takes the cake. I’m having her fucking arrested.Fuck her. The cops are looking for her now.

I wish I could have thought of the right words to get Jen to believe me. I know what it looked like. Beck finally came around, but he was pretty upset, not over Tricia, but because Jen, Glory, and the other girls were all ready to beat my ass. I can’t blame them. Atticus and Rim gave me some serious stink-eye vibes, and Rim, well, I wouldn’t doubt that guy knows a hitman or two.

He’s kind of intimidating, although I’d never admit that to a damn soul.

The crowd sways, and even though I’m upset as hell, we are killing it tonight. This show is electric. The lights flash as I look out over the audience, and then, like I’ve been in the desert for twenty years and just found an oasis, there she is.

Jen.

Is she really here? This can’t be real. It has to be the daydream of a broken-hearted fool.

I strain hard not to lose sight of her in the singing, bouncing crowd. The lights flash again, and holy shit, it’s my girl. All her friends, plus Rim and a very protective-looking Atticus, stand behind them like a big barrier to the crowd. Trust me, no one is going to push Atticus “Big Dix” Dixon around. He’s a damn beast of a dude.

My girl is watching me, andfuck yes, Jen Haner will always be my girl. I don’t care if she is with me or not. I will make sure she is happy and taken care of until the day I fucking die.

I sing my heart out to her. This just happens to be a song I wrote a few months ago when I couldn’t sleep one night after having been with Jen. She ran away as soon as we had sex, and it inspired me to put my feelings into a song. “Please let me love you. Please let me care for you.” I hit every note with precision and from muscle memory, but I don’t take my eyes off Jen as I sing the same lyrics again. “Please let me love you. Please let me care for you.”

“Every night without you in my arms is torture.” Tyson screams the line into the microphone, and I mouth the words “I’m sorry” to her because I can only imagine how it must have felt to travel all the way out here to surprise me and then see what she saw. Even if nothing happened, that had to have hurt Jen, and I never want to hurt her. She closes her eyes and places her hand over her heart, and when she looks at me, I mouth the words, “I love you.”

The crowd erupts into a fucking frenzy.

“I love you, Maddox Case.” A cacophony of fans begin to scream, and the crowd is chantingI love youback at me. I lose sight of my girl.

“Fuck this” I pull my guitar strap over my head, drop my guitar, and grab the mic from the stand and start shouting as I scramble off stage.

“Move! Fucking move!” I jump into the crowd, and I’m not waiting for security. I see them scrambling, trying to get to me out of the corner of my eye, but I am not waiting on them.

The rest of the band stops playing, and then I hear Beck over the microphone. “To your left, Maddox. She’s to your left.” He’s directing me as Tyson, Huxley, and Silas try to quiet the crowd.

People are shouting, booing, and shoving, and all I can think about is that day that Jen and I went shopping and my fans accidentally knocked her down.

My heart pounds, and every second I don’t see her is sheer fucking terror and agony.

“I met this girl, and she was wild and carefree. I thought she would be a good time.”

The crowd goes silent, and I continue as I make my way around people.

“Every time I saw her, just being near her made me happy, and I wanted that feeling all the time, so I asked her out.”

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