Page 10 of Chance Encounter

“I wish,” he retorts vaguely.

Letting out an annoyed breath, I take my phone out of my pocket and offer it out to him. “I don’t have fucking cooties. You can use my phone. There're no consequences.”

Maddox makes his way over to the couch and plops down. “I can’t because I don’t remember my brother’s phone number. The only phone numbers I know are mine and my parents, and they won’t come. They’d probably encourage the damn bear to eat me so they can be rid of their gay son.”

“I doubt that’s true.”

“Oh, it is. They’re proud of their loser, manwhore of a son who mooches off everyone he comes into contact with but want nothing to do with their son who is one of the top horse breeders in the country.”

Damn, I kind of feel bad for him—kind of being the key word.

“And let me guess, it’s my fault. Everything that goes wrong with your life is my fault.”

“Pretty much. If you’d never outed me, my parents wouldn’t be ashamed of me, and everyone wouldn’t look at me like the town pariah.”

“Okay, hold up now, you’re not the Hester Prynne of the gay community of Polar Bear, Alaska. The town doesn’t look at you any differently than they look at anyone else. Yes, maybe back in high school people did, but not now. You’re imagining it.”

“You don’t know my life. You’re like the town hermit and never leave your house.”

I shrug because he’s right. I do try to limit my time with the vast majority of the population of our little town. If I want to interact and hook up with someone, I tend to go to the next town over. Not that Maddox needs to know that.

“I leave. You just never see me when I’m out.”

“Whatever,” he rolls his eyes at me. “None of this helps the fact that I’m stuck here until Sally finds someone better to eat. Do you have Netflix or something we can watch until the coast is clear?”

“Did you blackout and forget last night? We were watching Netflix when I had on Schitt’s Creek.”

“Oh, I’m sorry if I didn’t notice what it was on while I was in incredible pain and in a hostile environment.”

“Oh, come on, Mad. It’s not that bad. I’ve fed you, and my couch is incredibly comfortable. Hell, I even made you breakfast this morning. It’s not my fault you didn’t eat it. You’re not going to die.” I tilt my head and then nod. “Okay, you might if you go outside because Sally does seem to have a hard-on for you, but if you stay inside, you’ll live if you stop making me out to be the bad guy.”

Maddox tilts his head to the side as he sits on my couch like he owns the damn thing. His legs are spread wide, and I swear I can see a damn bulge in his pants.

“Are you turned on?” The words are out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them.

One side of his mouth turns up in a sneer. “What the hell are you talking about?” He looks down at his crotch and then back up at me. “That’s my dick, plain and simple. I’m sorry if yours is so small that you thinkthisis me hard.”

It takes everything in me not to walk over there and punch the asshole in the face, but when I’m only a few steps away, I stop myself. If I do what I want to him, it will only make matters worse.

“As much fun as fighting with you is, can we just be civil for the day?” I look out the window, but from here, I can’t tell if the bear is out there or not. “Once your friend Sally leaves, I’ll get you home, but until then, we can watch some TV. I’ll even get you some new ice packs to put on your ankle. It probably needs it.”

“Ice would be good,” he grimaces as he starts to undo the tape from around the now defrosted peas. “I grabbed a few ibuprofen when I was in the bathroom. I feel like a pussy admitting this, but damn, it hurts more than when I fucked it up back in high school.”

It must be bad if he’s admitting to me that it hurts.

“Well, I won’t make you clean the house or anything. Put your foot up, and I’ll get the ice.”

While in the kitchen, I pile some of the bacon on a piece of toast, fold it up, and shove half of it in my mouth. Why did he have to try and storm off right when breakfast was ready? Cramming the rest of the bacon sandwich into my mouth, I try to find some frozen veggies for Maddox to put on his ankle. I should’ve taken the peas and put them back in the freezer earlier. I don’t have much frozen food that works as an ice pack.

Since I don’t have any that will work, I fill a sandwich baggie with ice and crush it. Taking a pan, I hit the ice to crush it. After one hit, Maddox yells from the other room.

“What the hell is going on?”

“I’m crushing your ice,” I yell back.

“Don’t worry about it crushing it. I’ll live with having big chunks of ice. I’m not that big of a baby.”

I’m not so sure about that, but I’ll do what he wants to appease him.

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