Maggie Norris and Luke Vaudest come with attitudes of stone-cold, rude, sarcastic snakes. Every single time the pair have clashed, it has never ended up being a good thing. The two are more than fine with never crossing paths, again.
Until Maggie d...
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"Don't cheat if you don't want to be cheated. A relationship is mutual. This is the golden rule for all great connections." — Israelmore Ayivor ————————————————————
Chapter 28 <—————————————>
Maggie
My roller paused along the wall. "Have you ever tried to eat paint?"
Luke passed a look of shock out the corner of his eye before dragging his attention back to the his side. We were on our second coat of paint, now.
"Have you ever tried to eat paint?" he retorted.
My shoulders bounced in a shrug. "Jax dared me when we were kids. Easiest twenty bucks I've ever earned."
Yesterday, after the fall, was nothing, but silence. When I came in today, though, he pretended as if nothing had happened, so I did the same. The day had ran far more smoothly because of that.
His head fell as he chuckled. "That explains alot." I shot a glare at him, to which he completely ignored. Just as I managed to calm my own humor, I heard him ask, "Jesus, Norris. Where were your parents?"
I froze at that. My grip tightened around the roller to stop from dropping it. Cold dread swept through me like a plague until I felt my stomach twist.
Luke caught on much quicker than I liked. His body stilled at my silence, before I felt his gaze burning into the side of my face. "Shit," he hissed. "My bad. I should have—"
I pulled in a breath through my nostrils, shaking my head. "No...it's cool." It was anything other than that, though. I'd been asked about them all of my life, so much that I thought I had the story locked down pact.
But, for some reason, when Luke asked, I felt every lie and every deceitful thing slip from their cage, and wrap me in their sense of betrayal. It made me nauseated.
"I didn't see them," I heard him say. "In your house, I didn't see any pictures of them."
Digging my nails into my palms, I forced a neutral expression."They're not around."
Luke nodded, tugging at his bottom lip. I tried to read him over, but was given nothing in return.
I saw the muscles in his arm flex as he motioned to me. "You wanna tell me why?" his voice had noticeably gone softer. "You know I won't tell anyone, but you know that you don't have to tell me, either."
My control ran loose so quickly, it left me fighting back the words. I'd never had anyone dig the way he did, nor did I everhave anyone be such a comfortable presence about it. It fucked with me. Bad.
The thing that knocked me off course the worst, though? It was that I didn't want to lie to him.
Just like in the hotel, I didn't feel that same instinct to lie. I wasn't sure what it was. It felt as if he were already two steps ahead in what he knew about me, like he was just waiting on myself to admit it to him.
