With the Spin of a Bottle

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Leena P.O.V.

If someone had told me that I would ever be outside my apartment building having a knock down drag out with my cousin Maddie, I would have told them they were insane. That's exactly what was happening though and all because Madeline Davis was the most stubborn person in the whole world. It had been days since we'd had the argument about me telling Josie and Josie telling her brother and brother's friend. Maddie had refused to talk to me since, nor had she bothered to leave the apartment. Classes had begun and Maddie hadn't bothered to attend any of them. So desperate times called for desperate measures.

I'd tried to gently coax her out, but she ignored my every attempt. That is how I found myself literally dragging Maddie outside, forcing her to breath in the fresh air I believed she needed. Maddie was screaming at me to let go and had just swung her arm wide, catching me on the side of my face. It caught me off guard which was how I found myself falling onto the grass. Maddie seemed horrified for two seconds, before she started screaming at me again. I picked myself back up and yelled back at her. Deep down I was glad to see so much emotion pouring out of her. Seeing mad-Maddie was better than seeing zombie-Maddie.

Somehow, I'm not sure how, but we ended up rolling around on the grass. I really wasn't fighting back all that much, but just tried to keep Maddie from doing me permanent damage. The next thing I knew we were both being lifted away from each other. I stiffened when I felt a strong arm go around my middle, but relaxed when the voice attached to that arm spoke against my ear, "Calm down, Sweets."

I glanced over to see that Josh had been the one to lift Maddie and they were currently standing in the same awkward embrace as Reed and I, while Maddie kept glaring daggers at me. She looked like shit before our little fight, so she really looked horrible now. Her usually perfect hair was nothing but a rat's nest and the clothes she wore weren't even nice enough to be worn alone, let alone in public. For a minute, I felt a little bad for dragging her outside in such a state, but then Josh picked her up, over his shoulder and started for the door to take her back inside.

"Damn it, Josh. Put me down. I'm not done with her yet." Maddie yelled and lifted her head to glare at me again. I was smiling. I couldn't help it. She was allowing Josh to manhandle her and she wasn't having a panic attack over it. That was awesome. She frowned when she saw my grin, but then her face softened a little. Then they were inside and I couldn't see her anymore.

"Are you going to tell me what that was all about and why does Mads look like a homeless person? I've never seen her look so messy and I've definitely never seen the two of you fighting like that." Reed asked as he released me and I turned to face him.

"I'll get to that in a minute. First, what are you doing here?" I asked, with a frown.

"You have been avoiding my phone calls, so I found out where you lived and decided to find out why you haven't answered when I called. I walked up at the same time as that other guy, whom I'm assuming you know considering you allowed him to cart Maddie off. Why have you been screening my calls, Sweets?"

I blushed, because he was right. It had been a couple days since Reed had almost kissed me in the courtyard and I had definitely been avoiding him since. It just felt so surreal. I still didn't understand why he was even interested. There had been a million, alright so I'm exaggerating, pretty girls at that party. Why had he singled me out? Had he just been too embarrassed to get a girls number like that, so he'd asked me because he knew me. That's what I'd figured it was, but then he had confused me by almost kissing me and he'd called several times since. I was just confused by his intentions. I was a lame duck compared to him, no matter what he said, trying to convince me otherwise.