Confiding in You ϟ a.i.

Chapter 43

==Ashton's POV==

"I think she's good for you too," Cooper adds after a long, drawn out silence only filled with his own noises of disgust. I was too busy thinking of the reasons I'm really not good for Maddie to remember to respond.

I roll my eyes and pick up as many cups as I can at once. Cooper seems to think this job should be done with gloves and a mask over his face when I've helped people clean up a thousand times. Mostly because I ended up staying the night and hooking up with someone, but whatever. It doesn't change the fact that he's acting like a complete girl. And talking to me about my 'great' relationship with his sister that I've pretty much just screwed up, which I tried to avoid thinking about by doing this.

"What makes you say that?"

"She's the only girl you want to do more than f*ck, which is weird as hell by the way. But it's keeping you from sleeping with other people's girlfriends. Or at least I hope it is." He eyes me in a threatening way. It's hilarious that he thinks he's convinced everyone he doesn't care about her.

"You sound just like my mom," I throw one of the cups in my hand and him and he flinches.

"Well, it's true! It was obviously messing with you, you can't lie and say it wasn't. You have an intense conscience, just only one that shows up after you do shitty things. At least now you're thinking before you do stupid shit. You are, aren't you?"

"Okay, well yeah. I'm whipped, okay? I can't help it," I sigh and hold up my hands in defense.

I'm not going to acknowledge it, but he's right about my conscience and I'm experiencing it at this very moment. It's easy to get this lecture from my mother, as annoying as it is, but not from him. Sure, Maddie keeps me from sleeping with other, taken girls. But one of those girls also includes his girlfriend, who I'd probably still be f*cking if it weren't for Maddie. But he doesn't know that.

"Good, be whipped for once. It's keeping you from being a complete dick."

"You're one to talk," I scowl and he laughs, "Can we talk about something else?"

To be completely honest, our relationship isn't keeping me from being a dick considering how I blew up on her last night. I may be overcome by my affection toward her, but that clearly doesn't stop me from screwing everything up. I cause her more pain than anything. How is that good for her?

This. This is what I was trying to avoid to begin with. I don't know why I had to go to Lily for help, but Michael wasn't cutting it and she was the only other person I could think to confess my feelings for Maddie to. I told Lily that all I would do is make things worse for Maddie, that I wished she'd stop being so damn enticing so I could stop getting that dumb feeling in my chest that compelled me to make her mine.

She kept pushing me to just ask her out, but I kept resisting it and referencing all the horrible things I've done, which led to the whole sex thing, somehow. God, it's all so f*cked up. I never should have gotten Maddie involved in this.

Maybe I'm worried over nothing. Even though I need her myself, maybe being safe and pushing me out of her life would be the best thing for her to do for herself.

"Alright, can I tell you something?" Cooper asks and he's got this serious expression on his face that ends my pity party. One that I haven't seen since the 8th grade, when he told me he was going to ask Lily out. Here it comes; more of a reason to feel guilty.

"Say it," I answer as nonchalantly as possible and lean over to pick up more garbage, unable to look at him for very long when he's staring at me like that. He's worried about something involving a girl, of course that girl being Lily. I swear if he suspects that she's cheating and I have to pretend to be clueless, I'll run out of the house right now. I shouldn't have to deal with this guilt crap when the whole thing is over.