The Cunning

88

"Am I in trouble?" Madison asked Jase when he joined her in the bedroom. He screwed his face up.

"No," he said, pulling his t-shirt off and clicking his neck. "I just didn't want to be down there anymore, and I'm not having you down there with people like him when I'm not around." He took his cigarettes out of his jogger pocket and lit one.

Madison's eyes followed his hand as it reached for her jaw, twisting her head upwards slightly. He frowned at the pale fingermarks wrapped around her neck.

"He's bruised you," he grumbled in annoyance.

"I'll survive," Madison replied. Jase tilted his head at her, inhaling from his cigarette and letting himself relax.

"That's my girl," he said quietly, tucking hair behind her ear. Madison's heart skipped, something she refused to acknowledge.

"You want to smoke?" he asked, sitting down on his side of the bed behind her.

"Your girl?" she repeated as he prepared a joint.

"So long as you're here," he replied. Madison ignored the butterflies his words weren't supposed to give her and crawled over to him, accidentally knocking his elbow in the process. The contents of his grinder spilt over his joggers and the bed. Her eyes widened,

"Shit! I'm so sorry," she squeaked, jumping back. Jase laughed lightly, brushing what he could back into the grinder and restarting.

"It's just weed," he reassured.

When he finished rolling, the pair of them lay side by side, passing the joint back and forth.

"What were you like in school?" she asked. Jase smirked at the question, recalling all the telling offs and the doing of things he shouldn't have been doing. Somethings never changed.

"Probably exactly how you expect," he answered.

Madison grinned at him.

"A twat?"

He laughed. "Depends who you were, I suppose. What about you?"

Her smile shrunk to playful. "Guess."

Jase looked back up to the ceiling. "Quiet, got all your schoolwork done." He looked at her again through his lashes. "Silent but deadly."

"What do you mean?"

"You were quiet, but you wouldn't be tormented." He was right, but it wasn't because of her, more because of her dad. She passed the joint back.

"What gives you that impression?" she asked, studying him.The pillow was pushing his curls down over his forehead giving him a more boyish appearance. Madison's heart fluttered. She quietly willed it to shut the fuck up.

"Because no girl on this earth can headbutt someone like you do without a couple of practice shots," he replied. She laughed, and he smiled, enjoying the sound of her infectious giggles. However, they soon subsided when she thought about the first time she broke someone's nose. She'd seen something she shouldn't have seen, her brother kissing another boy. She'd been around twelve, her dad hadn't long been put away which was probably why the boy had the gall to threaten her in an attempt to keep her mouth shut. Not that Madison cared enough to go around telling anyone but she didn't appreciate being grabbed. She shook the memory loose.

Jase placed the joint between his lips, his other hand in his jogger pocket. It was the subtle things about him she found attractive. His basic movements, when he looked at her with half-lidded eyes, the slow exhales of smoke, how he sounded in the morning or how deep his voice was when he shouted. Jase had turned her into a different type of victim.