But Grace was my best friend, and if Maddison felt anything close to what I did, then he’d notice if something was wrong with her. We both had a connection to her, and I had to trust that he wouldn’t ruin Grace to spite me.
Chapter 10
Maddison Seventeen Years Old
I couldn’t believe Oliver. He couldn’t deal with the fact that he was away from Grace, and so made up shit like she was unhappy without him. Well, screw him. She was fine. We were fine.
Except, I couldn’t forget about it. The idea of Grace not being happy haunted me. For weeks, I’d second-guessed the time we spent together, and when we were apart, the anger that was always lurking just under my skin was all too easy to provoke.
Just one more year, not even that, given we would finish by the summer for exams, and then I could stop busting my gut at school for something I didn’t want. I’d never have made it this far without Grace, and at least it was a reason to spend as much time as we did together.
I’d got the grades to study my A-Levels by the skin of my teeth, and luckily, Grace was more than happy to help me study. I needed it more than I wanted to admit because I’d have been kicked out for failing if not for her help. School was hard. It always had been. And I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was older. Apparently, we were all meant to have that shit sorted out by now. All I wanted was to play sport and be with Grace. Nothing else mattered.
As well as the part-time job I had at the same place as Grace, I’d joined a local gym with some of my mates. I was the biggest in our group of friends: the most muscle, the tallest, the fastest. It made up for my lack of book-smarts, and I wouldn’t let the titles I still held slip. So, I worked out. I lifted weights, I ran, and I did circuits until my body screamed for mercy. And I showed it none.
“Hey, kid.” An older guy stacked with muscle and dripping in sweat, with a towel wrapped around his neck, approached me one day after I’d finished my latest set. The room was empty, but for the two of us.
“Yeah.”
“You like to train, eh?” He had an accent that sounded foreign.
“I guess.”
“Seem to be here a lot.”
“And?” This guy was giving me the creeps.
“Ever been in fights?”
“Sure.” I puffed my chest out, thinking of the few kids I’d punched in my time. And Oliver.
“No. I mean, real fights.” He stepped closer to me, but I stayed still. This dude wasn’t going to intimidate me.
“No, then. Why?”
“Because you look like you could hold your own. A bit of training, and you’d look good in a ring.” Fighting for real? Shit. The energy I’d been working off seemed to hum back to life at the prospect.
“What’s in it for me?” I didn’t know what this guy was selling, but I wasn’t going to be some wimpy kid about it. There’d have to be a catch or something to his offer. But I couldn’t deny I was interested from the word fights.
“Money. Victory. The opportunity to beat someone senseless with no repercussions.” He smiled, showing me a couple of gaps where teeth should be, and I wondered if this guy was for real. His words sunk in, and my hands flexed automatically as if just hearing the words got them excited.
“Okay. I’m in. What next.”
The guy smiled wider, and for a moment, I wondered if I’d just made a deal with the devil.
“I’m Zuri.” His name explained the accent I didn’t recognise. “We will meet and train here. And then I take you to my gym. I show you the ropes.”
“And?” I prompted. He hadn’t mentioned anything about fighting.
“And if you are good, you fight.” He offered his hand, and I shook. He grabbed his wallet at the side of the room and picked up his water bottle. “Here. Text me your details. We will make plan.”
I shoved the card in my wallet and left it there when I got home. Grace was coming over soon to help me study. She was clever, just like Oliver, but she never made me feel stupid. She took her time to explain things that confused me, and the mental block that seemed to be in the way all the time, eased when it was her words and her face explaining stuff.
She was my best friend, and although we had differences, that didn’t matter. She’d been supporting me since we met—coming to my games, keeping me from killing Oliver, and now with homework.
“Mads!” Mum called up to me. “Grace is here.”
“Okay!” I knew she’d make her own way. She’d been coming in and out of our rooms since we were kids.
“Hey,” she greeted as she came in. “Are you going out?” She looked at my damp hair, her eyes trickling down to my chest for just a moment longer than they should. I fucking loved it.
“No. Just showered, that’s all.” I turned away and sat at the chair by my desk.
“Right.”
“But we could go out if you wanted? Grab something to eat in town?” I knew Grace would say no, but it never stopped me from asking.
“I’m good. And your sports science homework is due tomorrow. If you’ve done it, we can go?” She raised her brows at me, and her mouth ticked up into a grin. Her eyes shone, and I tried to focus on what we were talking about rather than her mouth.
“Well?” she prompted, snapping me back to what I should be thinking about. She had me, and she knew it. What the hell did I know about why muscles fatigued? All I knew was they did, especially when I pushed past the pain at the gym.
Grace did biology and could explain all about the respiratory and muscle systems I needed to look at to complete my homework. The reason I’d taken this subject was to help with playing sports, and there wasn’t anything else I could see myself studying. Didn’t think it would be so fucking complicated though.
“You win. You win,” I protested and resisted the urge to tackle her to my bed and kiss those lips. It was an ongoing fight I had with myself, every damn day, and I was proud of my fucking win rate. Every time we were together, that’s what I played out in my head—the image of her lips parting, her pupils dilating, and my hands running through her long hair before I kissed her and gave into fucking years of temptation and restraint. But I shoved those urges down.
Deep.
She popped onto my bed and took her biology book from her bag.
My eyes ran over her, and I watched the shape of her mouth and the colour of her eyes. The flash that had distracted me a moment ago had faded already, and the bright blue seemed flat. It reminded me of the words Oliver had planted in my head.
“Are you happy?” The words were out before I could stop them. I guessed dwelling on things for weeks didn’t help.
“Yes, why would you ask that?” She frowned, but her body stiffened. The colour in her cheeks pinked like she was embarrassed. It was the same face I saw when I caught her looking at me.
“I need you to be happy. And be honest if you’re not.” My eyes studied hers and saw the blue brighten as she moved in the light. The colour reminded me of clear waters or lakes. But she couldn’t hide everything from me, not this close, and I could see the worry just below the surface. It would be so easy for me to take that away. Lean forward and pull her against my lips. Instead, I brushed a lock of her hair over her ear so she couldn’t pull away from me. “I know we’re not much for heart-to-hearts. But I’m here for you.”
“I know you are. You always are,” she mumbled towards the ground, having dropped our eye contact.
“So?” I lifted her chin, wanting her to see me as someone she could share her thoughts with as well as her smarts—to see that it wasn’t just Oliver who could talk to her.
“It’s… nothing, really. At least it isn’t something I can put my finger on and pinpoint.”
“So, there is something that’s bugging you?” A flash of heat burned my chest as I guessed the possibilities. All of them involved her feelings for Oliver, and I knew I’d hate him even more than I already did if she admitted them.
“Do you remember when we all camped out in your garden?
” Her face lit up as she talked.
“Sure.”
She took my hand in hers and turned it over, clasping it in between hers. “And the promise we made?”
“To be friends.”
“It was more than that, at least it felt like that to me. It was our pact, to always stay together, to be friends together. The three of us.”
“We are friends.” I didn’t know where she was going with this, but I did feel my palm burning at her touch, igniting my blood and setting my heart off.
“Really? Oliver is away, and when he’s home, we don’t hang out. We don’t talk, and we never do any of the stuff we used to.”
“What, ride bikes, climb trees, and have picnics? Come on, Grace. We’ve grown up.”
“Yes, we have. But that doesn’t mean we can’t spend time together and talk? Go to our tree and listen to music or just get out of the house, does it?”
She had a point. She’d also forgotten the fact that Oliver and I were at each other’s throats most of the time because we both wanted Grace to be more than just a friend.
She kept my hand wrapped in hers and looked down where our skin touched. “I want that magic we shared to continue. I don’t want to be stuck missing one of you, or having to share the other, or balance myself between you. I want it to be easy like it was.” She levelled her gaze, and I saw why the sadness was there, and I wanted to fucking rip that shadow from her forever.
Her hand pulled away, breaking our contact, and she collapsed back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “When did life get so complicated?”
“I don’t think it is.” I laid on the bed, her body pressed against mine on one side. I kept my breathing calm and stopped my stupid mind playing out scenarios because we were both lying on my bed. I sent a prayer of thanks to Mum for getting me a double when I turned sixteen.
She didn’t answer and just kept staring.
All I could hear was the hum of electricity spitting between us, as we both stayed rigid and still.
“You spend too much time in your own head.” I twisted towards her and ignored the air around us. “You haven’t played netball in years. You have your job, and you have us. Maybe you just need something else to focus on.”
“Like your sport.”
“Sure.”
“And girlfriends?” she continued, but it was my turn to furrow my brow into a frown. I looked down at her as she moved her eyes towards mine, the question written all over her face.
“I don’t have girlfriends. You’re my only girlfriend.” The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it because I would fucking love to call her that finally.
“But we’re not actually girlfriend and boyfriend.” Her eyes popped wide in alarm. I didn’t say anything and let the words settle to see what she made of them. This was new territory for us. Hell, I’d only wanted to know she was happy, not ask her to be my girlfriend, although I wasn’t going to say no.
“I don’t… we aren’t…” She stumbled through the start of her sentence before she got up from the bed and grabbed her bag. “I think I should go.”
“No, why? Come on, Grace, it’s just a word. It doesn’t mean anything. You’re a girl and my friend. That’s it.”
She turned to wait at my door. “Is it though?”
I wasn’t sure what she was saying or asking. At least, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. What I wanted it to mean was that she acknowledged there was something between us, and I wanted her to be my girlfriend. The fact that I’d never had a girlfriend was down to her. Sure, there were girls at parties and stuff. They were happy to suck my face thinking they’d get to hang off my arm and get the kudos around school, but that never happened. I loved Grace more than any other girl I’d ever meet.
Although all those thoughts ran through my head, I didn’t say anything. I let the moment hang in the air between us—unspoken. And I could see that she felt it too. Her hand was resting on the door, her other, wrapped tightly around her bag strap as if holding onto it was a matter of life or death.
She felt the same way. I’d bet my fucking life on it.
There was just one thing to take care of.
Oliver.
He stood in the way. He was confusing her, mixing her feelings up and causing trouble, as always.
She shook her head and walked through the door, her decision made. Her feet bounced down the stairs, and a few moments later, I heard her leave.
“Fucking great.”
I barely caught a glimpse of Grace over the next few weeks. She hardly spoke to me when we were at work, and she didn’t come over as freely as she used to. It was like that stupid fucking conversation had put a physical wall between us. And it made me fucking mad. I spent as much time as I could at the gym so that I wouldn’t throttle something at home.
Zuri was there a couple of times and gave me some pointers. His instruction helped channel my rage towards something. Turns out, I was good at following his drills. It wasn’t hard. Watch what he did, do it myself, and repeat until I felt like I was going to hurl.
“You’re good. Now you need to fuel that body as well as work it. Protein powder, good diet, sleep,” Zuri told me. The next time we met, he had a container of some power crap I was supposed to drink with milk or water.
“It will make you bigger. Stronger. If you want a shot, you do this.”
So, I did.
As the weeks drew on and the Grace-shaped gap in my life became too fucking big, I filled it with everything Zuri told me to do. My studies suffered, mostly because Grace wasn’t there to translate what I had to do and give me the motivation I needed. But right now, I didn’t care.
My body was already changing. It wasn’t like I grew muscle overnight—more that I could feel the difference in my body. I wasn’t so tired, my recovery from each session was quicker, and my strength was improving. Zuri seemed happy about that, but he didn’t let up and kept pushing me at the gym.
All the time at the gym, the questions about Grace mounted and became harder to ignore. I fucking missed her. It wasn’t fair, and I knew I couldn’t cope much longer with the cold shoulder treatment.
At least Oliver was away. If he were still here, there was no way I’d allow him to fill up her time while we figured this out. And we would—I knew we would. She was a part of my life and always would be. She just had to figure out if she was brave enough to admit her feelings or not, and if she needed a helping hand from me? Well, perhaps I’d left it long enough.
Chapter 11
Grace 17 Years Old
It was getting close to the end of the school year. The sun was a more constant comfort, the light stretching later into the evening, making me long to be out with my friends rather than stuck inside studying.
Maddison was still around. He was the shadow I never wanted to shake—at work and at school. It was just… different between us now. At least, I felt different. The possibility of more between us spoken aloud, even if brushed over, was now out in the open, and it made my gut clench with guilt. Because as soon as I’d pictured a future where I was Maddison’s girlfriend, my heart kicked up a beat as I thought of Oliver and that same heart struck me with pain. It was my personal prison of feelings—inescapable yet also undeniable.
Giving Maddison the silent treatment was such a childish and selfish thing to do. And it was hurting me just as much as it was hurting him. I’d walked up to him a number of times but couldn’t break the ice—the only time in our history that I didn’t know what I wanted to say or what to do.
He’d always been the one to make me feel brave—able to take leaps of faith because I knew, deep down, that he’d always catch me. That was who Maddison was to me.
So why couldn’t I do that now? Just apologise, move on, and hope that we could repair the damage?
It would be my eighteenth birthday in the summer, and I set that as my timeline. I had to make sure everything was back to normal by then, even if normal hurt like hell.
“Sweetie, are you okay
?” Mum popped her head around the door to my bedroom, disturbing Bob from his settled position at the crook of my arm.
“Sure.” I dropped my eyes back down to the pages of my book, although I knew there was more to her visit.
“It’s just… you’ve been rather quiet of late. And I wondered if there was anything on your mind? Anything you wanted to clear up?”
“No. I’m fine, thank you.”
I spied her hesitancy at leaving over the edge of my book. “Have you thought any more about driving lessons? You were so keen, but now, you’re not doing anything. Just moving between school and work. You don’t even see the boys anymore.”
“Oliver’s away at Uni, Mum. I can’t pick and choose when I see him.”
“Well, Maddison then. You were getting on fine and now, nothing. I know I must be crazy for saying this, but really, there’s more to life than schoolwork.”
“Mum, please, stop fussing. I have to study if I want the best opportunity of getting into Uni.” I put the fantasy novel down and hoped she didn’t pick up on the fact that half the time I wasn’t even doing my work.
“Well, about that. Have you thought any further about where you want to go?” She perched on the edge of the bed.
I sat up, resigned to the conversation we were now having. “Well, maybe Nottingham or perhaps London. I’m still thinking about it.”
“Not something closer?”
“I don’t know, Mum. We’ve been to visit a few, and I’ve already put in my UCAS application.”
“Just, why don’t you think of somewhere closer to home? There are plenty of opportunities.”
“Mum!”
“Okay, okay. Dinner will be about ten minutes.”
I stroked Bob, wondering how he’d cope when I went but tried not to dwell. That was all I was doing lately, and it got me nowhere fast.
All the talk of the future and moving away reminded me of Oliver.
The Two Halves of my Heart: A Friends-to-Lovers Romance Page 9