by Komal Kant
Sighing, I turned to face her. “No, Ray, I’m not joking. Vincent Madden is my boss. I tutor his little brother, Dylan.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m not even sure I know what I’m doing.”
“No shit!”
The wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression on Ray’s face was quite comical, but I barely had time to register it because all of a sudden, the door was pulled open and I almost fell out from the weight of Mariah’s hand pushing into my shoulder.
My world quickly tilted upwards—I saw the ceiling of Ray’s car, the doorframe, and then obsidian eyes before falling against Vincent’s firm chest.
“Oh!” I cried, feeling my face heat up.
With all honesty, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Vincent had a ridiculous effect on me every time he got too close. It was like there was an unspoken line between us that neither of us dared to cross, but sometimes we tested the waters just to get a taste of what the other side was like.
“You were taking a long time,” Vincent said, as though that was supposed to explain why my head was practically in his lap. “I thought maybe this girl was holding you hostage or something.”
“You could call it that,” I grumbled, as Vincent pushed me upright, so I was once again staring at Ray’s awestruck face. Well, that’s what her expression looked like, anyway. It could’ve been fear for all I knew.
“Whatever,” Vincent said, stepping away from the car. “Hurry up. You’re late.”
Irritation blossomed and slapped me in the chest, and I scrambled out of the car. “I go to this thing every weekday. It’s called school.”
Vincent didn’t say anything. Instead, he stuck his middle finger to acknowledge that he’d heard me.
Jerk!
“Estee! Are you sure you wanna go with him?” I was so annoyed with Vincent that I’d forgotten to shut the car door or say anything to Mariah.
When I turned back to Mariah, she was leaning so far across the passenger seat, staring at Vincent, that I was sure she was going to snap her seatbelt in half.
Fixing her with a reassuring smile, I grabbed my bag and shut the door. “It’s okay. If he was going to do anything to me, he would’ve done it by now.”
“He’s a Madden!” Mariah shrieked, as though that was her winning argument.
“I’m fine, Ray, honestly. We’ll talk about it later.”
Mariah stared at me as though I had lost my mind, but she could tell there was no way she’d change my mind, especially since I was technically known as the responsible one in our group of friends.
“So, do I pick you up from here?”
Before I could respond, Vincent spoke from somewhere behind me. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take you home when you’re done.”
He was closer than I’d expected, and his voice sent a line of tingles running right down my spine. When I turned around, he was standing right behind me.
“You’re taking me home?”
Vincent gave me a casual shrug. “I figured I might as well pick up my jacket while I’m there.”
I turned back to Mariah, trying to gather my thoughts. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Vincent knowing where I lived. Then again, he was in a criminal gang, so I’m sure he had ways of finding these things out. He probably already knew my address, my date of birth, and the name of my first grade teacher.
“Jacket?” Mariah mouthed at me, looking as though she might pass out.
I waved her off. “I’ll call you when I get home, okay?”
Mariah shot me daggers. “You better freaking call me.” She didn’t say anything to Vincent as she straightened back into her seat again.
As I turned back to Vincent, he started walking back towards his bike again and I hurried up to match his quick strides.
“Where’s Dylan? Is he already inside?” My eyes sought out the adorable blonde-haired boy who looked so different to his brother.
“He’s at home.” Vincent reached his motorcycle and grabbed the helmet hanging from the back.
I stopped walking. “So, when is he coming here?”
“He’s not. We’re going to him.” Vincent turned and tossed me the helmet.
The helmet fell into my open hands, but I didn’t put it on. I just kept staring at Vincent as he climbed onto his bike and gunned the engine.
“I am not going to your house! This wasn’t part of the deal!”
Vincent shot me a glare. “Believe me, I don’t want you at my house, but Dylan’s sick and there is no way I’m letting him go out in this weather.” He gestured with a hand as though to emphasize how cold it was. “He’s having a breakdown about how he’s failing his classes, and because I won’t let him go out, he wants you to come over and tutor him.”
What Vincent was saying made sense, but I still didn’t know if it was such a good idea to be going over to the Madden’s house. It was the Madden’s house—the headquarters for all the criminal activity that went on around these parts!
“I don’t know…” I trailed off, glancing back at Mariah’s car, which was still stopped in the parking lot.
Clearly, she didn’t trust to drive off just yet either. I could still get away. I didn’t have to go through with this. No sane person would go through with this.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Vincent snapped, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
He furiously punched in a couple of numbers into his phone, his brow furrowing, and held the phone to his ear. “Hey, kid, talk to your tutor. She’s being a stubborn ass.”
I bristled at the fact that Vincent had just referred to me as a stubborn ass, and gingerly took the phone from him.
“H-hello?”
There was a violent fit of coughing on the other end. “Estella? Is it okay if you come to our house? Vin said I can’t go out when I’m like this and I reeeally wanted to study today.” The coughing resumed, and I waited until Dylan quieted down before speaking.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Your brother doesn’t seem to want me to go to your house, either.” I chanced a look at Vincent, but he was pointedly staring in the other direction, refusing to make eye contact with me.
“Please, Estella. Pleeeeeease!” Dylan started coughing again.
“Sweetie, did your mom make you some chicken soup for your throat?”
Vincent’s head shot up, and he deliberately turned his head side to side as though he was trying to tell me something. Was this a topic I should be avoiding?
“Our mom left us,” Dylan said in a small voice.
My heart shattered into tiny pieces. Sure, my mom had done more or less the same thing, but I had been a teenager when she’d left us. During my childhood, she had been wonderful and attentive and loving. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like to not have your mother around at such a young age.
Tears were starting to prick my eyes, but I ignored them and tried to force a smile into my voice. “Never mind, I’ll make you chicken soup. How does that sound?”
Dylan sounded happier when he spoke. “Really? You would do that?”
“Of course, sweetie. I’ll pick up some groceries on my way over.” It barely crossed my mind that I was now voluntarily going to the Madden house. In all honesty, I couldn’t stand to disappoint Dylan. “But I have one condition. Tell your brother to be nice to me.”
Vincent’s bottom lip curled as I handed him the phone, and I tried to hide a smile at the look of confusion on his face as he listened to what Dylan was saying. “Yeah, Dil, yeah. I am being nice. This is my nice voice. Whaddya mean ‘nice face’? Yeah, okay, we’re coming now, boss.”
Vincent hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket. Then he shot me a look of pure loathing and irritation. “I don’t do nice.”
While I secured the helmet onto my head, I matched the expression on his face, not allowing myself to be intimidated by him. “I know it’s probably hard for a big, bad, tough Madden to be well-mannered, but that’s my
condition. You have to be nice. If it makes you um-wussy or whatever you call it, then get over it.”
There was an awkward silence, and Vincent continued to stare at me like I was a specimen in a lab. Then the edge of his lip curled up just the slightest. “Get on the bike, Stelle.”
The butterflies in my stomach intensified at him using the name he always called me. It was the way he said it—like I was his Stelle—that made me fluttery inside.
Vincent climbed on and waited for me to mount the bike. I stared at it in half trepidation and the other half in fear. I had never been this close to a bike before. Did I just climb on? What did I hold onto? What if I fell off?
Gulping, I approached the bike with wide eyes, and gingerly swung my leg over the other side. Then I planted myself firmly in the seat and grasped the edge of the seat with both hands.
“You gotta grab on with both hands, darlin’.” Vincent turned his head just the slightest. Obviously, he was blind. I was grabbing on with both hands.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“No,” he growled, his tone causing more shivers to race down my spine. Then he reached around, grabbed both my arms with his firm hands, and wrapped them around his waist. “Like this.”
Heat crept across my body at having my body pressed against Vincent’s. It probably wasn’t a big deal to him—he was probably used to girls touching him all the time—but to me it was like a fire was slowly heating me from the inside out.
“And, Stelle?” he asked, turning back to face the front.
“Yes?” I managed to choke out.
“On my side of town, we don’t say wussy.” There was a teasing lilt to his voice. “We say pussy.”
The heat exploded inside me, and I had no words to say. Thankfully, Vincent gunned the engine, saving me from turning into a spluttering fool, and he sped out of the parking lot with me gripping onto him for dear life.
The wind whipped past my face and the world was a blur of colors and sounds. Once the initial fear of being on the bike wore off and I opened my eyes, I was amazed by the way the world shifted and moved around me, like everything was still the same but I was experiencing it in a new and different way.
My trepidation was now simply replaced with awe and the sensation that in this brief moment, I was once again alive.
Chapter Eight
Vincent
About thirty minutes later, Estella followed me into my house.
When I turned around to face her, she seemed nervous—her eyes were roaming the hallway as though she was waiting for someone to jump out with a loaded gun. Actually, that wasn’t too hard to believe. Tyson had pulled that on me once, stupid ass.
“Kitchen’s that way,” I said, nodding off to the doorway on the left.
Estella followed where I’d motioned, but before she could even take a step, Dylan came tearing out of his room like a freaking tornado. “Estella! You came!”
Completely ignoring me, he barreled right into Estella and wrapped his arms around her. The bag of groceries she’d been holding almost fell out of her hands as she gazed down at my brother with affection.
“How could I not come when you asked so nicely?” She didn’t sound annoyed at all; she sounded like she didn’t really mind.
Dylan stepped back and surveyed the bag of groceries in Estella’s hands. “Are you making me chicken soup?”
“I sure am. It needs time to stew, so we can get some work done while we wait for it to cook.” Estella glanced up at me, appearing anxious. “Will you be joining us, Vincent?”
It’d been years since I’d had a proper home-cooked meal. That frozen shit from boxes and frying up eggs in the morning didn’t really count. None of us could cook for shit, and eating food made by a woman was something else.
So, hell yeah, I was tempted to stick around and watch Estella as she cooked and then eat her chicken soup, but that was exactly why I couldn’t stay. Because I wanted to. Because this girl was different. Because she didn’t want to sleep with me. She didn’t back down from a disagreement, despite how intimidated she was by me.
This girl was trouble because she was different. And I needed to keep my goddamn distance from her.
“Nah,” I said, trying to appear indifferent, “I got shit to do. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Oh, okay.” Dylan’s face fell and I hated myself for disappointing him. The kid had been through enough abandonment in his short ten years of life, and here I was adding to it.
Still, I couldn’t do it. I had to get out of here and go someplace where I could clear my head.
For a split second, it looked like Estella was going to say something, but instead she bit down on her bottom lip as though to control herself. Her whiskey eyes were saying everything that her gorgeous mouth wouldn’t—she wasn’t impressed that I was leaving, especially since it was clear that Dylan wanted me to stay.
“If either one of my older brothers come home, don’t talk to them unless they talk to you.” I glanced at a spot just beside Estella’s head as I spoke, careful not to stare into the eyes that tormented me. “Dylan knows what to say if they start asking questions.”
My little brother nodded, but the sad look was still on his face. I’d have to make it up to him somehow.
“See ya soon, kid,” I said, ruffling his hair before walking out and leaving behind the girl who made me think too much about a life that I wanted but could never have.
* * *
When I came back an hour later, unfamiliar music was drifting in from the kitchen.
My ears tried to make sense of the saxophone and piano playing and the smooth male voice that was singing. What the hell? Was that jazz?
The delicious smell of chicken and something else greeted me as soon as I stepped into the house. Damn. The smell was making my stomach growl.
Estella and Dylan weren’t at the kitchen table like I’d expected them to be. There were books spread out across the table so that the wood was only visible in slivers, but neither of them was sitting down.
Instead, they were in the center of the kitchen, laughing as they spun around the room together—they were dancing.
No one had danced in this house in a long time.
Dylan’s portable radio sat on the kitchen counter, playing the jazz song which I was unfamiliar with. This wasn’t really the kind of music I listened to. I liked my music loud and fast.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching the way Dylan’s eyes were bright as he and Estella shuffled around, his hands on her waist. It was good to see him act more his age. The kid was so obsessed with doing well in school that he forgot to just relax and have fun.
But what really had my insides jumping was the way Estella’s long honey-brown hair flowed around her like waves. The way her laughter seemed to warm every goddamn dark place inside my soul. The way her smile caused my heart to accelerate like I was a kid who’d just hit puberty.
The girl was beautiful. Not hot, not sexy, not a babe—she was just beautiful.
There was something about her, something I couldn’t figure out. She was everything I’d lacked from a female growing up; she was everything I’d hoped my mother would be when I was a kid—caring, genuine, kind.
I’d known she was trouble the first night I’d met her. Now I knew why. Estella was who I’d been waiting for my entire life.
Dylan finally noticed me standing in the doorway and dropped his hands from Estella’s waist. A frown disturbed his features as he pressed against Estella’s side, waiting to see what I would say.
It was pretty obvious he still had the shits with me for leaving earlier.
When Estella turned around to see why he’d stopped, her face went red and she seemed out of breath. “Vincent!” Her tone was higher than usual. “We were just, um, Dylan was saying how he doesn’t know how to dance, so-”
Ignoring her, I glanced over at Dylan instead. “You’re supposed to be studying, kid.”
Dylan shrugged, a pout forming
on his mouth. “We were taking a break. Estella’s teaching me how to dance. You should let her teach you, too.”
Straightening up, I approached the table and pulled out a chair before sitting down, without responding. I didn’t fucking dance. I was Vincent Madden. I didn’t dance.
My stomach growled in a way as if to say, ‘fucking feed me’. “You still got food left?”
Neither Estella nor Dylan said anything, but Dylan came over and gathered up all his books and left the room, carrying them in his arms.
While Dil was gone, Estella walked over to the bubbling pot on the stove. She turned off the heat and then began spooning the soup into the bowls—I noticed there were three—sitting on the counter.
Dil raced back into the kitchen and grabbed spoons out of the drawer. He placed them in the center of the table and then sat down across from me, watching Estella expectantly. I studied him, smiling at the way his skin was a light pink. This morning, he’d been really pale. Being around Estella made him feel better somehow.
When Estella was done, she walked over to the table and placed a bowl down in front of Dylan and me, before getting her own bowl and joining us at the table.
We ate the soup in silence and, damn, was it good. I hadn’t eaten anything like this in about eight years since our grandma had died, and Dil had never had a home-cooked meal like this before. The Madden brothers weren’t exactly the chicken soup-cooking kind of guys.
Dylan and I finished eating at the same time, and I took his bowl and went to get more soup since Estella was still eating.
“Do you like it, Dylan?” Estella asked once I was sitting back down again.
Dylan nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve never had this before! You should make it again!”
There was silence as we continued eating. When we were done, Estella rose from her seat, cleared the table, and then proceeded to wash the dishes.
I just stared at her in amazement. There was a woman in my house, cooking and cleaning, and I wasn’t fucking her. That was a first.
A few minutes later, I sent Dylan to bed early—he was still coughing and sneezing, despite trying to act like he was fine—and then drove Estella home.