The Change Up Page 28

“And then they pushed him right off.”

“And what she’s failing to tell you, is that they didn’t push me off a cliff, they pushed me off the dock of my family’s lake. I splashed into the water rather than bungee jumped.”

“What?” Kinsley asks, laughing hard. “You tricked him?”

Joan nods with humor as I sit there completely lost. “The old fart—well, young at the time—refused to give in to his feelings, so I pretended to send him bungee jumping with friends, and they tricked him. He was so scared he wasn’t going to live, that he finally told me his feelings.”

“Forced them right out of me,” Melvin says, taking another bite of the bread on his plate, obviously enjoying the flavors.

“What an interesting story,” Kinsley says and nudges me. “Isn’t that interesting, Maddox?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say automatically, my skin practically crawling from how uncomfortable I am.

Joan must sense the tension building inside me, because after studying me for a few seconds, she pats her legs and says, “Well, we must be on our way. We have some more bread to make to take to the homeless shelters tomorrow. Thank you for taste-testing for us.”

“Anytime,” Kinsley says, standing while Melvin helps Joan to her feet. She walks them over to the door, gives them both a hug and of course, Herman follows as well and they give him a pat. They wave to me, I awkwardly wave back, and then the door is shut. Kinsley turns to me, hands on her hips. “Maddox, could you be any ruder?”

“What?” I ask, feeling so fucking confused. What just happened and why am I getting the wrath of Kinsley right now?

“You were like a stone. They obviously left because you were stewing on the couch, barely breathing, just spouting steam from your ears.”

“Because there were strangers in my apartment.”

“They’re not strangers, they’re your neighbors.”

“Which is a stranger to me.” I stand and try to calm myself as I say, “I don’t want people here I don’t know. I told you that.”

“You met Joan in the hall. Melvin is her husband. He’s very kind.”

“I don’t care if he’s kind or not. I don’t know him or really Joan for that matter.”

“But I know them. Don’t you trust me?”

I blow out a frustrated breath. “Of course I trust you, Kinsley. But this is my space, the one place I can go that is safe, away from fans, photographers, reporters. It’s rare when I even bring my friends back here.”

“Why?”

Herman ignores the both of us and hobbles over to his bed where he makes a disinterested sound and collapses on the cushion.

“Why are you so closed off when it comes to your apartment?” she asks, interest, and also irritation in her voice.

I let out a frustrated breath and stare down at the carpet, reminding myself that I’m trying to make small steps. But she’s pissing me off. Rules. I set rules for a goddamn reason, and it seems like she doesn’t care about stepping over all of them.

“You out of anyone should know what a safe place means to me,” I say, softly. And when I look up, her face falls flat as she realizes what I said.

Her hand covers her mouth, and she quickly rushes over to me. I can sense the onslaught of apologies coming and I really don’t want to hear them. That’s not what I want to do tonight. I want to start taking small steps toward an intimate relationship with her, not go through a round of apologies.

And the thing is, she does know me, more than anyone. And she’d never intentionally do shit to annoy me. But she’s always been so much more inclusive of people than I have. Always tried to bring me into groups of friends that I really didn’t give a shit about. We haven’t spent enough time with each other over the last ten years to come across these idiosyncrasies, I guess. So, I have to forgive her. I am who I am, and she will eventually realize that I’m set in my ways. It keeps me sane.

And I know she loves me.

So before she can start apologizing, I say, “Please just check with me. I want you to be able to treat my apartment as yours and I get you’re a social person, but just check with me so I can prepare myself. Okay?”

She nods and when she goes to hug me I stop her. Her frightened face stares up at me as I grip her chin with my forefinger and thumb. Softly, I say, “I don’t want to make this a thing. I don’t want to spend the night with you apologizing to me, because I know that’s what you will do.”

She swallows hard. “Okay.”

“Long fucking day. It’s late. I think we should take Herman out and then go to bed.”

“You want to take Herman out?”

“I don’t want you doing it yourself. This is a nice neighborhood, but still, making you walk a dog by yourself in the evening, is not something I’m about to do.”

I walk over to the entryway, grab his leash, and hand it to her. She calls Herman over, I snag the keys, and we walk out of the apartment and lock up.

The mood has shifted. She’s somber, upset, probably feeling a whole lot guilty. I want us to be able to have fun, so I can fucking flirt with this girl.

We hop in the elevator and on the way down, I nudge her with my foot and say, “Are you going to have a sour look on your face for the rest of the night?”

Her eyes shoot up to mine. “I don’t have a sour look on my face.”

“You do. Your lips are pursed like you just had a bad lemon.” I impersonate the look and she quickly nudges me back.

“I do not look like that.”

“You totally do.” I keep doing the face and she laughs while playfully pushing me.

“I do not have that face.”

The elevator dings and opens, we both walk into the lobby of the building and then out to the quiet streets. I reach down and take her hand in mine and start to walk her around the block along with Herman.

“Your hand is clammy,” I say, shaking it away and rubbing my hand on my thigh.

“It is not.” She laughs and reaches for my hand.

“No way.” I step away from her. “I don’t want your clam hand getting my palm all sweaty and gross.”

Her eyes widen and a smirk crosses over her features. “I do not have clam hands.”

“The clammiest hands if I ever did feel them. Didn’t think someone could sweat that much out of their hands, but you proved me wrong.”

“You think you’re really funny, don’t you?” she asks as Herman stops to sniff a wad of gum on the sidewalk. “If you really want to hit me where it hurts, why don’t you tell me I smell like dog?”

“I mean, now that you brought it up . . .”

“Maddox,” she says sternly, causing me to roar with laughter as we continue down the sidewalk.

“Come on, Kinny. Lighten up, babe. We’re cool, okay? I want to see that smile. Things have been . . . intense lately, and I just want to fucking have fun with you.”

“Okay, but can I at least apologize first?”

She pleads with me, those pitifully apologetic eyes of hers staring up at me. “You have five seconds.”

She grabs me by the hand, stops me from moving, and offers me a one-armed hug. I return it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t consider your need for privacy. I respect that. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You’re forgiven. Now, let’s move on.” I wrap my arm around her and we start walking down the block again, Herman sniffing everything on the way. “So you watched the game?”

“Yeah, bits and pieces. I wasn’t glued to it.”

“You weren’t waiting to catch me on camera, hoping and praying I graced the television screen?”

“Please. I have to look at you every night, you think I want to look at you on the television too?” she teases and I start to relax, knowing that everything will be okay, even though I lectured her back at the apartment.

“You think I don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” she asks as Herman finds a patch of grass fitting to make his nightly deposit on.

“Your obsession. I saw the inside flap of your suitcase, all the cut-out pictures of me with giant hearts around my head. Your secret is out, Kin.”

She laughs so hard that it almost hurts my pride. Is it that preposterous to have a crush on me? I mean, I’m not full of myself by any means, but I’ve seen the way she’s looked at my body, how other women have looked at me. I’m a good-looking guy, not a hardship to ogle.

“You know, the heavy laughter is hurting my man feelings.”

She laughs even harder. And when Herman finishes his business, she cleans up after him and tosses away the evidence—one compromise I made with her, no dog shit in the apartment. So she uses biodegradable bags and takes care of the poop outside. Thankfully. For all I know, she’d want to start her own manure company with Herman as the face of the brand.

As we walk back, she settles down and finally says, “I think your man feelings can survive.”

I don’t think they can.

We make it back to the apartment and get Herman settled before heading into the bedroom. Kinsley gets ready first, shutting the bathroom door behind her as I sit on my bed and stare at my phone.

Debating if I should text for some advice or not, I cave in and shoot Cory a text.

Maddox: Dude, I’m crashing and burning over here.

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