Page 70 of Mad Boys


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I glanced down at my suit and then at her. “Yeah, I’ll be right back, and I got your stuff…including the assignment to readSense and Sensibility.”

“Thank you,” she called and there was so much warmth in those two words, it buoyed my mood. Lachlan’s unwelcome presence had soured the day some, but KC made it better.

Ten minutes later, I foamed my first milk and she wasn’t wrong. For all the buttons and controls on this thing, it was pretty straightforward. She laughed when I got a good foamy cap on the first try.

“That’s not always easy,” she said. “You should be proud. It took me a week to get the right amount of foam, then foam art took a little longer.”

“Foam art? Oh, making the pictures in it? You can do that?” It wasn’t a big deal, except it was kind of cool.

“I can,” she said, before taking a sip of her coffee. “That will be lesson twoafteryou master making the coffee without supervision.”

I could live with that. “Deal.” Now that we had our coffee, I headed over to my bag to get her stuff out. “Did you want to do something? Watch a movie? Order in dinner? Take it easy?” Then again, she’d also missed classes for a reason. “I know you’re tired, so if you wanted to get comfortable, I could take care of stuff.”

The flow of words spilled out of me in a rush. I nearly sagged from the exhaustion of getting them out. Misty, my therapist, was always telling me to verbalize. But that was a lot of verbal for me.

“That sounds great,” she admitted. “But I have homework.”

“Me too…we actually have to read that book.” I’d instead stick pins in my eyes. “But maybe we could work together? We might be faster, and then we could watch a movie.”

A thoughtful look crossed her face as she claimed her corner of the sofa after I removed my backpack. I set her folder and copy of the book on the table. I wasn’t sure if she preferred to read eBooks or not. She might. But since I didn’t know, I checked us both out copies of the required reading.

“Can we not watch the movies based on this book?” She picked it up. “I mean, not yet. Like watch something fun? Or maybe this is fun for you?”

Putting my coffee on the table in front of us, I tested a smile. It wasn’t so hard. Then I dropped onto my seat at the other end of the sofa. “I’ve never seen those movies. So…I don’t know if they are fun.”

Which was true.

“I was thinking of an action film or a comedy. Something to just be fun?” I hadn’t done much fun since before summer except… I pushed up the sleeve of my shirt. “The last fun thing I did was get my dad to update my sleeve.”

Long sleeves was just a habit I had when at school, mostly cause we weren’t supposed to show off our tats and I had way more than was legal in most places. But Mom didn’t care and Dad did them so…

“Your father’s a tattoo artist?” She leaned forward to study the guitar and base he’d finished. It wasn’t the only thing he’d finished for me, but I liked the musical representation.

“Yep,” I said. “He’s based out of Denver now, but he used to be in Los Angeles. He’s got a good eye.” It was how he’d met my mother. But… yeah, I skated right past that. “He’s been teaching me, but drawing isn’t my strong suit.”

The heart on the side of her hand, the one tattoo I could make out at the moment, had been filled in. I thought it was just an outline before. Maybe it had always been filled in.

“I like those,” she offered as she motioned to the banner across the heart covering part of the guitar. “He’s got great lettering technique.” She set her coffee aside and tugged off the plaid shirt to reveal one of her arms.

Even living together, I hadn’t gotten close-ups with any of her tattoos.

“The wildflowers,” she said as she extended her arm and there were a lot of them twining around her arm. More, there was a moth, a raven, a moon… so many different elements intertwined with the flowers. There was a rose on her shoulder…a very familiar one. “They’re about living life on my terms. Wildflowers—they grow anywhere, in any terrain, and sometimes in the most inhospitable conditions. They’ll grow right up through a crack in the sidewalk.”

“I like that,” I said, trying to memorize the art. She was right, most tattoos had meaning. The rose I’d added to my own did. But… yeah maybe not the time to bring it up. “Is living life on your terms important?”

“People love to consume and criticize celebrities until many budding stars begin to question if they are even built for this life.” The comment resonated and there wasn’t an ounce of arrogance in her tone. “They’ve been judging me since before I could talk. Some have been judging me since before I was born.” Her gaze went distant. “My parents are…well…yeah you know who they are, don’t you?”

It was the first time we crossed the rubble of revelations made the previous year. We hadn’t discussed her father at all. Gibs was a great guy; I couldn’t admire him more if I tried.

Somehow…I didn’t think KC did and I wanted to know why. She traced her finger over the moth.

“This is for them… for being trapped between them forever. Trapped by them and their reputations. Being a Crosse sometimes sucks.”

I hated that for her. “Wh—”

Her phone buzzed and then chimed with a familiar tune it played. Someone was messaging and calling her. The noise thoroughly punctured the bubble around us, and she tugged her shirt back on before looking at her phone.

Worry creased her expression. “I have to take this… sorry.” Then she was up and striding for her room. The door closing behind her seemed to put a period on the moment.

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