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When I opened the door, Maverick sat on the couch with a worried look on his face. “I’ve been so worried,” he said, shooting up. “You didn’t text back, and I called—,”
I’d been in such a daze on the way back that I hadn’t noticed he called. I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to stop the tears.
Maverick stopped cold when he noticed my face, his chest rising and falling quickly. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
I opened my mouth to explain but a sob came out. Maverick pulled me to his bare chest and rubbed his palm down my back. “What is it? Tell me.”
I didn’t have a chance. The front door opened and Waverly walked in as if she owned the place. She chuckled when she noticed us.
Maverick’s palms stilled on my back. “Why are you here?” he asked. “Jordan isn’t—,”
“I’m not here to seeJordan,” she said sarcastically. “I’m here to tell you what your girlfriend has been doing tonight.”
I stilled.There is no way she knows about that.Maverick groaned something out. “Leave, Waverly, no one cares about your pathetic attempts on trying to—,”
She shoved her phone in Maverick’s face and I stepped back to get a good look. There they were. Pictures. Tons of them. All of Derek and I at the gallery. Us eating, us laughing, him trying to kiss me—vomit climbed my throat.
She grinned. “Coming to suck up to your little boyfriend after getting friendly with Professor Howard? What a slut.”
Maverick’s chest rose and fell quickly, his mouth hung open in a hurt way that shattered my soul.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” she asked, swaying in her cheer skirt and urging him to let loose on me.
“Get out,” he hissed.
Waverly cocked her head. “Excuse me?”
“Get out!” he screamed.
She stumbled back against the door, catching her cell phone as Maverick tossed it at her and scurried from our apartment. “What a freak,” she said as she raced toward the stairs.
I waited for the lashing he would give me. I hadn’t explained yet and it looked bad. He didn’t speak, he stared into space as if he’d find an answer somewhere in the atmosphere.
“Maverick,” I whispered. “He tried to kiss me, and I—,”
“No,” he said, screwing his eyes shut. “No, no, no.”
Maverick fell to the couch, holding his head in his palms. This wasn’t what I expected. “Maverick, I’m sorry, I was coming to tell you, I didn’t kiss him, I—,”
Maverick bounded up. “What’s Professor Howard’s name, Josie?”
“I—Derek.”
A tear slid down Maverick’s cheek, and his bottom lip trembled as it had in the past, like a small child.
“Maverick, what’s wrong?”
He took my hand and guided me to the spot next to him. “Derek caused all of this, Josie. He’s the reason for my nightmares, and he’s the reason I hated you so much.”
I waited for him to give me a reason. I didn’t meet Maverick until ninth grade and Derek until the start of the semester. “I don’t understand.”
Maverick sat back against the couch, his legs spread wide and his eyes distant. “He sold drugs to my mother, got her hooked, and then pimped her out around Slaughter. He is the devil, Josie. You have to stay away from him.”
***
Maverick
Josie’s eyes rounded as I watched for a reaction. She had no idea what that man would do to her. He’d ruined my mother more so than she was already tainted. Josie interlaced her fingers with mine and waited.
