B R E N

What kind of man could smother the fire out of a girl like that?

I grimaced at the question, staring at the two people in front of me.

Madie Lenertz, the strawberry-blonde who'd been smiling brightly just a minute ago, shifted on her feet. Her head dropped as she stared down at her white, spotless sneakers. A curtain of hair fell over her face, hiding her expression as her hulk of a boyfriend wrapped an arm around her waist. He tugged her roughly into his side.

A surprised gasp fell from Madie's lips, but she didn't look up.

Maybe she wasn't actually surprised.

"Hey, man," the guy said to me. His voice was friendly, but I knew better than to believe it. Any hope of getting to know the nice girl I'd just met was going down the drain as this blonde-hair, blue-eyed, muscly man stared at me, trying to pummel my ass down into the ground with his gaze. "I'm Quinton," he added. "Reid."

The addition of his last name made it seem like I was supposed to recognize him.

I didn't.

He stuck his hand out, and I tried to ignore the fact that his arms were like the size of my goddamn thighs.

"Bren," I said, shaking his extended hand and pretending as though he wasn't crushing every one of those tiny bones in mine. I refused to let his hard stare and grip intimidate me.

"Bren?" he repeated.

With a nod, I placed the leftover pizza in my spare hand down on the counter. I'd come into the dorm commons kitchen for a bite to eat, but my hunger seemed to have slipped away.

After a few seconds of thinking about that, Quinton turned his attention to Madie.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, glancing down at her. Madie wasn't a particularly small girl. She was only an inch or two shorter than me and had some curves to her, but she appeared petite next to her boyfriend.

Boyfriend.

I wasn't surprised she had one. Even if she didn't, she was so far out of my league that I was shocked she even started talking to me. Madie was nice, though, seeming genuinely kind, and purely based on the five-minute conversation we'd had before Quinton interrupted, I thought that maybe we could be friends.

I realized now that was unlikely.

"I was waiting for you to be ready to go out," she said with her smile. Her tone was timid.

Timid wasn't a word I would have used to describe her a minute ago. Not before this guy walked into the kitchen. No, a few minutes ago, I'd had my head buried in the refrigerator and nearly slammed it against the top when a bright voice called out.

"Hey!"

I hadn't even realized anyone else was around, too focused on the pizza calling my name. But that voice, that simple hey, had pulled at me more than even carbs. I'd spun, coming face-to-face with...her.

Madie had been sitting on the kitchen countertop, swinging her legs back and forth like she was on a swing. She grinned as she pulled a spoon out between her lips, licking the silver metal in a way that directed all of my attention to her mouth. A few freckles danced along the edges of her pink lips, teasing whoever dared to look at them.

I'd dared to look, even though now I wished I hadn't. She'd had a goddamn instantaneous effect on me, making a hot shiver run up the back of my neck. It left me flustered as I tossed my free hand through the pile of messy hair on top of my head, cursing my awkwardness.

It hadn't phased her, though. Madie had an open tub of ice cream in one hand and stuck her spoon into the top of the white, creamy dessert. She'd blinked at me.

"Hey," I'd said after clearing my throat and nodding my head in greeting. "Ice cream from the gallon kind of night?"

The hell if I knew why I'd asked that. It wasn't exactly a secret that a girl eating straight from the ice cream tub had the potential to be an emotional mess, and I hadn't meant to invite that kind of conversation into my life.

I didn't come to college to get involved in drama. Nah, I was here to get away from it, even if Oakland State was purgatory—some awkward space between childhood and the real world.

The real world. It wasn't my favorite way to describe adulthood. It implied that life before it was somehow more sheltered, more simplistic. Fuck that idea. I'd learned that age had nothing to do with the shit you got exposed to, not when you grew up in a family like mine.

Madie had dipped her spoon into the tub again and simply tilted her head to the side. "Not quite. This is Cool Whip."

I'd nearly snorted at her response. "You're just sitting there, eating Cool Whip by the spoonfuls?"

A little coy smirk had appeared on her face before a pointed look flashed my way. "Hey, don't judge."

I'd thrown my hands up in the universal sign of defeat.

"And I've only had two spoonfuls, so it's barely even weird," she'd added, flinging her spoon around like she was conducting whatever it was that was going on between us.

Which she had been. With just the two of us, Madie had controlled the room.

Opening the box of leftover pizza, I'd leaned against the fridge. "Do you also eat peanut butter by the spoonful?"

A tiny smile and a shrug. "Sometimes."

"Frosting?"

"Depends which kind."

"Okay, which kind would you eat?"

A scoff. Another wave of her spoon." Obviously funfetti."

She'd thrown the lid back on the Cool Whip and set it down beside her. Hopping from the countertop, Madie walked toward me, one hand in her ripped jeans pocket and the other holding the Cool Whip container. There was this saunter to her step. Not cockiness or even confidence. Just a...relaxed ease.

Like an idiot, I'd stood there and watched her approach, wondering what she was doing. She stopped just a step away, staring at me expectantly, big blue eyes catching on my face. God, those eyes.

"Excuse me." Her voice laughed at me a bit.

"Oh!" I'd jumped—again, like an idiot—as I realized I was in front of the refrigerator. "Sorry."

"No worries. I'm Madie, by the way." After throwing the container onto one of the shelves in the fridge, she'd smiled—a bright, wide, body-tightening smile. That smile did things to me that I couldn't explain. Well, I could explain them. But I shouldn't. I wouldn't.

The memory of her grin pulled me back into the present. That smile from a few minutes ago was nothing like the expression on her face now that she stood next to Quinton. It bothered me, that change in her demeanor. More than it should have.

I looked at the two of them before me. Madie was still hiding behind all that hair of hers, but I had a guess of what I'd find if she looked up.

Besides the bit of color pinching her cheeks, she had a pale complexion, but it washed out completely when Quinton walked up.

Quinton's eyes flicked from me to his girlfriend and back again, and as the silence stretched between us, Madie glanced upward. She noticed his stare and forced a smile.

"Bren came to get something from the fridge, and we were chatting," she explained.

It was chilling how quiet it grew. The only noise cutting the silence was the buzzing of the fluorescent light on the ceiling. It single-handedly illuminated the room's edgy colors, stainless steel appliances, and uncomfortable-looking furniture, and it also illuminated Madie's vacant expression. As well as Quinton's haunting one.

I couldn't look at them any longer. I tilted my head, letting my eyes wander to the flickering light. It blinked at me like some Morse code message, and I searched for a pattern. That had never been my thing, though. Numbers, patterns, logic...it all had a way of messing with my brain like a bad hangover.

It wasn't that hard to figure out the message, though.

Stay the hell away from Quinton Reid.

Quinton finally shrugged and urged Madie toward the door to the kitchen. "Well, I'm here now. So let's get going."

"Okay," Madie said softly, quietly. She turned to glance at me once more. "Bye, Bren."

"See ya," I said, my voice barely audible.

But it didn't matter. She was already gone.

Madie. Her name was about all I knew about her. Definitively, anyway.

Another shiver ran through me. I could still feel her lingering gaze, even now that she'd left. I felt it dancing across my skin and digging around in my soul. And it made me want to go and grab her, to keep her here with me. But shit, I also wanted to run away—so far away.

Because I knew the kind of man who could smother the fire out of a girl like that.

And like hell if I wanted anything to do with him.

🖤
Thanks so much for checking out the first chapter of It Burns Within Us!