LORA POV

I can't stop my hands from reaching to touch my lips. My heart is beating erratically as Jake Lloyd drives me home. He's a friend of Luka's and my brother's.

"Thanks for driving me," I say. He nods at me and smiles but my mind has already wandered again.

We were so close.

I can't believe I let Maddox in. I shouldn't have let him get so close to me.

And yet, I can feel myself still wanting more, to feel his lips on mine, his hands in my hair, and mine in his.

I almost laugh out loud before remembering that I'm not alone in the car and I don't want to explain to a boy why I'm laughing to myself like a madwoman.

Maddox Cade almost kissed me.

And I almost let him.

I'm so stupid. One second he was telling me how he would never like a girl like me and the next he's leaning in close, too close...

"I think you're beautiful, sweetheart."

I can feel my skin tingling as I remember the way his voice dropped an octave and his pupils dilated as he leaned in close and gave me an idea of how truly commanding he really is.

He called me sweetheart and I let him.

The name rolled off his tongue like nothing and I curse myself, realizing how many girls he must have called that before. I'm so stupid. He's just toying with me, treating me like an object. Hell, he even said just before that he would never date me.

I'm the stupidest girl alive.

I can't believe I would even fall for something like that. I can bet you he's at home smirking to himself right now, shaking his head at the stupid little girl that I am. 

"Are you okay?" I hear a male voice ask suddenly. I jolt and break out of my reverie. 

"What?" I ask. Jake smiles at me.

"I asked if you were okay?" he repeats.

I shrug. "Great as can be. Why would you think otherwise? I'm fine."

He looks at me. "So this has nothing to do with the boy that I just took you from?"

I stare at him. "No? Why would you think that?"

He just shrugs and turns back to the road, a slight smile on his face. I roll my eyes but turn back to my thoughts, ignoring whatever Jake is thinking right now. When we finally reach my house, I turn to him before getting out.

"Maddox Kade is a bad boy. I have nothing to do with him and I never will. We're not friends and we never will be. Thanks for asking, though," I say to Jake, who just nods and smirks, not saying anything. 

I huff and get out of the car. "Have a good rest of the day! And try not to touch your lips. You did that a lot in the car," Jake says, smiling widely at me before pulling away. 

I groan.

I head inside and close the door behind me. My mother isn't home from work yet so I basically have the house all to myself, since my little brothers are probably still at school at their afterschool daycare. I head up to my room and flop on my bed. I scream into the bedsheets for a good thirty seconds before sitting up, taking deep breaths. 

I grab my phone and call Lacey. She doesn't pick up until the third ring and when she does, she switches the call to FaceTime and narrows her eyes at me. "I hate you," she says. 

I look at her, surprised. "What?" is all I come up with.

"How dare you ditch me at the party last night? Do you know how worried I was? I looked everywhere for you and you weren't picking up your phone. Where did you even go? And why didn't you call me to tell me you were leaving?" Lacey looks actually upset, which surprises me.

"I didn't even want to go to the party in the first place!" I protest. "And then when I wanted to leave, I couldn't find you. I don't know where you went and I was drunk out of my mind, you know how I am with alcohol, and then I left but I didn't have a ride and for some reason, I thought it would be smart to walk home. Alone. In the dark. In my clothes. The provocative party clothes you picked out for me. So how dare you yell at me when I could have been raped? Or attacked and killed by some wild animal!"

For some reason, a rush of anger runs through my veins and yelling at Lacey seems to subdue it. She just stares at me. "So how did you get home?" is all she finally asks.

I look at her. "No, 'are you okay?' or 'I'm so sorry, Lora, I'll make it up to you, especially since I dragged you to the party—'"

She cuts me off. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. But you should have called. Or at least tried harder to find me. I would have driven you home if you really wanted to go. But how did you get home?"

I roll my eyes and wave her off. "Maddox Kade took me to his house."

Her eyes pop out of her head and the room is silent for a full ten seconds before she explodes.

"WHAT? LORA, YOU'RE EFFING WITH ME, RIGHT?" I laugh at my best friend's inability to curse, even in times like these. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? MADDOX EFFING KADE, THE BAD BOY. THE SCHOOL HOTTIE. THE PLAYER. YOU'RE JOKING, RIGHT?" She narrows her eyes at me. "I swear to GOD, Lora, if this is a prank, so help me I'll—"

"IT'S NOT A PRANK!" I shout to get her to stop talking. Or ranting. "What's the big deal? I was drunk on the side of the road, my thumb out apparently, so I guess I was hitchhiking, and he happened to pass by and took me to his house."

"Why didn't he take you home?" she asks suspiciously. "Did you guys do anything?" she asks next. 

My eyes bulge out of their sockets. "Are you kidding? ME AND MADDOX KADE?" I ask. I have an innate urge to maniacally laugh but I hold myself in. "He didn't want to take me home because a) he probably doesn't know where it is and b) he probably didn't want to make my parents up with my drunken self."

Lacey nods. "He's smart, I'll give him that. Where did you sleep?"

I roll my eyes. "His bed. BUT," I add, before she can start screaming again, "it wasn't like that, I swear."

Lacey stares at me. "How can you know that? You were drunk, weren't you? Lora, what if he took advantage of you?" 

I gape at her. "He wouldn't do that!"

"He's a player, Lora. The school man whore? You know, you might have said yes, considering what you're like when you're drunk. And he took that as consent enough and BAM you're pregnant."

"Lacey, that's awful. And Maddox wouldn't do something like that to me." Or would he?

He is a player. And I do say overly stupid things when I'm drunk. What if I did give consent? It's technically rape but what if...

But no, he wouldn't do that.

"What do you mean? And why are you calling him Maddox like that?"

I look at Lacey. "What do you mean 'like that'? I'm just saying his name like a normal person."

Lacey rolls her eyes. "We've called him Kade his whole life, Lora. And it's never been with that breathy tone behind it. You guys definitely did something. What aren't you telling me?" 

I shake my head. "We didn't do anything. And I don't know, I guess I started calling him Maddox since I've actually met him." Lacey just stares at me as if she doesn't believe me. 

"Look, I've gotta go," I say. "I'm going to figure everything out."

"You should at least confront him and see if he actually did anything while you were drunk," Lacey says.

"He wouldn't take advantage of me like that, Lacey," I say. But my head says something different.

What if?

that's a wrap on chapter five! let me know what you think!

chapter six will probably be coming a lot sooner than you'd think!

malaynaturally xx