Mad Love

Chapter 1

“So I’ll swing by tomorrow and pick it up, no big deal,” she shrugged, smiling her cat’s smile again, telling me without words that it was OK and that I was overreacting.

Tomorrow. She might as well have stripped naked and climbed the guy like a tree for all that this scandalised me. She’d be spending the night with him. Oh. My.

The guy was scary. Covered in tattoos, clad in a leather jacket that marked him as belonging to some gang or another – a biker gang, most likely, since the town had long been riddled with them, but they’d rarely registered with me, hanging out mostly in the bad part of town, as my mother put it, so that they were just background noise for the most part, no threat.

Helen’s impatient call for me to join them stilled my renewed pleading, and then Helen’s brother was exiting the car and jogging over to me, looking annoyed.

He gave Maddie a ‘why-am-I-not-surprised’ once over before motioning for me to come, his eyes lingering a little too long on my chest. I was surprised by the dislike this wrought in me.

I’d had a raging crush on Sam for years – in fact I’d been thrilled we’d all be sleeping over at Helen’s tonight because I knew Sam was home from college and my girlish fantasies had seen him falling head over heels for me and us having a magical summer – all vanilla stuff, really, and very far from the intent behind the look in his eye or the very real pressure of his hand just above my ass, attempting to escort me to his shiny graduation present.

“No – you go on ahead, I’m going with Maddie-”

Maddie’s mocking smile to Sam slipped and she stared at me in bemusement.

“Yeah?” she looked hopeful.

“Unless you don’t want me to?” I said, steeling myself for her to say no, that I should go with Helen and Alex.

“Well…sure. I do,” she shrugged, trying to look indifferent but failing. She looked pleased, proud of me, even.

“Don’t be stupid, Isabelle,” Sam rolled his eyes at me.

“I’m staying with Maddie-” I gave him an irritated look for his condescension, and then his hand moved from my back to my arm, encircling me as he attempted to tug me with him to the car, visibly revelling in his two years superiority over me.

“Let go of her.”

Sam and I looked away from each other and towards the speaker of that cool statement in surprise.

Maddie’s boyfriend looked pointedly at Sam’s hand on arm, and Sam suddenly released me, but he didn’t leave.

“Get out of here, Samuel,” Maddie taunted. “Go on – we’ll be fine. Red will take care of us.”

I eyed Red curiously and his chest seemed to puff at Maddie’s words.

“Fine,” Sam spat, stalking away before pausing as he made to duck into his car. He threw a dirty look our way, but he was cowed. Sam wasn’t the sort to be easily cowed but then again it wasn’t every day that a privileged kid from the good part of town butted heads with a supposed gang member. I guess that little fact should have scared me, but if anything, it made me feel safe.

“So – how we gonna do this, babe?” Red rubbed at his chin idly as the Audi sped away, smirking as he looked at me.

“Oh, crap, yeah,” Maddie giggled. “Only two seats on his bike,” she explained.

“You mean he’s really a biker?” I whispered as this Red turned away to make a call. “As in, part of a…gang?”

All I needed was pearls to clutch and I'd really complete the picture of outraged maiden.