Helios Awakened (The Helios Chronicles #1) (5 page)

“Really?” Madison asked stunned, lost in his smooth voice and the feel of his fingertips on her face.

Andrew nodded and Madison smiled before taking a long, deep breath, resting her cheek against the palm of his hand. Andrew could feel a stirring within him and for the first time in his life he believed he might be able to have a normal life. That maybe this girl could actually care about him in a way that no one ever had.

“Madison, we all love your grandma and are glad you are here. We were really worried she was going to get sent away,” Callie said kindly.

“Well, my mom wanted to do that,” Madison replied, catching her breath and sitting up.

Andrew smiled as he tucked her hair behind her ears and, in return, she turned and offered him a smile that immediately made his heart flutter. Madison felt so alive with Andrew. He awakened things within her that she had never felt before. Callie’s perky voice forced both Madison and Andrew to look at her.

“Is it true that you’re from New York?”

“Yes, we moved to Long Island when I was eleven and then a few years ago I moved to Manhattan for my job.”

“That must be very exciting,” Callie said dreamily.

Madison laughed. It seemed that everyone who wasn’t from New York thought that about the city. It’s not that she hated it. On the contrary, she loved New York but she was lonely. She had a great job and a really nice apartment but she wanted more than that. She wanted a life worth sharing with someone. She wanted love. It was a concept that shocked her.

“It can be,” Madison finally replied. “But generally that exciting stuff only happens in the movies.”

Madison found herself leaning against Andrews’s thigh again except this time there were no tears coming out of her eyes. She lightly traced the seam of his jeans from his knee to his ankle and stopped where his skin was exposed. She found herself gently slipping her fingers underneath his pant leg and tracing the tip of her fingers against his skin, smiling at the texture of his soft hair and how it was now sticking up straight.

Andrew was aroused. He liked the feel of her fingers on his skin. He liked her touching him. He had never had anyone touch him in this manner before. The women he had been with were not like this. What Madison was doing was erotic and sexy. His body was breaking out into goose bumps all over as it responded to her gentle touches. His breathing began to change and he swallowed loudly as he leaned his head down again to inhale her sweet scent.

“Do you want me to stop?” Madison asked, never taking her eyes off of the movement her fingers were making across his skin.

She could feel her desire escalating from deep within her, at her very core she wanted and needed him. The heat between them was hotter than the desert air and the energy she felt being near him was stronger than anything she had ever felt with any man she had been around. His hot breath was bearing down on her ear and she wanted to just turn her head and press her lips against his but knew that she shouldn’t.

“No, I like it,” Andrew finally said, his voice rough and heavy with need.

“Andrew Harrison?” The man Andrew dreaded seeing the most spoke from behind him.

Andrew sat up quickly, leaving Madison breathless in anticipation. She wasn’t sure what was going on but she could feel Andrew’s body tense up. Jimmy walked over to the four of them, flanked by a couple of other guys that Madison did not recognize. Andrew and Jimmy locked eyes. The tension was clearly palpable. Madison’s heart began racing as she looked between the two obvious adversaries.

Andrew quickly moved his leg around Madison and stood up. His fists clenched at his sides as he prepared himself for the worst. He didn’t want to fight, especially in front of Madison, but he would if need be. Of course, knowing Jimmy, he wouldn’t fight. He would call the police on Andrew, landing him right back in the place he least wanted to be, prison.

“You have some nerve showing up here,” Jimmy spat at him.

“He can go where ever he pleases,” Madison interjected.

Jimmy raised his hand in a vain attempt to stop Madison from saying anything else. This simple act infuriated Madison. She had only met Jimmy once and that was earlier today. He seemed like an idiot who had gotten by on his looks for what she imagined was his whole life. He had no right to say who went anywhere. Madison stood up as well and placed herself in front of Andrew.

“Put your damn hand down. Who the hell are you to say who can and can’t be here?” Madison fumed and Andrew couldn’t help but raise his lips into a perfect smile.

“Look, you’re new around here so I’ll let that slide,” Jimmy replied while Madison rolled her eyes. Jimmy motioned his head towards Andrew and continued. “But we don’t want any sex offenders around here, so this asshole you brought with you needs to go.”

Madison gasped and Andrew’s heart sunk but it wasn’t until Madison turned to him with tears in her eyes, that he felt as if he had died a thousand deaths. He had been afraid to tell her why he had been in prison although he knew he should. She would have found out sooner or later but to have it blurted out without any explanation or background information seemed unfair. As he watched her face shift from hurt to anger to disgust and back to hurt again, his heart broke and he felt as if his world was ending, yet again.

When Jimmy had uttered the word sex offender, Madison’s mind had shifted to all kinds of possibilities, ranging from rape to sexual abuse to, well, those were the only two things she had associated with the word sex offender. Madison felt a panic begin to envelop her as she looked at him, tears pooling in her eyes.

“Is that what you were in prison for?” she asked the question he most wanted to avoid.

“I can explain,” Andrew replied meekly.

“You can explain? FUCK!” she screeched as she chided herself internally for allowing her desire to cloud her better judgment.

Madison felt as if she had made a serious mistake and she wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to get out of it. How do you explain a sex offense? Madison walked away from him, away from everyone. She was enraged. She was hurt. She was defeated. She needed distance to sort through what she was feeling. It shouldn’t have hurt her so much to hear those words associated with Andrew, but it did. It hurt her more than she wanted to admit. She felt him approach before she actually heard him begin speaking.

“I was 22 and she was 14. I swear to you that I didn’t know. I was so high and she was drunk. I know that’s not an excuse but... she told me she was 18 and I had no reason to question that. When her father found out what had happened he came looking for me, saying that I raped his daughter. I was still kind of messed up when he found me and we ended up getting into a fight. He pressed charges against me and I was convicted of statutory rape and aggravated battery because I broke his jaw. Her father wouldn’t allow her to testify and when she did come into the courthouse...” Andrew lowered his head, feeling tears pooling in his eyes, “She looked really young. I was mortified that I had actually been with her. I...” Andrew sighed uncomfortably, knowing that when he had seen her again he had actually become physically ill.

“The judge...” He shook his head, remembering how the judge had looked at him as if he were the lowest creature on earth. “I got the maximum sentence for statutory rape which was 4 years and then they tacked on another couple of years for the assault plus five years of probation and...” He hesitated, unsure why it was so difficult to tell her all of this. “I have to register as a sex offender for the rest of my life. But I swear to you, Madison, I didn’t rape her. I would never force myself on someone.”

Andrew pleaded his case, hoping against hope that she would at least not look at him the way she did a little while ago. He didn’t understand the depth of his feelings for her. They had just met but he didn’t want her to look at him like he was some sick asshole who raped little girls. He wanted her to give him a chance, to mean what she said earlier about it not mattering that he had been in prison, but when she didn’t respond he felt all hope drain from him.

“I have regretted that night ever since it happened,” he said with a sigh, “but I can’t change it and I will pay for it for the rest of my life.”

Madison wasn’t sure how she felt about what he had said. She could hear the desperation in his voice and had to fight back the urge to pull him into her arms and hold him tightly. She wanted desperately to tell him that it was okay and that it didn’t matter but she wasn’t sure that she believed that. She had told him in the car that everyone made mistakes but this was a big mistake that was hard to overlook. Yet, she was having a hard time imagining him forcing himself on anyone. She looked at the ground, feeling so many mixed emotions. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. That was eight years ago. People change, she reasoned.

“Do you still get high?” she asked softly.

Drug use was a deal breaker for Madison. She had been on that particular road before and knew where it ended. In fact, she still bore the scars of its effect.

“No, I don’t.” He touched her shoulder and when she didn’t flinch away he wanted to cry. “I was pretty messed up back then. When I got out, only my Aunt Olivia and her husband, Aaron, would take me in.”

“How did Jimmy know what happened?”

“The first year I was here I rarely left the trailer. I got a job as a mechanic and, for some reason, Jimmy ran a check on me. The registry doesn’t really say everything that happened only that I had sex with a minor. He raised a stink and got me fired. No one in town will hire me so Aaron helps me get jobs under the table, construction sometimes, working on people’s cars and stuff. But I can’t really leave because I am on probation for another three years and...” Andrew exhaled loudly and walked a little ways ahead of her, looking out onto the water. “I will always have to register as a sex offender and what happened just now will happen wherever I go.”

Andrew closed his eyes in despair, knowing that he had no right to want her; he had no right to have her accept him. He knew that he couldn’t ask her to just look passed this and pretend that it was nothing when he clearly knew that is was something, a big something, a life altering something. Andrew had made many mistakes in his life but none hurt him more than the one he made that fateful night so long ago.

Madison watched him, a forlorn look on his face. How horrible to have to live forever with a mistake you made in your youth. Madison could clearly remember times when she was in high school. She had dated many older men and had never thought much about it. What made her situation so different, aside from the fact that she didn’t have a father to ‘defend her honor’? There was definitely something about Andrew though, something that drew her to him, something that already made her care about him. She walked next to him and sat down on the grass, bringing her knees up. She wrapped her arms around them and looked up at him just as he looked down at her. She patted the grass next to her.

“Sit with me, Andrew,” she said with a smile.

Andrew was trying desperately to contain his emotions, something that he had always been able to do rather effectively. He didn’t want to make more of this than it was, but when he sat down next to her and she smiled in that flirtatious and sexy way, he felt his throat constrict. Andrew had nothing to laugh or even smile about for the past eight years, well, in reality, his whole life, but sitting there on the grass with her made him think that maybe things were changing for him. Maybe, just maybe, life could be making a turn for the better.

“Oh My God! This dry heat is seriously killing me. Give me the humidity of New York any day!”

Madison laughed as she fell backwards onto the grass. She closed her eyes and brought her hands to her side so that she could touch the soft grass. She decided at that moment that she liked him and for some reason she did not understand, he had come into her life. She wasn’t sure how Andrew being in prison would affect her or even how his past drug use would play a role, but he was in her life for a reason. She told herself that she was not going to question it; she was just going to see where it went from here. She had never felt any kind of real chemistry with anyone, but with Andrew it was emanating from every pore of his body. She felt it and she suspected that he did as well. That had to be worth something. That had to be worth at least a chance.

As Andrew looked down upon her, he smiled and felt a happiness that he had only dreamt was possible. He longingly gazed at her beautifully sun kissed face and watched as her chest rose and fell with her laughter. And for the first time in his miserable life, Andrew allowed himself to really and truly hope. Hope for love, hope for life, hope for happiness. As he stared down at her, he was overwhelmed with the desire to kiss her with every ounce of his being. Without hesitation, he started to lean down, to offer her a soft kiss on the lips. Her eyes were still closed and soon his were as well. But before Andrew’s lips could meet hers, they both heard a ruckus and opened their eyes. Madison was simultaneously stunned and aroused to see Andrew so close to her face, his lips were almost on hers but then he abruptly sat up and shook his head. She wanted to say something, to tell him it was okay, that she wanted him to kiss her, that she had wanted that from the moment she had laid eyes on him but the commotion continued and they both turned to see Jimmy pushing Jayden out of the way.

Jayden had been irate at what Jimmy had just done. Jimmy knew nothing about Andrew, well neither did Jayden for that matter, but he had a sense about people and he felt deep in his gut that Andrew was alright. Jimmy had gone too far this time, speaking for all of them as if he was the ruler of this domain.

“Why do you have to act like that? You don’t know anything!” Callie said angrily, shaking her small fist at her sides. “He wasn’t bothering anyone.”

“The registry says he raped a girl. That’s all I need to know,” Jimmy stated as if that was the only explanation that was of importance.

“You don’t know shit, Bowers. You’re just being an ass,” Jayden said vehemently.

“So you’re okay hanging out with a guy that raped someone?” Jimmy questioned.

“All I’m saying is that we should give him the benefit of the doubt. You don’t...” Jayden started to say but Jimmy, as he had done with Madison, raised his hand stopping Jayden from finishing his comment.

“Well, I don’t want a rapist around me but it’s obvious that you do. Of course it figures, with you being raised by faggots, that you wouldn’t think it was a big deal. Hell, Harrison was in prison so maybe he’s a faggot too. Maybe that’s why you think he’s alright.”

Jimmy smiled as the blood drained from Jayden’s face. He felt empowered once again. Jayden had always been a challenge for him. He didn’t care about pleasing anyone yet he cared about everyone. He refused to toe the line and do as everyone else did. He dressed funny, he acted funny, and he talked funny. He represented everything that Jimmy hated and now he was defending some known sex offender.

Callie gasped and tears came down her face. Jayden looked at his beautifully sensitive girlfriend crying and was filled with rage. He didn’t care what Jimmy thought of him, he never did, which had made Jimmy hate him even more. In all honesty, Jimmy hated everyone that didn’t follow whatever he deemed was appropriate. Jayden moved real close to him as a stealth predator would.

“Fuck you, Jimmy. At least my parents love each other and didn’t fuck around on one another every chance they got.”

Jimmy’s faced turned as red as a beet as rage filled within him and he attacked Jayden. He pushed Jayden and soon they were both on the ground, throwing punches at one another.

Without thinking, Andrew stood up and raced over to where the two men were scuffling and quickly pushed his way through the crowd. He looked at the two men and reached down, grabbing Jimmy by the back of his shirt and tossing him to the side. Jimmy turned and stared into Andrews’s hard face. Andrew’s eyes were dark and his brows were furrowed. His body was already in a fighting stance, ready to attack should the need arise. At that moment, Andrew looked lethal, like he could actually kill someone. Jimmy drew his fist back to defend himself but the look on Andrew’s face frightened him enough that he decided retreat was the better option. Jimmy jumped up and out of the way, still seething with anger as his friends started brushing him off.

“You stay the fuck away from me, Harrison or I’ll call the damn cops on your ass!” Jimmy said with venom in his voice.

Jimmy turned around and scowled at Jayden as if to say their tiff was not over. He then proceeded to make his way over towards Brie. Andrew watched as he embraced her and then shot Andrew a lethal glare. Andrew stared at him and assessed that Jimmy was all talk and no fight but he sensed that he would also need to keep an eye on him. Andrew turned back to Jayden and reached down, helping him up.

“You okay?” Andrew asked concerned.

“Yeah, it’s not the first time Jimmy and I have rolled around in the dirt,” Jayden said nonchalantly.

“What were you two fighting about?” Madison asked quietly, although she had a strong suspicion, she wanted to make sure.

“Jimmy shouldn’t have done what he did to Andrew just now. That was wrong,” Callie said indignantly.

“He was just being an asshole,” Jayden said standing tall, he turned to Andrew. “I mean, I don’t know the situation or anything but I am not going to judge you on it until I know the facts. What Jimmy did was so uncool. We aren’t all judgmental jerks, Andrew. If you want to say what happened that’s cool, if not, that’s cool too. If there’s one thing I have learned from my parents, it’s never to judge others.”

Callie squeezed his hand and he looked at her, smiling. Jayden knew Callie understood. They had been together from the time they were children. Jayden had moved to town when he was twelve and they had hit it off immediately, starting out as best friends and eventually turning into lovers. When Jayden’s family first arrived in town everyone talked and whispered about them. No one had ever seen two gay men raising a child, but Jayden’s parents were sweet and kind and Callie had loved them immediately. Jayden truly had no patience or tolerance for judgmental people which had been why he had always been considered a freak by his peers. A banner he had worn proudly.

Andrew stepped back, shaking his head. So few people in his life had ever stood up for him, defended him, yet these two people whom he had barely met were willing to do that. He could feel his eyes moisten and was shocked at the fact that there were tears pooling there. He didn’t know what to think. His initial thought when all this had happened was that he needed to get the hell out of there but now he wasn’t so sure that was the best course of action. He was so used to shutting people out but he really didn’t want to do that anymore, especially where Madison was concerned.

Andrew stood there with his eyes shut tight as he tried to wrap his head around the last couple of hours. Since he had met Madison he had experienced feelings within himself that he had never thought he would be capable of, he had been shown a glimpse of what friendship would look like and he had seen someone look at him with adoration and kindness. She brought out a side of him that he thought would never resurface. All of this was new and exciting for Andrew but it also left him filled with an immense panic that it would slip away just as quickly as it had arrived. Nothing in his life ever worked out right and people usually proved that they could not be trusted or relied upon. Would Madison prove this as well? In the midst of his chaotic inner ramblings, he felt Madison’s warm hand wrap around his. He looked down at it, his heart racing. How was it that a 30-year-old man had never felt the intimacy of holding a woman’s hand?