Chapter 28
This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but that doesn’t stop me from pulling up outside the forest green house on Founders Way. The same house I’ve spent that last four Sunday nights at.
This isn’t my place.
The thought sits with me for a long moment, the engine ticking at it cools. I stare at the yellow front door like it might open on its own and save me the trouble of walking up to it.
I could turn around. Drive back into town, stop for a cup of coffee at Cobble & Cup Cafe, hit the gym. I could be anywhere else, but I’m not.
I keep telling myself I’d do this for any friend. If Ryan called me up, told me his world just cracked open, and his parents essentially ignored him, I’d be at their front door too. That’s what friends do. They show up.
The problem is none of my friends have ever found themselves in a situation like this. None of them have sat at a family dinner and watched their mother flee a room. None of them have announced a pregnancy to a table full of people they love who went silent in all the wrong ways.
So maybe I’m here because I’d do this for any friend. Or maybe I’m here because it’s Madison and I’m not capable of letting the people she loves hurt her.
I’ve spent most of my adult life being very good at staying away.
From people, from places, from anything that might ask more of me than I’m capable of giving.
I built an entire career around it. Write an album, record it, tour it, and then move on to the next one before anyone gets close enough to ask what’s underneath.
It’s worked for a long time. Or at least, it worked well enough that I stopped thinking about it.
Until I parked outside an inn in Stonebridge Hollow and everything came back into view.
Madison makes it impossible to stay away. Not because she asked me to—she’s never asked me for anything—but because she’s made the idea of leaving feel like something I can’t survive. It’s not the physical act of driving out of town, because I know I can always come back.
It’s what it would cost me to close the door on whatever this is between us and pretend it never happened. I’ve closed a lot of doors. I know what it feels like. And I know the difference between a door I can close and one that’s impossible to shut.
This is impossible.
I don’t know what that makes me to her. I know she’d label us friends—that’s what I called us—but that feels too small for the way my chest tightens every time I think of her.
Whatever lives in the space between friends and what we could have been, that unnamed thing that pulses every time my hand brushes hers or she looks at me like she’s trying to memorize my face, that’s the thing I can’t walk away from. Even if Madison isn’t ready for it.
Showing up at her parents’ house the morning after her mother walked out on her is the kind of thing a person in my situation shouldn’t be doing.
But I’m here, the engine’s off, and I’m walking up the front path.
I take my time moving toward the front door.
The ground covered in a thin layer of snow that crunches under my boots and feels too loud for the quiet of the early morning.
The house looks different in this light.
Softer, somehow. Last night the windows glowed warm against the dark and the whole place felt like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, even if what happened inside was anything but picturesque.
Once Madison dries her tears, she stands from the table, stacking plates and moving around her chair.
“What are you doing?” Aiden asks, watching her from across the table.
“Cleaning up dinner,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Her voice steady again. “Like I do every week.”
Wyatt opens his mouth to argue, but one look from Madison and he snaps his mouth shut, standing to help her gather more dishes before following her into the kitchen.
Aiden pulls Jackson into his side, his voice low. “Hey, buddy. Why don’t you go play in the living room while we clean up? We’ll head home in just a bit.”
Jackson, who’s been sitting wide-eyed and confused since his aunt’s announcement, looks up at his dad. “Is Aunt Maddie okay?”
“Yeah, bud. She’s okay.”
Jackson gives his dad one more look before padding into the living room and the rest of us make quick work of getting everything cleaned up.
I cover dishes, Wyatt packs the food into the fridge, and Aiden loads the dishwasher with the kind of efficiency that probably comes from years of cleaning up after a four-year-old.
There’s no discussion, just quiet contemplation.
When the kitchen and dining room are squared away, we all head for the door, Aiden pausing to help Jackson clean up before meeting us outside.
The cold hits immediately. A sharp January wind cutting through the air, telling us snow’s on the horizon. Aiden and Wyatt both pull Madison in for hugs before any of us can move to our cars.
“We love you, Mads,” Aiden says, his arm tight around her. “You know we’re here for anything you need.”
“Anything,” Wyatt echoes, pulling her from Aiden and wrapping her in a tight hug himself. “Day or night. I don’t care what time it is, or that Beckett’s right next door.”
I hang back, giving them their moment. This is family, and whatever I want to be to Madison, I’m not that.
Wyatt pulls away, but holds Madison’s biceps as he talks to her.
Aiden, taking the distracted opportunity, steps over to me, Jackson on his hip with his face buried against his dad’s shoulder, already falling asleep.
“I don’t know what happened with my parents in there,” Aiden says, his voice pitched low enough Madison won’t hear as he makes his way down the porch steps to his car. “But I’ll talk to them about it tomorrow.”
He shifts Jackson, getting him settled against his chest as he reaches for the car door. I watch him as he situates Jackson in his car seat, trying to figure out why he thought I needed to know that.
Without missing a beat, Aiden pauses his movements and looks at me. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and my sister, but there’s no doubt it’s something important.” He straightens, his jaw set. “I don’t want you to think what happened in there tonight is normal or acceptable.”
“I know it’s not,” I tell him, ignoring the comment about Madison and me. Instead, I lean past him and catch Jackson’s eye.
“Night, buddy.”
Jackson shifts his head just enough to give me a sleepy smile. “Night, Beckett.”
Aiden holds my gaze for a beat longer than comfortable, something unspoken passing between us. Then he nods once, confirms Jackson’s in his car seat, and that’s that.
I look over to see Wyatt pressing a kiss to Madison’s forehead before he lets her go. Giving her brother a tight-lipped smile, she turns toward me and heads for my 4Runner, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
The drive home is quiet. Madison keeps her focus out the passenger window, her reflection ghosting across the glass every time we pass any light on the street. She isn’t crying, just staring, her breath fogging the windows in slow, even circles.
I don’t fill the silence, no matter how much I want to, but I’ve learned enough about Madison over the last five weeks to know that sometimes she needs the quiet more than she needs words.
So, I drive, and she stares out the window, the inside of the vehicle feeling small in a way that has nothing to do with its actual size.
I pull up outside her house and put the 4Runner in park. Madison doesn’t move, doesn’t seem to register that we’re even stopped.
“Madison.”
She blinks, coming back to herself, and looking around like she’s surprised to find herself sitting outside her own house.
“Sorry,” she says, reaching for the door handle. “I zoned out.”
Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand lands gently on her shoulder, stopping her before she can get the door open. “Are you all right?”
The words leave my mouth and I almost laugh at how stupid they are. Of course, she’s not all right.
“I know that’s a stupid question,” I start, but before I can finish the thought, Madison leans across the center console and presses her lips to my cheek.
It’s quick and barely a kiss, but it’s the first time Madison has initiated contact between us. Every touch we’ve shared has been from me. She’s never shied away from it, always leans into it, but she’s never been the one to start it.
And even that small, brief press of her lips against my skin is enough to make everything in me go still.
“I’m okay,” she says quietly, pulling away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Of course you will.”
I watch her walk up the path to her door before she disappears inside. The porch light clicks off a moment later, but I keep sitting here, the engine still running. I sit here until the lights from her windows downstairs go out and I know she’s gone up to bed.
It’s only then that I finally turn the car off and make my way to the cottage.
Without knocking on the door, it opens, and pulls me back to the present.
Thomas stands in the doorway, his frame filling most of the space. He looks confused for only a moment, his brow furrowing as he takes in the sight of me on his porch. Then something shifts behind his eyes. Recognition dawns, soft and slow, and he steps back, pulling the door wider.
The house smells like coffee. That’s the first thing I notice.
Not the kind from a pod, but the real kind.
The kind that takes time and fills the whole house with something warm and heavy.
It’s a small detail but it catches me off guard, the domesticity of it.
Like last night didn’t happen. Like this is any other morning at the Hawthorne house and I’m here for any normal reason.
Thomas leads me to the kitchen without a word. His back is straight, his shoulder set in a way that reminds me of Aiden—same posture, same way of quietly bearing the weight.