Chapter Nineteen Maddie
Chapter Nineteen
Maddie
The dark gray clouds are heavy and low above the fields of cornstalks. The rain cleared just long enough for the Mount Astra School District to go on as planned with their annual Fall Frenzy.
Mount Astra High School has two booths. Fern and Simon agreed that they would each take a booth and whoever raised the most money would decide what the funds from the event would be earmarked for.
Fern wanted to dedicate money to making the menstrual products in the bathrooms free to use while Simon’s plan was to fund a live band for prom instead of the usual DJ—who was just one of the teachers from the math department who called himself DJ Alge-bro.
It’s not that Simon’s plan is bad. It’s that Fern’s is better.
Which was why I highly encouraged her to use every advantage available to her.
The moment Leo heard there was competition to be had, he demanded that the Saint James Chocolate Co.
sponsor Fern’s booth. So until just a moment ago, I’ve spent the last two hours helping Saint James employees and student volunteers give out free hot chocolate and s’mores truffles to everyone who purchases a ticket to the corn maze.
After I relinquish my apron to the next round of volunteers, I find a familiar scene just outside the tent.
“Where is that feckless little twat?” Sloane asks from where she stands with her arms crossed as she paces up and down the side of the Saint James Chocolate Co. sponsor tent. “Show your face, coward.”
Bram stands at the mouth of the corn maze where Fern stationed him to take tickets.
The orange volunteer T-shirt he wears over his green and black flannel is a size too small and stretches over his chest and biceps in a way that makes the other single parents notice and it’s very difficult for me not to hiss at them in response.
“I agree that Simon is a human stinkhorn mushroom, but maybe we could avoid calling Fern’s copresident a twat. At least at a school function.”*
“A stinkhorn would smell less like Target-brand body spray, at least,” Sloane mutters.
“Or maybe he should avoid being a twat, has he ever considered that?” Leo asks lazily as he lounges on top of a picnic table between Sloane and Bram, his arms braced behind him and the core of an apple teetering next to his hip.
He glances up and is immediately amused by my presence. “Ah, the nanny.”
Bram’s head snaps up and his pupils widen when he sees me. “Childcare provider,” he corrects.
The smile I give Leo is nearly virginal, and Bram lets out a soft, involuntary hiss.
“Ah, the loiterer,” I say to the chocolate magnate.
Leo scoffs, but I can see he’s eager for a good verbal spar. “I am hardly a—”
“She’s not wrong,” Sloane chimes in as she taps a finger along the edge of her chin.
“You guys,” Fern says, her face flushed as she rounds the corner.
Bram’s attention immediately shifts. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Where are the twins?”
“Nothing. Yes. And with Jules and her family, because I had to run over here to tell you that Simon and I just raised the stakes of our bet. Whoever fundraises the least has to step down as copresident.”
“Please say that was your idea,” Leo says. “Does your ticket booth accept out of country wire transfers? We’re going to bury this hormonal dipshit.”
“Leo,” Bram warns.
Fern snickers as Leo gives her a wink.
“No sketchy donations,” Sloane says. “At least not yet. If Fern is going to win this thing, we need it to be above reproach.”
Leo rolls his eyes and Fern skips off. “I have to go tell Jules!”
“Love you, sweetie!” Bram calls after her as he yanks the orange T-shirt over his head and tosses it right in Leo’s face, which I’m sure is the first time his skin has ever come in contact with a polyester blend. “Cover for me.”
“I’m not a volunteer,” Leo clarifies. “I’m a sponsor.”
“What’s the difference?” Bram asks.
Sloane grins. “One has money and the other doesn’t.”
“Maddie and I are going to check on the kids,” Bram tells the Saint James pair. “Be useful.”
“Usefulness is so plebeian. You won’t even let me buy my goddaughter the student government office she is rightfully owed,” Leo calls as we press into the crowd and Bram’s hand innocently hovers over the small of my back, his head shaking.
Behind us I can hear Leo and Sloane arguing over the fact that Joey is Fern’s actual godfather. Leo calmly counters by saying that Joey is the royally appointed godfather and that Leo is the prime minister godfather elected by popular vote.
Terrell Farms is a historic working farm and former township just outside Mount Astra.
It’s the sort of place that exists for the sake of field trips and events just like this.
And for the occasional wedding, if barn weddings are your thing.
There are endless activities. Apple bobbing, face painting, cider stands, and hayrides.
“The twins should be pumpkin bowling with Jules and Fern,” I tell Bram.
With his height, he only has to turn his head to confirm their location. But even with his memorable altitude, in this thronging sea of people, we are almost anonymous. It’s too crowded for anyone to notice when his fingers wrap around my wrist and tug. “This way.”
“What do you have in mind, Professor Loe?”
“We need to talk,” he says
Well, that doesn’t sound very sexy. Bram’s been on edge for the last week, but I chalked it up to each of the three kids passing around a stomach bug.
We haven’t been alone together for days now, because if the currently sick kiddo wasn’t with me, they were with Bram.
He’d been on all-night dad duty with puke buckets and a rotation of kids curling up in his bed, except for Fern, who insisted on medicating with couch-and-documentary time.
His fingers slide against my palm until they’re intertwined with mine.
To an outsider, we might just look like two people together in a crowd trying to stay together, but this moment of us holding hands in public is not lost on me.
An overwhelming part of me wants to let go and lose myself among the young families and rowdy teenagers, because even though I love the feeling of safety that comes with my hand tucked into Bram’s, I am also fighting a sense of claustrophobia that tightens my throat.
But we’re just fucking, I remind myself. He’s pulling me along so that I don’t get lost. He’s not trying to publicly claim me or cage me into another long-term relationship where I am solely defined by my partner. We are simply holding hands. And having sex. A lot.
“You make it sound like I’m in trouble,” I tell him in the hopes of distracting myself and getting a reaction from him.
“You very well might be,” he says as we turn the corner around the side of the corn maze. But his tone isn’t playful like it normally is.
In the distance behind the corn maze is a small white building that Bram seems to be walking toward. We’re free of the crowd, and still, he holds my hand.
“What’s going on?” A dozen different possibilities swirl in my head.
Does the agency know I’ve broken their fraternization policy?
What if Sara is pissed that I’m living in the house even though she seemed cool about it at first?
Maybe one of the Andromeda Club members said something that made her change her mind?
“What do you want to do next, Madelyn?”
Next?
He asks it the same way your favorite teacher—the one whose attention you’re always starved for—would, making it sound casual. Except it’s not. It’s one of those big, impossible questions.
“Well, getting an apartment is the priority.”
“If none of that mattered,” he says. “It does, obviously. But in the future. Teaching . . . is that what you want?”
A gust of wind whips around us, and Bram lets go of my hand only to pull me closer against his side.
My body sags against his. “I’ve missed this.”
“It’s been a very long week.”
We approach the white building, which is labeled with a wooden sign that reads ORIGINAL TERRELL TOWNSHIP ONE-ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE IN USE FROM 1869–1963.
“Are you teaching me another lesson?” I ask as Bram opens the door for me.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Because I don’t know if I have an answer.” The door swings shut behind us. It’s cold inside, but we’re protected from the wind at least. There are about fifteen desks lined up in front of a teacher’s desk with an old dusty chalkboard lining the far wall.
Bram weaves in and out of the rows, patiently silent because he knows that I’ll talk. Eventually.
“I’ve been in survival mode for the last few months,” I tell him. “I think I could love teaching one day. There are aspects I love about it now. But—”
“It’s not enough.”
“I don’t know.” There’s a hint of frustration in my voice now.
“I went from being Gentry’s soon-to-be-wife with a whole future planned out for us to trying to figure out where to sleep at night.
I’d been with Gentry through every major decision-making moment of my life recently.
The last year of undergrad. The end of law school.
All of those moments when I would have decided what comes next were navigated with him in mind.
Sometimes I wonder if I even know myself well enough to know what I want. ”
He leans against the desk, his legs spread out, and shakes his head with a grin.
“What?”
“Just the thought of you not knowing yourself . . . it’s hard to imagine, is all. I’ve never met someone who seems so . . . so fully formed.”
I’m drawn to him. Something magnetic in my veins pulls me to him and soon I’m standing between those tree trunk thighs. “I wish I could see myself how you see me.”
He smooths my wind-tousled hair behind my ears and the way he looks down at me is so open and tender that I nearly backpedal away from him. “I do too, baby.”