11. Maddox
Maddox
I snag my keys, shrug into my jacket, and leave the school. The cold air hits like a splash of ice water, a welcome jolt after eight hours of fluorescent lights, an hour with the principal, and rehashing the bus breakdown with every teacher in the building.
Bloom & Brew is a short walk, yet long enough to let the tension in my shoulders drop and wrap my head around this interview.
The sweet mix of roasted beans, cinnamon, and lilacs hit me as I enter the shop. The place is a weird hybrid—caffeine up front, florist in the rear—but in this town, it works.
School only let out twenty minutes ago, and the shop is already humming. The booths are packed with teenagers looking for a sugar high, while the older crowd settles by the windows where they can keep tabs on the whole town.
My gaze sweeps the room, moving past the chaos, and stops dead on the figure framed by the afternoon light.
Grace.
She sits by the window unaware I’ve arrived. Flaxen waves cascade down her back as she scribbles furiously on a notepad, pen held like a weapon she’s unafraid to use. She glances up and her mouth curves, not quite a smile but close enough.
Does she feel it, too? This freaky pull between us, heavy and unavoidable, tethering us by something neither of us agreed to.
“Maddox Hartley.” Her voice is smooth, polite. Guarded. “You showed.”
I slide into the chair across from her. “Figured if I didn’t, you’d buy out the coffee shop just to get my attention.”
Her eyes narrow, but amusement dances in her blue depths. “Don’t worry. I left my credit card at home.”
“Probably safer for everyone.”
Nate, a senior and captain of the Varsity basketball team, jogs over with a grin. He gives Grace a little chin dip like they’ve already talked this afternoon. “Hey, Coach. The usual?”
“Yeah, thanks. Make it two.” I nod toward her. “Unless you want something else?”
She crosses her arms, perfectly unimpressed by my take-charge attitude. “What’s ‘the usual’?”
Before I can answer, Nate says, “Large black coffee and a side of judgment.”
A small laugh escapes her, and he beams, looking like he won the state championship.
“That’s the way you take it, right? Black?” The second the words leave my mouth, heat crawls up my collar.
Grace tilts her head. “And how would you know how I take my coffee, Maddox?”
“Uh.” I scratch the back of my neck, finding the bakery case fascinating. “Good guess.”
There’s no way in hell I’m telling her I grilled Percy about her order at Pop’s. At the time, it was only curiosity. Now, it’s something else entirely. Something I don’t have a name for yet—or maybe I do, and that’s the problem.
I’ve been replaying every detail of our first meeting, and anytime she’s been near me, in my head like game tape, breaking it down frame by frame, looking for the moment things shifted. I still haven’t found it.
Nate shifts from foot to foot, clearly realizing he’s walked into a vibe he doesn’t understand. Grace finally puts the kid out of his misery. “I’ll have the same, Nate. Thanks.”
When he leaves, Grace sets her phone on the table between us and taps the screen, opening the voice memo app. “Ready?”
“I thought we were here for coffee.” One side of my mouth rises.
“Sure.” Her fingers hover over the red record button, her tone wry. “But I’m here on assignment—”
“I know.”
She quirks a brow, challenging. “Do you?”
I lean back, arms crossing my chest. “I did my homework.”
“Your homework?”
“Yeah.”
Nate swings by with our coffees, and I wait until he’s gone. Then I wrap my hand around the warm cup and take a slow sip, letting the heat bleed into my palm.
“I read a few of your articles over the weekend.”
A flush climbs her throat, a soft pink that makes it hard not to stare.
Christ.
“You looked me up?”
“Well, it wasn’t easy.” I keep my tone casual, though my pulse has other ideas.
I’m not sure why I’m confessing this.
After our talk on the weekend, I needed to remind myself of who she is and what she does. Why she’s here. I needed more information, more data to form a strategy to deal with Grace Buchanan.
Though I’m not sure it did any good.
“How so?”
“At first, I couldn’t find a Grace Buchanan at the Daily Journal or any other media outlet in Los Angeles. Then I found a G.K. Buchanan, and with a little digging, figured out the G was for Grace.”
She glances out the window, lips pressed together. Those lips, naturally pink, shaped like she’s always holding back a truth. “I see.”
“I’ll admit.” Because I like the way that blush sits on her, I feed into our push and pull. “I damn near fell out of bed when I saw the K stood for Kelly. That for real?”
She nods, slow and careful, like any more detail might cost her something.
“Grace Kelly.” My gaze skims the line of her jaw, the curve of her neck. “Hollywood royalty. Cool, collected, probably had a tiara for breakfast and”—I deliberately cock my head, gaze settling on her—“in the right light, you could almost pass for her.”
Her lips part and eyes darken like she’s not sure if I’m messing with her or seeing too much.
Grace Kelly was all ice and edges on screen, but you always knew the heat was underneath. This Grace has that same thing—poised and buttoned up, but I’ve seen her come in swinging for people who need it.
Shit, she did it for me.
Yeah. The name fits.
“What’s there to tell? My mother named all her children after movie stars.” She shifts the phone, reminding me why we’re here. “Now, can we get back to—”
I catch her hand before she can hit record, and her blue eyes jump to mine, glittering and a little wild. Her skin warms under my fingers, soft in a way I’m trying not to think about as heat licks up my spine.
“All her kids?” I push, unable to help myself. “Now you’ve got to tell me their names.”
I’m distracting her deliberately because keeping her off-balance buys me time. Delays the inevitable—me in the hot seat. But I also want to know. Want more pieces of her.
“My brother is Cary Grant Buchanan. My fraternal twin is Elizabeth Taylor Buchanan. Satisfied? Now, tell me why you needed to look me up.”
“Wait.” I huff out a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t know which to ask next. A twin? Your mom—”
I hold her gaze, that pull between us tugging at the center of my chest. “You’re digging into my life. Only fair to know who’s holding the shovel. The thing I can’t figure out is why you’re doing a feature on me. It doesn’t fit with the other kinds of pieces you’ve published.”
She purses her lips, holding it a beat longer than feels natural, and it gives her away. She doesn’t like the question, or more likely, she’s not going to give me the real answer.
“I don’t make the decisions, only write what I’m told.” She shrugs, and I tilt my head back and chuckle.
Yeah. A non-answer.
Her shoulders drop, tension easing. “Well?” Her mouth tugs, and she’s losing the fight with her smile. “Did I pass?”
“More than pass.” My gaze drags back to her mouth before I can stop myself. “You’re good.”
And she is. Too damn good.
“Doesn’t feel like it. I’m stuck writing a profile on a racer best known for leaving.”
Best known for leaving. Yeah, that one hits in more ways than one.
I press a hand to my chest, the spot now pulsing, and force a grin I don’t quite feel. “Ouch. Hit me harder, why don’t you?”
Her face falls. “That came out—”
“Exactly how you meant it.” My voice is lighter than the pinch in my ribs, but not by much.
She winces, annoyed with herself. “What I meant is I know this profile isn’t your preference either. This assignment isn’t… ideal.”
“No argument there.” I drop my hand, fingers tapping once against the table. “Neither of us is thrilled, but you’re not the type who half-asses anything.”
Her head snaps up, and for a moment, something raw moves between us. Recognition. Interest. Maybe a challenge. The kind that could tilt us toward each other or blow this whole interview sideways.
I nudge her phone with my knuckle. “Here’s another question for you.”
“You’re having a hard time understanding how this works. You’re not the one asking questions.” She pokes the center of her chest. “I am.”
“Fair. But humor me.” A smile tugs at my mouth. “Only one more, I promise.”
She quirks a brow, suspicious but curious. “What?”
“Why don’t you want to do this feature?” I ease back in my chair, acting like I don’t care.
Truth is, I’m bracing for a hit. She’s already landed a few.
“It isn’t the profile.” She tucks a loose strand behind her ear—small, practiced, pretty—and her features warm. “It’s like you said, I don’t usually write these kinds of things. I’m an investigative reporter.”
Her tone is polite, but the subtext lands: this is beneath her. And somehow, I’m the assignment she got stuck with.
“Sorry to be wasting your time.” I push off the back of the chair, posture tightening. No casual lean left in me. “I’m not big on media, so like you, I want this over with as fast as possible.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound that way. It isn’t you. Sports and sponsorships aren’t my usual beat.”
“Beat?”
A smile slips out of her—real and unguarded—and damn if it doesn’t hit low. Her eyes spark, intense enough to cut through the noise in my chest.
“Beat means the topic you cover.” She drops a hand to her lap. “Usually, I work on stories with corruption, cover-ups.”
For half a second, the air shifts, and my jaw tightens. Cover-ups? The last thing I need is her sniffing anywhere near the truth about my exit from racing. One thread pulled in the wrong direction, and everything I’ve tried to bury—everything I gave up—will unspool.
Forcing a slow breath, I loosen my shoulders. She can’t see that hit. She can’t even suspect it.
“Sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than me.” I take another slow drink, watching her over the rim.
“It can be rewarding…” She stares down into her coffee, something on her mind, and I get the sense it has nothing to do with me. “But things aren’t always black and white, you know.”
As her head pops up, our gazes collide. “Even when there’s wrongdoing or something horrific has happened, there isn’t always a villain. And if someone’s done something wrong, there can be reasons behind it that make it more understandable—even if still devastating.”
I nod, not sure what to say to that. It’s weightier than anything I expected her to say.
When the silence stretches too long, I clear my throat and move us back on track. “So, why are you stuck writing about a racer who quit?”
She purses her lips. Okay, now look who doesn’t want to talk?
I press on—my turn to uncover some truths. “Who did you piss off?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of the way you’re acting. This assignment smells like penance.”
For a beat, her eyes flash—prickly, defensive, maybe even impressed I figured it out. Then her expression shutters back into that measured reporter’s mask she hides behind.
“You’ve got it all wrong. The reporter who usually handles these profiles had a personal matter come up. I was asked to step in. That’s it.”
Her fingers tap against her thigh, long and lean, wrapped in black pants that look too good on her. The rhythm betrays her nerves.
“Fine.” My tone drops, warm and suggestive on purpose. “If you want to play it like that.”
She sighs, shaking her head, a smile toying with her mouth like she both hates and likes this game.
“So, let’s do this.” I take another sip, not wanting to relent, but we’re both treading in dangerous territory, and I need to remind myself she’s the enemy.
Time to face the music.
“Yes, let’s.” Her voice carries less edge. More… something else.
Something that makes my pulse kick. Something that says the interview isn’t the only thing she’s steeling herself against.