13. Grace
Grace
By the time I finish editing the interview transcript from Bloom & Brew—the one I’ve been putting off for days—my head throbs.
I’ve filled the passing days by mapping out locations Maddox’s mentioned, planning photos and b-roll, building my interview list, and consuming enough caffeine to power a newsroom through a breaking-news cycle.
But none of it has stopped me from thinking about him.
My untouched salad wilts on the plate beside me. I’m slouched in the chair by the window at the inn, sunlight slanting warm across the table, pretending lunch holds my attention.
It doesn’t.
Maddox fills every quiet corner of my mind, and I can’t seem to evict him. The Mad One. God, even that nickname needles now.
The memory of his face at the café when I told him he hadn’t been my first-choice subject replays without permission. When I called him a racer best known for leaving.
He took it well—better than I deserved—and somehow that makes it worse. He didn’t argue, just sat there, unfazed, as if I hadn’t dismissed an entire chapter of his life. As if I hadn’t dismissed him. Regret sits hard and heavy in my chest.
But then there were the other moments, the ones that won’t stay quiet.
The way his eyes changed—maybe heated—when he said my work was good.
Almost careful, like the truth mattered, like he meant it.
Like he saw past the press badge and the questions I’d sharpened to keep my distance, past the reporter flown in to produce a feature nobody truly needs, straight through to the woman holding them.
My fingers pause over the keyboard.
Because then there were my questions—the ones I asked anyway, about his retirement, about Erica.
The stillness that followed wasn’t the brittle kind.
It was the kind that closes in, that has weight and intention.
His body went rigid, breath shallow, something shuttering behind his eyes. A door slammed.
He’s hiding something. I’d bet my press badge on it, and normally, that would thrill me—spark an almost physical pull toward truth and motive and whatever sits underneath a person’s carefully constructed facade.
Part of me still feels it, a restless itch to tug at the thread and see what unravels.
But with Maddox, I’m torn in a way I can’t quite name.
And does it matter anyway?
Toby doesn’t want an exposé. He wants an image piece wrapped in a neat bow—a man returned to his hometown, stitched back into community and routine. Clean. Safe. Harmless.
And Maddox—God help me—feels anything but.
Like I told Buffy, there’s weight to him. History. A restraint that feels earned rather than practiced, and I felt it across the café table in a way that hasn’t left me since.
I should be focused on the story, not on whether he likes me, not on how he said my name like it wasn’t a sound but a consideration. Not on the way his gaze lingered—steady, unflinching—like he’d already mapped the shape of my thoughts before I’d finished forming them.
I’ve been careful my whole career. Careful with sources, careful with proximity, careful with the version of myself I bring to a story. One week here and I’m already less careful than I should be.
My phone buzzes beside my water glass, skittering dangerously close to the edge.
“Hey, Toby.”
“Grace.” His voice has that clipped, measured quality he uses when he’s delivering news he hasn’t fully decided how to frame. “Wanted to give you an update. Legal met with Vitale Industries. We’re talking.”
I freeze. “Okay. That’s something.”
“It is. Though there was one thing I thought was strange. When the meeting was set, Vitale made a point of asking if you’d be there.”
“Me specifically?”
“By name.” He lets that sit for a second. “Thought you should know.”
I don’t have an answer for that, so I don’t offer one. I’m not surprised they know who I am. I interviewed their head of R&D.
“How’s the Hartley profile coming along?” His shift is so clean it’s almost aggressive.
“Good.” I keep my voice professionally even. “There’s a lot to it—the writing is one thing, but the art direction alone is substantial. Locations, b-roll, sourcing footage of him on the track. It’s a full production.”
“Mm.” Noncommittal. A Toby special, giving you nothing and making it feel final. “Keep me posted.”
I set the phone down, not even sure what I was reaching for with Toby—an extension, maybe, given everything still on my plate?
No. Six weeks can’t pass fast enough. Help, then. Though what that would even look like, I couldn’t say. At least I tried.
A lot of good that did me.
A faint whiff of something curls through the air. I almost dismiss it, but then a sharper scent hits—hot metal, scorched and unmistakable.
I lift my head and look around. The only other person in the dining room is already on his feet, expression alert and puzzled, mirroring exactly what I feel.
I inhale again. The smell punches harder.
“Patsy?” I call toward the kitchen door, alarm crawling up my arms. “Everything okay back there?”
A rattled shout comes from the kitchen, followed by a sudden whoosh. The fire alarm screams overhead, sending a bolt straight up my spine, and the sprinklers snap on before I even get my legs under me, misting the room in cold, indifferent rain.
I shove through the swinging door into heat I’m not prepared for.
Flames are already climbing the back wall, bright and furious, turning the air into something I shouldn’t be breathing.
Smoke rolls across the ceiling in a low, choking wave, and Patsy is near the stove, coughing hard, fanning at it with her hands.
“Grace—don’t —” she hacks, but I’m already moving.
The extinguisher hangs on the far wall, and I force my shaking hands to grab it, the metal cold and heavier than expected. The pin sticks, panic spiking as the heat presses at my face and the sprinklers hiss overhead. Then, finally, it gives.
“I’ve got it.” My voice sounds nothing like me.
Patsy drops low, and I step in too close, probably, planting my feet and aiming at the base the way every fire-safety poster I’ve ever half-read recommends.
The extinguisher sputters, then bursts to life, blasting white foam into the air with a bitter chemical haze.
The flames jerk, resist for what feels like a decade, then eventually shrink and collapse into smoldering black.
My eyes burn. My throat stings. My hands won’t stop shaking.