22. Maddox
Maddox
The clean swish as the ball hits the rim and drops through the net ricochets down my body. The boys erupt in cheers, and Beckett shouts something cocky as the seniors clap him on the back.
A grin tugs at my mouth. “Nice. Now do it again with someone in your face.”
A chorus of groans, a round of shoves, and then they’re back in line. This—the noise, the energy, the chaos—soothes something in me. I haven’t felt this rooted in years, and for the first time in a long damn while, I belong.
Even still, my chest hasn’t loosened, not since Grace walked in with Blane for my final gym class of the day and stayed through practice.
It’s been like this all week—Grace and her annoying sidekick showing up around town, at the house, here, snapping photos, asking questions, orbiting my life like it’s open for inspection.
Funny how I was getting used to it when it was just her, maybe even accepting it. Now, with Blane, it’s a pain in my ass. We’re coming up to three weeks, and yet, with his arrival, it’s like we’re starting from scratch.
And on top of that, I’m holding my breath. Marcos calling three days ago has me on edge—texts were one thing, but calling crossed a line.
His voice was slick and satisfied, like he tasted victory. “I was beginning to think you were ignoring me.” He paused to let the implication land. “Not a smart move, Champ. You should know that by now.”
“What do you want?” I gripped the phone tight.
“Just checking in on the exposé—” He landed another deliberate pause. “I mean, profile.” His chuckle at his own word choice wrapped around me like a vise.
“It’s under control. Was that it?”
“Since you ask…” The subtle shift in his tone indicated we were getting to the real reason for his call.
“I want you to cover my leadership style, the camaraderie I’ve built.
The pit crew, the engineering team—make it clear I assembled the best in the business.
Because I did, and that needs to come through. ”
He wasn’t wrong, exactly. The pit crew, the engineers, everyone around him was elite.
Marcos wasn’t all bad. He had a knack for picking top-tier talent, for winning, for drawing out the best in people.
I just figured out too late he led through dominance and quiet manipulation, and beneath the wins was a vindictive bastard who never forgot a slight.
“Marcos, I’ve got this.”
“I’m not sure you do.” Again with the silence, calculated and weaponized.
A control tactic I’d watched him exercise more times than I could count. But not aimed at me until I’d decided to leave.
He wanted me to fill this silence, squirm, but I didn’t. I would’ve stayed on this phone all night before giving him that.
Finally, he relented. “I might need help. Perhaps Erica should talk to the repor—”
“No.” My growl not only rumbled through the line but also found my spine, wrapping around each vertebra like a fist and squeezing.
“You don’t fucking call the shots.” His voice lost any pretense of civility, becoming raw and jagged.
“You may be the subject of this profile, but it’s mine.
” Another beat, slower. “And I can have whoever the fuck I want interviewed.” The silence that followed was long and pointed, designed to cut exactly where it hurts.
“I’m not confident you’re going to give it your best.”
“I will.” I hated how much effort it took to keep my voice steady.
“Then say it.” Another silence stretched like a held breath. “I can’t hear you.”
I closed my eyes. “I will do my best.” The words were dragged up from somewhere it cost me to reach.
“Who are you talking to?” His voice cracked across the line. “Say it again and address me.”
Every muscle in my jaw locked. If he stood in front of me—me, a man who never once lost his temper easily—I’d have choked him.
“I will do my best, Mr. Madrigal.” I ended the call before he could take anything else from me.
Applause cracks through the gym, followed by a bark of laughter that pulls me back into my body. My stomach hasn’t settled since Marcos said her name.
What the fuck?
He hates Erica. Always did. He called her a distraction when we first arrived, then a nuisance, then worse when we broke up and she kept showing up anyway.
But maybe he hates me more now—enough to use her as leverage.
I can’t see him trying to find her unless the end game is to let her hang herself and take me down, too.
Or maybe this cat and mouse game is for his amusement. The thought loosens something dark in my chest as my hand runs across the back of my neck and my eyes cut to the bleachers.
Grace stands there with her notebook, pretending she isn’t watching me. But every so often her gaze lifts, quick and curious, like she can’t help it and knows she’s failing to hide it. Every time, her peek catches somewhere between my ribs. A spark finding dry timber.
I’ve been keeping my distance, trying to, since Sunday. On the porch, I felt her eyes on me while on the phone, and I kept my back to her like that might be enough.
It wasn’t.
I call a timeout, the boys scatter, and Grace takes the opportunity to edge closer, her voice dropping into something careful and soft. “Even with a long weekend ahead, they’re dedicated. They readily do what you ask of them.”
“They know I’ll run them into the ground if they don’t.” I keep my eyes on the court.
The corner of her mouth twitches. “You don’t mean that.”
“No… and they don’t need to know that.”
Her smile blooms, quick and warm, and something shifts in my chest, knocks loose what I’ve been barely holding in place.
I step back before the rest of me catches up with the impulse already forming, the one where I reach out and tuck that curl back from her face like I already know the weight of it and it’s my business to know it.
That’s exactly the problem.
Distance stopped being about professionalism somewhere between the almost kiss and the real one. Now every inch of space between us feels temporary, borrowed, waiting to collapse under its own pretense. She’s here to do a job, I keep telling myself as if it still means something.
But Grace isn’t the obstacle. I am.
Wanting her means wanting something real, and I’m not sure I remember how to do that without the cost. The last time I let someone close enough to matter, I watched Erica change in ways I couldn’t stop and couldn’t leave either.
That’s what no one tells you about loving someone—sometimes the damage isn’t what they do to you. Sometimes it’s what you let continue because not being there is one more failure you can’t afford to own.
I may have only truly failed one person in my life, but fuck, he was one of the most important, and I can never undo that. I can’t do that again.
So I keep people at a distance, fix what I can, and carry what I must. It’s best to never lean on anyone long enough for them to notice I’m not as solid as I look.
And that’s the part I can’t logic my way around. Not the complications of this feature or the timing. No, just the plain, stubborn fact that I don’t trust myself to be who Grace deserves without eventually proving I’m not.
My body is still wound tight when Blane appears at my shoulder with his camera raised in question. “Mind if I get a couple close shots? Coach with his team?”
“Make it quick. I want to get these boys home before Thanksgiving.”
“Sure thing.” He moves me like a prop, arranges the team, then shoots Grace a pleased grin.
The two of them fall into an easy rhythm that simmers under my skin more than I want to admit. And by the time it’s done, I call an end to practice, still strung too tight to be of any use. Grace thanks the boys, her smile stunning enough to cause a flutter low in my gut.
“My memory’s running low.” Blane flips through his shots. “I’ve got some space left, but I’ll have to go back to Meri’s and unload these before my camera chokes.”
I stack the cones, letting the repetitive motion do its work. I’m dropping the last one into the crate when my phone buzzes.
Unknown number. I almost ignore it until the preview flashes.
Erica.
Fuck.
I don’t need to read the texts to know this is Marcos’s doing. I haven’t heard from her in nearly a year. He mentions her, and boom, I get a text from her.
Rickie: Mad, happy thanksgiving. I wish I was there.
Rickie: Miss you.
Rickie: I really want to see you.
Rickie: Could you send me some money?
Rickie: Need help. You’re the only one I can count on.
The words blur, and it’s as if no time has passed. Her texts read as if she’s conveniently forgotten how we left things—I made it clear I didn’t want to hear from her unless she was sober.
It was a hard thing to do even though it was different circumstances, but the past reared its ugly head. I was brought back to a time when I turned my back on my dad, and look how that turned out.
More memories rise like smoke. Her tears. The lies. The barrage of texts that came in waves, multiple times a day, each one pulling me under. The way she’d look at me right before asking for money or after she’d stolen from me and denied it. All that wreckage I spent years cleaning up.
There’s no way Erica’s coming to Winslow Grove.
A cold wire of tension winds around my throat until footsteps behind me yank me back.
Grace.
“Everything okay?”
I shove the phone into my pocket too fast. “Fine.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A short, brittle laugh escapes me. If only she knew. “Just technology doing what it does best.”
“Or maybe it just reveals what we don’t want to see.” Her quiet insight moves through me, sharp yet gentle and too accurate to sit with comfortably.
I lock my knees, bracing for questions, but silence lingers, and eventually, my body eases. She doesn’t push, though she’s probably filing it away for later. Grace sees everything, and I dread the day she finally opens that file.
Right now, I need to get through tomorrow—the anniversary of my dad’s death—and hold it together through until the memorial the following weekend, past the grief that still ambushes me when I least expect it, and past whatever Erica’s reappearance is about to stir up.
Blane’s voice cuts across the gym. “Grace, come here. Still want to grab those golden hour shots before we lose it?”
She hesitates. Her eyes move to Blane, then back to me, and for one foolish second, my want is so sharp it almost has a sound—stay, just a little longer—even if it’s selfish and reckless and not what’s best for either of us.
Let the world wait so I can breathe her in a few more seconds.
I nod before it can go any further. “Go.”
She turns toward Blane, ponytail swaying, and I watch for far too long before I sink onto the bench. I pull out my phone while they’re occupied and read Erica’s messages again. The words sit the same way they did the first time—a fucking hand around my throat.
I should leave her on read because part of me knows exactly where this goes. But that’s never been something I’m capable of. I face things head on. And underneath the knowing is the quieter, more dangerous hope—maybe this time is different. Maybe she’s healthy. My thumbs move.
Me: You sober?
The dots appear immediately. That alone tells me everything.
Rickie: Please. I want to come home.
Something heavy settles in my chest, not quite grief, not quite anger. Somewhere in the bruised territory between them, long enough to call up the reminder of every time I said yes when I should have said nothing at all.
Then I type the only thing that’s true.
Me: I can’t help you.
Blane cuts in again. “Coach, can we get a shot of something different? Something iconic.”
My brow lifts. The guy is determined to test my patience. “Define iconic.”
“Couple shots out front. School behind you. Locals eat that stuff up.”
I snort—iconic, my ass—and Grace rolls her eyes. “Ignore how over the top he is but let me have this. You’re impossible to capture when you’re moving.”
Her ask loosens something in my chest. “Fine.”
We head outside, and Blane positions me so the school looms behind. Thankfully, he works fast because the air cools as the sun drops, brushing my skin with the first bite of evening.
The cold kisses color into Grace’s cheeks, hair brushing her jaw, and when her eyes find mine, they take something with them—my balance, my resolve, the careful distance I’ve been maintaining like it was keeping me alive.
Maybe it was.
Erica’s texts sit like a stone in still water, rippling outward into everything.
And somewhere in the middle of reading it—in the middle of recognizing the gravity of it all over again—something shifted.
Realigned. Because that’s what Erica always was: A warning I kept ignoring until it cost too much.
I don’t want to ignore warnings anymore, but I don’t want to waste what’s right in front of me either.
I want Grace.
Foolish—maybe.
Selfish—definitely.
Not forever, not a promise. I’m not built for those right now, and she deserves better than a man still figuring out if he is. But now. This.
It’s a cliché. Life is short, take what’s real while you have it. But clichés exist because they’re true, and right now, watching her eyes find mine like they keep doing without her permission, I’m done arguing with the truth.
“That’s a wrap.” Blane slaps the cap onto his camera. “I’ve got to get back and unload these before my storage situation becomes a crime scene.”
He strides toward the parking lot, and Grace falls in beside me. Her arm brushes mine as she digs for her keys, a small, inadvertent graze that lands harder than it should.
I clear my throat. “You hungry?”
“Maybe.”
I drag a hand across the back of my neck, aiming for casual even though nothing about this feels casual. “There’s a place. Good food. Close by.”
Just the two of us.
Her lips part slightly. “Sure. The Grill?”
I open my mouth, but before I can answer, Blane cuts through the quiet. “I heard that.”
He swivels around, walking backward, and the image of him falling flat on his ass has me wrestling to lock down a smile.
“Grace and I came together, so she should head back to Meri’s with me. We’ll meet you there.” He’s a smug bastard.
With keys in her hand, Grace looks from him to me, and a coil of frustration winds low in my gut. The last thing I want is him tagging along or her climbing into a car with him again.
The words rush out before I can think twice. “Grace is coming with me. We’ll meet you there.”
He opens his mouth—maybe to argue—but something in my expression must kill the inclination. “Fine, Coach. Text me the address.”
Her gaze flicks between us, a question in her eyes I don’t have the guts to answer. I unlock my truck and nod toward the passenger side. “Let’s go.”