30. Maddox
Maddox
I don’t stop until we’re far enough from the square that the noise dulls and the faces thin out. Erica keeps pace beside me, unfazed, or maybe she notices and doesn’t care.
“I don’t know why you look so surprised.” She clings to my arm. “I told you I was coming.”
“Last we spoke, I made it clear, don’t come around me unless you’re sober.” I keep my eyes forward.
She hums like what I said doesn’t matter and sidles closer, torso brushing my arm. Her fingers slide into mine, interlacing before I can stop it. I loosen my hand immediately, not pushing her away, but not letting her settle either.
She frowns and tries again. Short of shoving her off me in the middle of town, I keep adjusting—half a step ahead, an angle away—creating space the only way I can.
I’m well acquainted with this move, what she’s doing. What she’s always done. She isn’t looking to rekindle anything, only how she can use me, our past and connection, to her advantage.
“You just disappeared. Left Spain.” She pouts. “I needed you.”
I glance at her, incredulous. If she wasn’t trying to work me right now, I’d challenge her, but I refuse to waste my breath.
Erica knows why I left, and I didn’t just disappear. In fact, I’d stayed longer than I should’ve, so long that everything blew up in my face.
I continue to stare, carefully studying her. The boots are too big for her feet, and the jacket is worn thin at the cuffs. The way her eyes keep scanning, never resting, like she’s tracking exits or opportunities.
No one else might clock it. They don’t know her the way I do, and most didn’t know her well enough to know how she used to be or how she’s learned to adapt.
The woman standing in front of me now is no one I know.
And every bit of me tenses with anticipation as her question in the square surfaces at the front of my mind. Who’s this?
How casual she sounded when it was anything but casual. Erica was sizing Grace up, measuring the situation, and calculating how whatever Grace and I are—or aren’t—might be useful.
As if she can read my mind, Erica slows, forcing me to stop with her.
“So.” She tilts her head, eyes glossy now. “Who is she?”
I don’t answer.
Her mouth twists. “You were kissing her.”
A flare of irritation charges through me, but I keep my voice even. “Erica—”
“Don’t.” She steps flush against me, head tilted up to catch my eyes. “Don’t shut me out. You used to tell me you’d love me forever. That it would always be you and me.”
The words hit, sharp and wrong. I meant those promises once. Every damn one of them. Until she shattered them so thoroughly there was nothing left to hold. And now, the way she tosses the promises back at me so carelessly makes something sour rise in my throat.
I refuse to give her any reaction; that’s what she wants. And that’s when her expression changes. The performance drops enough to show what’s underneath.
“I need help.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing this were it. The moment I’ve hoped for so many days and night that I can’t count that high, but she doesn’t mean what I’m hoping for. She isn’t done using, asking for rehab.
Erica tugs on my arm until I open my eyes. “Mad, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
There it is.
“How much?” I already know the answer won’t matter, and like her, I’m just playing this out, but I have no intention of giving her one cent.
Her eyes flick away and then back. “Not much.”
It never is.
“I just need to get through a rough patch. You know I wouldn’t ask if I had another option.”
I stare down at her and wait for the familiar pull of responsibility to band and constrict around my ribs. The same one that used to drag me under and cost me everything. But nothing. Sure, I want her to be healthy and stop using, but this isn’t mine to bear.
“I’m not doing this again.” I gaze off into the distance, unable to look at her. “I won’t help you kill yourself.”
“Maddox.” She sniffs, bites at her lip like she’s trying to keep back tears.
I shake my head. “Wherever you got the money to come here, you should’ve used it for what you need.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy and unresolved, and I know this isn’t over, not by a long shot. Because Erica never shows up without an angle, and she never leaves empty-handed.
Then it hits me, the million-dollar question. “Where did you get the money to come here?”
She purses her lips, and I can’t tell if it’s to hide her smile or hold back the words.
“Rickie, is that you?” The female voice is familiar enough that I recognize it before looking up.
Erica stiffens, her body locking the same way mine did not long ago when she called my name.
“Is that Reggie?” She tilts her face up toward me.
I nod, a small sense of relief loosening something tight inside me. If anyone can reach Erica, it’s Regina Daly.
“Erica.” Reggie has already closed the distance, her tone firm and unmistakable. “Turn around and look at me.” She comes up beside us and gently tugs at Erica’s arm.
Erica releases me immediately and pastes on her brightest smile. “Reggie.”
The older woman pulls her into a hug without hesitation, holding on for a beat longer than necessary, as if she’s afraid Erica might disappear again if she lets go too soon.
Regina Daly lives in a big, old house on the outskirts of town, and for as long as I’ve known her, she’s fostered kids. She took Erica in when she was five, after her parents died in a car accident a few towns over.
At the time, Reggie believed she’d place her quickly—Erica was young, bright, easy to love. She was wrong.
Where most foster kids tried to impress, Erica pushed back, acted out, and ran away. She left destruction in her wake. One by one, prospective families bowed out.
Eventually, Reggie stopped looking and resigned herself to keeping Erica until she turned eighteen. She’d done it with other kids who had nowhere else to go. Not out of obligation, but choice.
Around here, they call Reggie a saint.
Reggie would tell you it’s simpler than that.
It’s a calling.
And for Erica, it’s the closest thing she’s ever had to home.
After the hug, Reggie holds her at arm’s length, her hands settling on Erica’s shoulders. “You’re so thin. Are you eating enough? Sleeping?”
Erica shrugs with a practiced smile, but Reggie’s gaze flicks to me, etched with concern and, finally, belief now that she’s seeing with her own eyes.
As a mother figure to Erica, Reggie and I have had this conversation before.
More times than I can count. Especially in those early years after Erica and I left Winslow Grove, when my calls to her were frequent and desperate.
Every time I dialed her number—or answered when she called—there was only ever one subject.
Erica.
“I’m fine.” Erica bounces. “What I could really use is some money for food.” She flashes a quick smile. “I’ve been craving Pop’s burgers.”
Reggie nods slowly. “We can do that another night. Come home with me. I’ve got supper in the crockpot, and I’ll fix up the breakfast nook for you.”
“The breakfast nook?” Her smile falters. “What about my room?”
“Rickie, it isn’t your room anymore.” Reggie softens her tone, the way she always does when the news won’t land easy.
It usually works, but not this time.
“Fuck that.”
“Erica—” Reggie’s eyes narrow, her patience thinning, but she doesn’t get the chance to finish.
Agitated and restless, Erica thrusts her hand out toward Reggie, palm up. “Give me some money.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” Her voice sharpens. “You said you’d help me. That you were there for me, so prove it.”
Reggie shakes her head, flustered but steady. “I am helping you. You said you were coming home, and I said you could stay with me. I’m giving you a roof, a warm bed, and food.”
The two leave, bickering, and I stand there longer than necessary, hands shoved deep into my pockets, breath coming slow and deliberate. I didn’t want her back in Winslow Grove, but everyone who needs to know about Erica does. I did my part. Now, I need to keep her out of my life.
Eventually I turn toward the square, toward the lights, toward Grace, who I left too abruptly. A thread of unease pulls taut in my gut as I scan the crowd, the outskirts of the square, the doorways.
The look on Grace’s face when I turned away—the way she didn’t ask anything, didn’t chase, just let me go. Like she expected it.
That lands harder than it should.
In looking back at her arrival in town and my first reaction to her, our attraction, whatever we have feels like it was inevitable. While new and different, and not without complications, it’s a far cry from the only other relationship I’ve ever had.
Grace isn’t taking anything. She’s just there, steady and quiet and real, and before now, I was looking and counting the reasons to back away. But Erica showing up reminded me what waiting costs. I waited too long to leave.
I’m not waiting for Grace to come to me. I need to find her.
I may not be able to explain everything because it’s not all mine to tell. But I need her to know that kiss meant something. I need her to know I didn’t leave her.
I pick up my pace, eyes scanning, heart thudding with a resolve that feels steadier than anything I’ve felt all night.
Because whatever Erica is to my past—
Grace is standing in my present.
And I’m done losing ground.