33. Maddox
Maddox
It’s been days since the memorial, days since I stopped pretending I don’t need her exactly where she is.
The front hallway is quiet except for the sound of Grace laughing against my mouth, her hands pressing lightly against my chest, a half-hearted attempt to create distance neither of us wants.
“You thought you could sneak out.” I tighten a hand on her waist.
Eyes bright and a little flustered, she tilts her head to look up at me. “I wasn’t sneaking. You weren’t supposed to be this fast.” Her lips curve. “Besides, your mother is right down the hall.”
“Uh-uh, she’s at the clinic all morning.” I slide my hand along her jaw and tip her face back up to mine.
And when she lets me kiss her again, it’s slower this time, the kind that starts soft and builds into something that makes everything disappear. She makes a small sound against my mouth that does nothing to help my case for letting her go.
Then she pulls back, and this time, there’s more resolve in it, though her fingers curl briefly into my shirt before she releases it.
“And why aren’t you at school?” Her brow arches.
“I’ve got two frees today. My usual classes are on a field trip.” I brush my lips along her jaw, just below her ear, and feel her breath catch before she turns her face away with a quiet laugh. “I thought I’d get some Grace time.”
Again, she laughs, low and reluctant this time, and tilts her face toward mine one more time before catching herself and stepping back with the determination of someone overriding their own wishes.
“I have to go. Zoe is waiting.”
“You’ve been spending more time with Zoe than me.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out easier than I expect. “Never thought I’d say it, but I am. I want you to interview me.”
“The interviews are done.” She smooths the front of my shirt, a small, absent gesture. “I’m writing now, fact-checking, and Zoe needs direction on the layout. We’ve got a week to get this thing done. We’re—”
Her phone lights up on the side table, and when she glances at it, whatever was left of her hesitation evaporates. “That’s her. I really have to go. I wish I’d known we’d have the house to ourselves.”
I cup her face in both hands, tilting it up, and kiss her forehead slowly. My lips rest there long enough to feel her exhale settle, long enough for her to lean in rather than away.
“You okay?” My thumbs trace along her cheekbones, and I feel the moment she softens, the small surrendering of tension in her shoulders, before I make myself pull back.
“Yes.”
She got an email from Toby yesterday saying they were pulling her off the Trintol story. The one she’d spent a little over a year building from nothing. The one tied to her brother and everything that came after losing him.
“You’d tell me if you weren’t, right? It’s a lot to process. A story like that doesn’t just get handed off without leaving a mark.”
When she told me, what I saw in her face was closer to acceptance than devastation, and that worried me. I know what that story meant to her.
It wasn’t a career win she was chasing—it was personal in the way only grief can make something personal. Everything about that story was tangled up with her brother and the need to make something right that can never fully be made right.
“Mad, I promise, I’m fine, and yes, I would tell you if I wasn’t.”
“Okay. Go.” I keep my hands where they are for one more second, her face warm in my palms. “Work.” I press one last kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I’ll see you later.”
She gazes up at me, her expression warm and a little distracted, her mind already shifting toward Zoe and work.
I watch her go down the front walk the way I’ve apparently started doing, like I need to see her off before I can move on with my morning.
Back in the kitchen, I pour myself more coffee and stand at the counter.
It’s been over a week since the memorial, and not a single word from Erica.
I keep waiting for the other shoe, keep checking my phone with that old familiar bracing, but nothing.
Just silence. And the longer it holds, the more the relief settles in me, slow and cautious, like ice that’s only starting to trust the thaw.
More than that—Grace has been sleeping in my bed. We haven’t announced anything or named what we are out loud to anyone, not even ourselves. But I’ve never slept so well in my life.
She slips into my room after Mom goes to bed, and I’ve started sticking to the same side of the bed without thinking about it.
In the same way you develop a habit around something you don’t want to examine too closely.
Whatever this is, we’ve agreed without saying much to keep it between us for now.
What we haven’t talked about is what happens when the feature is done.
When Grace packs up her notes and her laptop and goes back to her life.
I know it’s coming. I keep telling myself, she needs to finish the assignment first, and then we can figure it out.
But she, too, doesn’t bring it up, and somehow, the days keep passing anyway.
Wrapping both hands around my mug, I stare out the kitchen window toward the barn until the creak of the front door opening gets my attention.
“What did you forget?” I automatically turn toward the hallway, already half smiling.
I’m sure Grace isn’t happy with being even later for Zoe, but I’m more than happy to steal another minute or two. As I round the corner, my smile dies.
It isn’t Grace.
Erica stands in my hallway, skin dull and eyes wild, and the sight of her hits me the same way it always does now—not with the old pull, but something closer to exhaustion.
“Erica.” Her name comes out flat. “I don’t care why you’re here. Leave.”
“I came to see Meri.” She lifts her chin, breezy and unbothered, stepping farther into the entryway like she belongs here.
“My mother was with you earlier this week.”
Something flickers behind her eyes, quick and calculated, but her expression doesn’t crack. She’s always been good at that. I used to think it was composure, but now I know better.
“She told me to come by.”
There’s no point in calling her out on the lie because it won’t go anywhere. It only gives her something to dig into, a way to turn the conversation into a negotiation, and I don’t have the energy for it, nor do I care enough. Instead, I get to what I do care about.
“Who paid for your airfare?”
She blinks, and the breezy act slips just slightly. “What?”
“It’s a simple question.” I set my mug on the side table and fold my arms. “I didn’t pay. And I talked to Reggie—she knew you were coming, had a place ready for you, but she didn’t buy your ticket. So, who did?”
She tilts her head and smiles, slow and deliberate, the smile she used to use when she wanted something and knew she had leverage. “Take me out. Like old times. And I’ll tell you.”
“Not happening.”
Since I block the kitchen entry, she wanders into the living room, trailing her fingers along the back of the couch.
“So, are you going to introduce me to your new girlfriend?” Her voice goes light and airy while her fingers knot in her hair.
“Grace.” She says the name like it’s ridiculous.
“Everyone in town just loves her, don’t they.
” Her lip curls. “The way they talk about her, you’d think she’s lived here her whole life. ”
“Who paid?”
Erica’s expression says exactly what she thinks of my silence. “She seems very…” A small pause, the kind designed to let you fill in the blank with something worse than whatever she was going to say. “…wholesome.”
“Who paid for the airfare, Erica?”
She turns to face me fully, and whatever game she was playing shifts gears. The coyness fades a notch. “Marcos.”
The floor slides out from under me. I lock my knees, letting it move through me the way bad news does when it’s worse than you’d prepared for.
Of course it’s Marcos.
“You realize he’s setting you up.” My voice comes out quieter than I intend, which is somehow worse. “You understand that’s what this is.”
“He’s helping me.” Her jaw tightens. “He said he understood what happened with Beto. That he overreacted because he loved the kid and was grieving.” Her eyes fill, and it almost looks genuine. “I feel like shit about Beto. You know that.”
“This has nothing to do with Marcos forgiving you.” I take a step toward her, and my voice stays level because I need her to hear this.
“He’s using you, Rickie. You’re not going to see a single dime of whatever he promised you.
It’s all smoke. He wanted you here, in this town, close to me, so you could do his dirty work for him.
He wants you to expose yourself and take us both down with his version of the truth. ”
She shakes her head, tears now spilling.
“He wants you to pay for Beto. And as much as that kid’s death gutted me, he made his own choices. He knew what he was getting into. He may not have known the fentanyl was in the supply, but—”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracks at the edges. “Don’t start dredging all of this up again.”
“Then why did you admit to bringing the drugs when Beto was the one who—” I stop and press my hand against my mouth for a second because the frustration of it is as fresh as the day it happened. “I don’t understand that, Erica. I’ve never understood why you put that on yourself.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “It is what it is. And I think you’re wrong about Marcos.”
We stand there, neither talking until her expression shifts into something close to hope. “He told me he’d give me ten thousand dollars.”
Her admission drives a roundhouse straight to the heart. “Ten thousand dollars.”
She meets my eyes, and underneath all the armor and angles and everything, she believes him, and that terrifies me more than anything else.
“Why would he give you that kind of money?”
She tries to brush past me, heading for the door, but I grab her arm. “Erica, this isn’t a fucking game. What did he ask you to do?”
And there it is. She flinches for the briefest of moments, and if I weren’t looking, I’d have missed it. He did ask her to do something.
“Let go of me.” She kicks and claws, and I release her.
She doesn’t have to tell me what he exactly told her, I already know. He wants her to blow up my life.