Chapter 8
brAXTON
Maddox hates me. He hasn’t bothered to pretend otherwise—not like I can blame him. I messed up, and time hasn’t healed his wounds any more than it’s healed mine.
Blindsided doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt reading through the NDA Dougie handed me earlier.
I’ve never seen such detail in a document before.
This fake relationship has to seem anything but, and I don’t know how to do that.
Years ago, without a doubt. But now? With Maddox curling his lip at me every time I speak? It’s going to be impossible.
I surprised myself by agreeing to help, but in that moment, all I could think about was that this could be my chance to make amends.
To clear my conscience. I’ve been on the receiving end of Maddox’s anger more than a handful of times over the course of my life, and I’m not about to back down from it now.
Of course, that’s easier said than done when he’s brooding beside me as we watch Dougie and Bentley take off in a Corvette whose price tag could rival that of my entire clinic.
“You don’t have to stay,” I mutter.
Sure, Dougie said he should stay back and spend some time with me, figuring out how exactly we’re going to do this, but he’s never been much of a rule follower. That combined with his distaste for being anywhere near me, I assumed he would have left.
“Where do you want to do this?” he grunts, not sparing me a glance.
I kick a rock with my foot and fight back an eye roll. “Don’t sound so excited. We don’t want you to burst.”
He turns his head and looks at me at the same time I glance up at him. Our eyes meet, his deep and dark and brimming with annoyance. It almost makes me smile to see him so riled up.
“This isn’t fun for me, Braxton. Honestly, this is the last thing I want to do today.”
Ouch. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do.”
“Really? You sure didn’t hesitate to hop at the chance.”
“A nice person would have said thank you instead of harping at me for volunteering to help. I have to go against my family for this. You know that, right?”
His eyes narrow and crinkle at the corners. “Maybe you’re not going against them at all.”
“I signed your NDA.”
“And I wouldn’t put it past your family not to care about that.”
He looks away, his jaw tight as I pull a long breath through my nose and blow it out.
The tension in the air is thick, making it that much harder to stand here with him.
Uncomfortable and uneasy are the two emotions I would use to explain this entire situation.
Hurtful too, but I shove that one as far down as I can.
“If you’re going to be a jackass, please just leave. We don’t have to do this today,” I grind out.
“My place,” he says after a heavy pause.
“Your place?”
“We’ll talk at my place. Not in a parking lot or back inside where I have a dog staring at me like an angry fucking bull.”
I stifle a laugh. “Are you sure you want the enemy in your house? What if I were to take pictures of your underwear drawer and post them online?”
My attempt at a joke fails when he grumbles, “Wouldn’t be the first time a woman has tried to sell my underwear for cash.”
I open my mouth, then close it tight. What is the appropriate response to something like that? I’m sorry? Yeah, I don’t think he would appreciate that right now.
Luckily, he doesn’t wait for a reply. Instead, he pulls a set of keys from the pocket of his designer jeans and clicks the fob to unlock the doors to a tinted black truck I knew was his the moment we stepped outside.
Maddox’s father had a truck just like it when we were growing up, and Maddox told me several times how he wanted one to match one day.
“Let me lock up, and we can go.” I don’t wait for his reply before turning around and doing just that, making sure to double-check the locks to appease my worry. When I finish, he’s already leaning against the passenger door, scowling down at the tire and the fancy silver rim tucked inside.
I straighten my shoulders and lift my chin before I stride toward him, refusing to let him see how nervous I am. Of course, when he pulls open my door and grunts at me to get in, it becomes harder to hide the effect he has on me.
With one foot on the step bar, I pull myself into the truck and collapse in the seat with a huff.
A moment later and he’s beside me, starting the engine and filling the cab with the familiar sound of “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi. It’s one of my favourite songs, and hearing it in this space has me fidgeting in my seat.
Besides the music—all of which seemed to be old rock—the ride is silent, and by the time we pull into an underground garage, I’m ready to be more than an arm’s distance away from Maddox.
Being in his presence is far more intimidating than I remember, and it’s more than just his anger and a mangled past. It’s him—all of him.
His looks, his demeanour that borders on arrogance but hasn’t quite crossed over yet. This is a man that I used to know just as well as I knew myself but now seems so different that I feel actual physical pain at my inability to read him and understand his thoughts.
It’s unfair to think this way, both to myself and to him, but I can’t seem to stop.
The engine turns off, and I prepare myself for the gruff order to get out of the truck, but after a few silent moments, it doesn’t come.
I risk a glance across the cab and suck in a breath.
Rich, vibrant green eyes are waiting for me, and I fluster at the intensity behind them.
The air stills around us, and nobody moves.
Nobody looks away. I think we’re both afraid to.
The pull is still there. A part of me knew it would never disappear—not fully—but as if he’s realizing the same thing, I watch as a guard falls back over his face, and he quickly snatches his wallet and keys from the console.
“We’re here,” he snaps, and then he’s hopping out of the truck, leaving me to collect myself in his absence.
Yeah, we’re somewhere alright. Somewhere we never should have ended up.
In the land of strangers.
“You live here?” I blurt out the minute we enter the penthouse. Yeah, that’s right. Penthouse.
With black-and-white marble floors, lights that I didn’t know could be so bright, and walls lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, I nearly trip over my feet in surprise as I try to keep up with him.
The place is decorated sparsely, impersonally.
Sure, the furniture is high-end, and it fills the massive open floor plan well, but nothing screams Maddox to me.
Where are all of the personal touches? His family photos? I reach up and touch my lips only to find them in a frown. This place feels more like a hotel room than it does a home. But maybe this isn’t a home. No, I need to stop overanalyzing everything.
“Yeah, I live here,” he replies, pulling a beer and a bottle of flavoured water out of the fridge. My heart does this fluttering thing when he hands over the water before walking past me to the living area.
I quickly toe off my sneakers and follow, sitting on the opposite end of a long, white leather couch. The cold from the seat seeps through my scrub pants, and I shiver.
He notices. “Sorry, I like it cold.”
“I know.” I clear my throat and toy with the cool bottle in my hands. “So, how long have you lived here?”
“Two years.”
Two years and it’s still this . . . empty? My chest tightens.
“How is your family?”
“They’re fine.”
“Are you going to elaborate on that?”
“No,” he grunts.
“The grunting is getting old. You’re far from a caveman.”
“I don’t remember you being so pushy.”
I fight back a wince and plaster on a smile. “I didn’t expect you to remember me at all.”
His laugh is so rough it sounds painful. “It seems you’re impossible to forget. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
This time, I don’t try to hide how bad his words hurt.
I swallow the knot in my throat and look away at the flat-screen mounted to the wall across the room and the electric fireplace below it.
Anger tries to bubble to the surface when my eyes begin to sting, but before it gets the chance, I push it and the tears away.
I might deserve his distrust, but despite how angry he is with me over what happened in the past, I refuse to be treated like a doormat.
Twisting my upper body so I can properly face him, I say, “That’s the last time you speak to me that way, Maddox.
You’re allowed to be hurt and angry with me, but you don’t get to treat me with disrespect.
You’re not that guy, and I won’t let you become that guy all because of my father. Don’t give him that power over you.”
“How do you know I’m not that guy? I’m a far cry from the boy you knew.”
I shake my head. “No, I refuse to accept that your parents let you turn out to be a jackass. If Ava knew how you were speaking to me right now, she would have wrung you right out for everyone to see.”
Finally, the hint of a smile pulls at his puffy pink lips. I want to say something else that would make him smile fully, not just show a tease of one, but his mouth returns to its flat line as he states, “You broke her heart when you left. Addie’s too.”
I press a hand to my chest. “Can you please tell me about your family? Just this once, then I won’t ask again.” My voice cracks, and I start to peel off the softening label on the dewy water bottle. “I’ve missed them.”
“Dad runs a skating class in the summer twice a week for children under seven, and Mom helps my aunt with her dance studio whenever she gets bored at home. She retired two years ago, but Dad had been bugging her to long before that. They’re your stereotypical snowbirds now.”
The ice in my chest starts to thaw at the new information. Oakley and Ava Hutton were more than just my best friend’s parents to me growing up. They were like a second set of my own, ones that were always home and present. I loved them—I still do.
“Does it really count as being a snowbird when you already live somewhere without much snow?” I laugh lightly.
Snowbirds are people who leave when the snow falls to go someplace sunny and warm and don’t come back until the snow and cold is gone.
“That’s what Addie said.”
“How are your siblings?” I ask.
I don’t miss the way he stiffens, but I put it down to everything that’s happened with Noah recently. Clearly, it’s a soft spot.
“Addie is good. She’s graduating high school in June.”
“Wow. That’s exciting. What is she doing after?”
“She says she wants to travel the world. Dad is worried she won’t come back after.”
“Are you worried about that?”
Adalyn has always been the wild child. She loves adventure and taking risks. After she told me she wanted to jump out of a plane for her sixteenth birthday when she was only ten, I diagnosed her as an adrenaline junkie. It fit her personality in the best way, and I’ve always wondered if that stuck.
Maddox shrugs and takes a swig of his beer. My eyes become stuck on the column of his throat as it bobs with a swallow, but I force myself to look away before I get caught ogling him.
But oh boy, he has a strong throat—all thick and powerful with cords of muscles I itch to press my fingers into. Is it weird to talk about somebody’s throat like this? Probably.
Yes.
“You can’t keep my sister trapped in a bubble. She needs to go and experience life. But she’ll come back when she’s ready to,” he says.
“I agree. Somehow, people always seem to find their way back to where there’s supposed to be.”
I think I believe that more now than I ever have before.