Something faint and fleeting moves across my face, maybe a smile.“It doesn’t matter to me, Buf.I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The call ends, and the room feels smaller than it did before.I zip the suitcase, take one last look around, and shut the door behind me.
On my way down the stairs, I call Meri, get her voicemail, and leave a message.She deserves one.I like her, and I would’ve liked more time with her.I make a mental note to try her again later, knowing I probably won’t.I won’t go near the Hartley house again.
Tonight, I’ll find a hotel near the airport and leave before morning has the chance to change my mind.
Chapter38
Maddox
I’m running out of time, forty minutes to tip-off, and Nate already has the boys warming up in a gym that’s filling fast.I should be there, should be doing the job I chose, the one I promised myself I’d do right.
So why the hell am I still parked across the street from the inn?
The front door opens, and Grace steps out with a suitcase rolling behind her, head down, phone in hand.Patsy stands on the porch, waving goodbye like this is the most normal thing in the world.
My chest aches with the specific, pulverizing weight of watching it happen and being unable to move.
Grace unlocks the rental, loads the trunk with the efficiency of someone who has made up her mind.She slides into the driver’s seat and pulls out of the inn’s small lot.
I watch the car disappear down the street, and the vanishing taillights spur me into action.I’m out of the truck, boots hitting the pavement as I call across the street to Patsy before she can turn and go back inside.
“Was that Grace I just saw leave?”
I’m an idiot.
She squints at me, then her face opens into a smile.“Maddox, yes, it was.She’s leaving.Such a shame, I did so like?—”
“Did she say where she was going?”The words are fast and clipped, and I rake a hand through my hair, already aware I have no real right to be asking.Not after the way I walked out on her.Twice.
“She did.”Patsy’s unbothered by my barely contained unraveling.“Her flight leaves early tomorrow morning.She’s staying in Helena tonight.”
The confirmation lands like a fist to the sternum.She’s really gone, and worse than that, she didn’t wait—didn’t leave a window open.Nope, she packed her things and walked out the door while I was standing fifty feet away, too stubborn and too slow to do anything about it.
Before I can think better of it, a clumsy half-truth tumbles out of me.“She left something for me, and I thought I’d get here sooner to pick it up.”
“She didn’t mention?—”
“It might still be up in the room.”I cut in, hating the lie even as it leaves my mouth.I hope it’s still in the room.“Do you mind if I run up and check?”
She studies me in a way that suggests Patsy sees considerably more than she lets on, and then she waves a hand.“All right, then.I’ve got a call coming in anyway.Door’s unlocked, go on up.”
“Thanks, Patsy.”
I take the stairs two at a time, push the door open, and find the article is still there, lying exactly where it fell when I let it go.For a single suspended moment, my heartbeat evens out because this was a long shot, and it paid off.And right now, that’s the only thing that’s gone right in the last twenty-four hours.
I scoop the pages up, feeling the weight of them settle into my hand, and head downstairs.Patsy’s on her call, and I hold up the pages in a half-wave as I move through the lobby.
“Got it,” I mouth, and she nods without missing a beat of her conversation.
My truck is on the road in seconds, the article on the passenger seat, and I still have no idea what I’m going to do with it.
Twenty-seven minutes to tip-off, and for the first time since this mess started, the clock isn’t what scares me.
At school, the boys are in the locker room, dressed and focused, some stretching, others laughing too loud.Nate spots me walking in and smiles, mouthing, “You good?”I nod because I’m the coach, and I’m supposed to be.
I sink onto a bench and pull the pages from my jacket.The article she shoved at my chest and swore she was sending to her editor.I skim at first, looking for what I dread.The sharp turn where she exposes me the way Erica did—slow at first, then all at once, until I didn’t recognize my own life anymore.