Not when she’s looking at me with a quiet steadiness that makes it damn near impossible to hold my ground.Even if walking toward her and not away is the opposite of self-preservation.
She hesitates, not uncertain, weighing something I can’t read, and nods.“Tomorrow.”
Then she turns toward the door.Her blonde hair catches the overhead light as she moves, and everything else—voices, dishes, the whole damn café—disappears behind the pounding in my chest.
The door swings shut.
And just like that, something hits me—critical, unwelcome, and a beat too late to do anything about it.
She’s going to ruin everything I’ve buried.
Not with her questions.
Not with her phone.
With the way she sees straight through me.
Chapter13
Grace
By the time I finish editing the interview transcript from Bloom & Brew—the one I’ve been putting off for days—my head throbs.I’ve filled the passing days by mapping out locations Maddox’s mentioned, planning photos and b-roll, building my interview list, and consuming enough caffeine to power a newsroom through a breaking-news cycle.But none of it has stopped me from thinking about him.
My untouched salad wilts on the plate beside me.I’m slouched in the chair by the window at the inn, sunlight slanting warm across the table, pretending lunch holds my attention.
It doesn’t.
Maddox fills every quiet corner of my mind, and I can’t seem to evict him.The Mad One.God, even that nickname needles now.
The memory of his face at the café when I told him he hadn’t been my first-choice subject replays without permission.When I called him a racer best known for leaving.
He took it well—better than I deserved—and somehow that makes it worse.He didn’t argue, just sat there, unfazed, as if I hadn’t dismissed an entire chapter of his life.As if I hadn’t dismissed him.Regret sits hard and heavy in my chest.
But then there were the other moments, the ones that won’t stay quiet.The way his eyes changed—maybe heated—when he said my work was good.Almost careful, like the truth mattered, like he meant it.Like he saw past the press badge and the questions I’d sharpened to keep my distance, past the reporter flown in to produce a feature nobody truly needs, straight through to the woman holding them.
My fingers pause over the keyboard.
Because then there were my questions—the ones I asked anyway, about his retirement, about Erica.The stillness that followed wasn’t the brittle kind.It was the kind that closes in, that has weight and intention.His body went rigid, breath shallow, something shuttering behind his eyes.A door slammed.
He’s hiding something.I’d bet my press badge on it, and normally, that would thrill me—spark an almost physical pull toward truth and motive and whatever sits underneath a person’s carefully constructed façade.Part of me still feels it, a restless itch to tug at the thread and see what unravels.But with Maddox, I’m torn in a way I can’t quite name.
And does it matter anyway?
Toby doesn’t want an exposé.He wants an image piece wrapped in a neat bow—a man returned to his hometown, stitched back into community and routine.Clean.Safe.Harmless.
And Maddox—God help me—feels anything but.
Like I told Buffy, there’s weight to him.History.A restraint that feels earned rather than practiced, and I felt it across the café table in a way that hasn’t left me since.
I should be focused on the story, not on whether he likes me, not on how he said my name like it wasn’t a sound but a consideration.Not on the way his gaze lingered—steady, unflinching—like he’d already mapped the shape of my thoughts before I’d finished forming them.
I’ve been careful my whole career.Careful with sources, careful with proximity, careful with the version of myself I bring to a story.One week here and I’m already less careful than I should be.
My phone buzzes beside my water glass, skittering dangerously close to the edge.
“Hey, Toby.”
“Grace.”His voice has that clipped, measured quality he uses when he’s delivering news he hasn’t fully decided how to frame.“Wanted to give you an update.Legal met with Vitale Industries.We’re talking.”