The air thickens.
My hands still in her hair, thumbs grazing a tender spot behind her ear.Her breath hitches, and heat rushes up the back of my neck, prickling under my collar.It would be so easy—too easy—to lean in, let my fingers cradle her head, drag her an inch closer.
Which is exactly why I push to my feet and clear my throat.“That should do it.”
She straightens, droplets sliding over her temple.“Thanks.You didn’t have to?—”
“I know.”
“But you did.”She rises, meeting my eyes briefly.
“I’m a fixer.”The smile I manage feels thin even to me.“Can’t seem to help myself.”
She studies me—longer than comfortable, longer than safe—and the joking edge fades from her eyes, replaced by a quiet curiosity.
“You ever stop?”Her voice drops, soft and low.“Trying to fix everything?”
There she goes again, seeing straight through me, to the thing I’m not saying.
For a moment, I forget the steam, the running water, the scent of her hair, the dangerous proximity of all of it—everything but the truth she’s quietly pressing on.
“Someone’s got to.”It sounds like the wrong answer, even to me.
She’s going to push, ask a follow-up I’m nowhere near ready for, but then she surprises me by simply nodding.“Well, for what it’s worth, you did fix the shower.”
“Glad to be of service.”Grabbing a towel, I dry my hands slowly, deliberately, because the space between us feels electrified and narrowing by the second.“You need anything else?Toothbrush, something to sleep in?”
“No, your mom took care of all that.”
We’re close enough I can feel her warmth, count the seconds between her breaths.Neither of us moves.My hand lifts before I’ve decided anything—knuckles brushing the edge of the towel at her shoulder, accidental and not accidental at all.
Her breath stutters.I feel it against my mouth, a soft, shaky exhale landing right where my resolve is weakest.
My thumb slides under her jaw, tilting her face up.Her pulse kicks hard against my touch, fast and unsteady, like it already knows what I’m about to do before I do.
I tilt my head without meaning to, call it muscle memory or, more truthfully, want.The kind that’s lived in my body longer than sense.Grace inches closer, meeting me halfway before she can stop herself.
I pull back, breath rough, chest tight, hand dropping like I’ve been burned.The space between us yawns open, cold and unforgiving, and every instinct I have wants to close it again.
We still, both of us staring, neither saying a word—almost as if speaking would shatter the fragile thing hovering between us.
And that’s what does it.I step back, then turn toward the door, not willing to give in to whatever spell this is.
I’m halfway to the doorway when she says, almost whisper-quiet, “Maddox.”
I stop.Turn.Not because I’m uncertain—I’ve made up my mind—but because I’m unable to ignore her.
“Why did you really retire?”
The question hits harder than it should.Not because she’s a reporter asking it.Because right now, in this steam-hazed bathroom with her hair damp and her pulse still visible at her throat, she isn’t.
We almost kissed.Almost crossed a line we can’t uncross.And she’s looking at me differently now, gentler than curiosity, more careful than concern, like she wants the truth for reasons that have nothing to do with the article.
It terrifies me.Not because I don’t want to answer her, but because part of me does.
“That’s in your notes somewhere, isn’t it?My on-the-record statement.Save it for the article.”
“That’s not an answer.”