Page 33 of Mad for Madison
Madison turned away from me and picked up a bottle of red wine from the small stand where several different bottles of alcohol stood. He shook his head as he looked at the bottle. “Tonight, being with you and Lily, it was the closest I’ve ever been to feeling normal.” He decided the bottle was good enough and picked up a corkscrew. “I never felt that way as a kid. I told you. My parents were never sober, so I had to learn to fight for myself. I had to drag my way out of that pit any way I could. So I did. I never let myself want something I knew I couldn’t have, but you…” He popped the cork out of the bottle and poured us some red wine. “You keep breaking that illusion, Bradley.”
“How am I doing that?” I asked.
“You make me want it,” Madison whispered. He set the bottle beside the glasses and looked up, his gaze meeting mine. “You make me want the things I never thought were possible.”
“What’s stopping you from having them?” I asked.
He gave a choked laugh. “Oh, Bradley,” he whispered. “You make it all seem so simple.”
Madison lifted the two glasses of wine and offered me one. I neared him inch by inch throughout the conversation until I stood with barely a foot of space between us. Even that felt like galaxies existed between us.
Madison handed me the glass of wine, his fingers brushing mine for just a moment. It felt deliberate, like he was testing the waters, but then he stepped back, putting a small but noticeable distance between us. He swirled the wine in his glass, looking down into the deep red liquid instead of at me.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Bradley,” he said softly. His voice was steady, but there was a weight to it that made my chest tighten.
“What do you mean?” I asked, keeping my tone light. I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
He finally looked up, his eyes meeting mine. The intensity in them nearly knocked the air out of my lungs. “This,” he said, gesturing between us. “You. Us. Whatever this is.”
I sipped my wine, mostly to buy myself time. “You don’t have to figure it all out right now,” I said carefully. “We’re just here, talking.”
Madison let out a short laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Talking, yeah. Sure.” He turned and walked to the window, staring out at the skyline. “I’m not the kind of guy you should be here with, Bradley.”
The words punched me in the gut, even though he said them with no malice. Just quiet certainty. I didn’t respond right away, afraid I might say something I couldn’t take back. Something that would hurt him or make him shut down completely.
Madison pressed his hand against the windowpane, his broad shoulders hunched. “I’ve spent so long building this life, this persona, and I’ve gotten so good at it that I don’t know who I am when I’m not being him. And that guy…” He paused, shaking his head. “He’s not someone who gets to have what you have. What you are.”
My heart ached at his words, and my grip on the glass tightened. “Madison,” I said gently, stepping closer. “You’re not some caricature. You’re a person. A person who sat in a diner with me and my daughter tonight debating dinosaurs and eating cookies. That’s who you are, too.”
His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, but he didn’t turn to face me. “You say that like it’s simple. But it’s not. You think people like me get to have happy endings, Bradley? I’m…tainted. Every part of my life is out there for anyone to find if they look hard enough. Every bad choice, every mistake. How could you look at me the same way if you really knew?”
The quiet admission made my throat tighten. There was so much I wanted to say, but the words tangled in my mind, each one laced with my own doubts and fears. He wasn’t wrong—I had thought about the risks. About the judgment. About what it would mean for Lily, for me, to be tied to someone like Madison Masters, the man everyone thought they knew. But here, in this quiet room filled with the rawest parts of him, all I could think about was the man who had made my daughter laugh so hard she nearly fell off her chair.
“I don’t care about any of that,” I said finally, my voice firmer than I expected. “What you do, the choices you’ve made—it doesn’t change who you are right now. And it doesn’t change the way I see you.”
Madison turned slowly, his eyes searching mine for something—doubt, hesitation, an escape route. Whatever he was looking for, I hoped he didn’t find it.
“You say that now,” he murmured. “But what happens when it’s too much? When it’s not just you and me in a room like this? When people start talking and you have to explain me to your family? To Lily, someday? What then?”
I hesitated. The truth was, I didn’t know the answer to that. I hadn’t thought that far ahead because I was still trying to convince myself this was even real. But the vulnerability in Madison’s voice, the way he stood there as though he was waiting for me to confirm his worst fears, made me want to prove him wrong.
“I don’t have all the answers,” I admitted. “But I know this: I’ve never felt like this before. And I don’t want to let it go just because it might be hard.”
Madison stared at me, his expression unreadable. Then he set his glass down on the nearest surface and took a single step forward. “You think you’re ready for what this would mean?” he asked quietly.
“I think I’m ready to find out,” I said, meeting his gaze head-on.
Madison sighed. “Bradley, I’m sorry. I brought you here wanting to continue the magic of the day, and I screwed it all up.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t.”
The tension between us crackled like a live wire, and for a moment, neither of us moved. Then Madison closed the distance between us, his hands hesitating just inches from my face before he cupped my jaw and tilted my head up toward him. His touch was warm and steady, but I could feel the tremor in his fingers.
When his lips finally met mine, it was like the world melted away. The kiss wasn’t rushed or frantic; it was deliberate, a slow claiming that left no room for doubt. His thumb brushed against my cheek as he deepened the kiss, and I let myself fall into it completely. Into him.
When we finally pulled apart, his forehead rested against mine, his breath warm on my lips. “Bradley,” he whispered, his voice raw, “I want this. I want you. But I’m scared.”
I reached up, my hand covering his where it still cradled my face. “Me too,” I admitted. “But maybe we can figure it out together.”
