Page 50 of Game Misconduct
“This isn’t about pretty,” I say. “It’s about letting people see that who they’re pouring their hope into is a person. It’s about the kids who will sleep better because the guy they see on billboards looked them in the eye and made them laugh. It’s about the rookie who breathes easier because the cameras caught you doing what you already do—standing still when other people wobble.”
His gaze hooks on mine and holds. Heat moves through my chest like whiskey.
“I see everything,” I say.
“And you wrapped my shoulder,” he adds after a beat, and now it’s like there’s no desk between us.
There’s only the memory of my hands on him. His skin hot, my fingers confident because confidence was safer than feeling anything else.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
I shrug a shoulder. “I knew how and because no one was there to help you. Because it would hurt less if it was tight.”
He studies me the same way he studied the folder, like he could pry the edges up and see what is underneath if he decided he has time for it.
“You didn’t have to,” he says.
“I don’t do ‘have to’ very often. It makes me interesting company or terrible company, depending on the day.”
He snorts. The sound is a rough cut of amusement that does unforgivable things to the base of my spine.
“Saturday,” I say, before the room slides any closer to the edge. “Ten a.m. Call time at the hospital is nine-forty. Sierra will email the talking points; ignore the ones that feel like lies. Dean will coordinate the outlets for the top and the bottom of the shoot.”
I level him with my best “don’t fuck with me stare.” “You will not stonewall. You will not snarl. You will stand still for photos and make one kind of joke that reads as human, not hostile. I’ll be there. If you need a lifeline, I’m there.”
“I don’t take lifelines,” he says.
“I know; you take wins. This is one of them, so take it, Maddox.”
He taps the folder again, slow and deliberate. Once. Twice. “I’ll think about it.”
I try not to roll my eyes.
There it is. The non-answer that men give when they want to keep you in the air over the net and call it mercy.
My father used to do it all the time.
I don’t take the bait and keep my voice cool. “This isn’t an ask. It’s mandatory.”
A long moment slides by, thin as a blade.
He holds my stare like a man holding the line in a tide. I don’t look away.
The chair scrapes when he stands, towering over my desk once again.
Heat rushes to my core seeing him like that. The woman in me responds before the rest of me can body-check her.
And I hate it.
I hate the heat.
I hate the wanting.
I hate that the wanting makes me feel alive when I’m supposed to be steel.
Maddox turns for the door. He pauses with his hand on the knob, then looks back over his shoulder.
