Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Shoulder is good, he typed. Hope your trip back was uneventful. I’ll call soon. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. A start that lightened his steps and strangely made him more certain that he was on the right path at last. He’d figure out what exactly to say to her in the next few days. Right now, however, he had a man to win back.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Man, there’s nothing like smashing things for stress relief.” Pike grinned at Maddox.
“Yeah.” He nodded, but he wasn’t so sure about that. Nothing was working for stress relief for him lately. Not coming up with a business plan. Not getting this place. Not coming up with his first menu. Not a building full of friends wielding crowbars and mallets.
That last one should have done it—the old café was full of life, filled with the smell of pizza and beer and the noise of over a dozen voices. Old friends from the teams, people from church, and even some people he didn’t know that well like the LT’s wife and her teenage son and some colleagues of Pike’s had all stopped by to help. Walls were coming down and new drywall going up, flooring being readied, a built-in bar taking shape near the entrance. If anything was going to make him happy, this should be it.
But nothing could fix the deep pit of loneliness, could make up for the one person who wasn’t here but should be. Maddox hadn’t even texted him about the bakery or the work weekend. Weeks of texting without a reply had given way to this bitter resignation that this was just how things were going to be. Him alone. Him moving forward missing a huge chunk of his heart.
“We’ll be back in the morning.” Zack came over, grinning at his boyfriend, a private smile Maddox probably wasn’t supposed to see, one that promised that the pair had a lot better things to do with the remainder of their evening.
“We’ll pick up the paint and some donuts.” Pike had dust in his red hair and a gleam in his eyes. “Think Dylan’s about pack it in too. Apollo’s mom’s got the girls, and Apollo’s on duty tonight.”
“Apollo’s coming to paint tomorrow if his back’s up to it.” Dylan walked over. He had a measuring tape in one hand and a pad of paper in the other. He’d been measuring the windows for little café curtains that he’d volunteered to sew. Everything was coming together, but Maddox couldn’t shake the sadness that had settled down on him like bag of concrete. “I’ll bring...” Dylan trailed off, eyes going wide.
Zack and Pike got similar bug-eye expressions, jaws going comically slack. Maddox’s pulse sped up before he even whirled around. And there, in the doorway someone had left open was Ben. Ben, wearing jeans and an old Pride T-shirt, one that might have been Maddox’s first. Ben, holding a drill. Ben, looking as sheepish as Maddox had ever seen him. Ben, here.
“Well, look what the cat drug in.” Dylan’s expression hardened. Maddox hadn’t told any of his friends the whole story about Ben, but apparently they’d inferred plenty.
“About time you showed up.” Zack moved in front of Maddox.
“Okay, okay, how about we give them some space?” Pike tugged his boyfriend’s arm. “Weren’t we about to leave?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Zack didn’t look any more ready to move than Dylan, who’d joined Zack in standing in front of Maddox like some sort of bodyguard.
Maddox had no idea what Ben wanted, but he was pretty sure he didn’t want an audience for it, especially an audience of wanna-be-white-knight friends.
“I’ll be fine,” he told them, even though he wasn’t sure he’d ever be fine again. Wasn’t sure he was ready for this. After missing Ben for weeks, he had a lot of warring emotions at the sight of Ben standing there, not speaking. And surprisingly, joy wasn’t chief amongst them. Instead, there was a fair bit of anger there. Anger at being kept waiting. Anger at Ben showing up tonight when he was trying to focus on moving forward. Anger over their fight—he’d been hurt, sure, but there was also rage and frustration over Ben’s choices too.
“Heard you might need help tonight,” Ben said.
“We’ve got it handled,” Maddox said, all that anger coming out in his tone. And he wasn’t someone who liked feeling mad. He didn’t like being out of control, didn’t like the tension in his muscles or the pounding in his head. Damn Ben for making him feel all these unwanted things. Damn Ben for proving that no matter how good a person Maddox thought he was, he was still more than capable of a grudge. “But we could probably find something for you to smash.” Like my heart.
Ben blinked. Undoubtedly, he’d been thinking Maddox would be weeping with joy to see him. Because Maddox was always the nice one. Always the gentler one. The level-headed one. But Maddox wasn’t feeling particularly level-headed right now.