Page 31 of Mad for Madison

“Oh, I think so, too,” I said. “How are the girls?”

Gran took a few steps back and let me pass. “Muriel’s much better.”

“The new knee working well?” I asked.

“It is. And it hurts less every day,” Gran said, wincing. She feared knee surgeries despite being in great shape and never complaining about knee pain. She could walk ten miles and barely break a sweat.

“My friend is waiting for me,” I said. “Would you mind keeping an eye on her?”

Gran gave me a scolding look. “Why do you always have to ask me that?”

I shrugged. “Because you never asked to have to babysit your grandson and great-granddaughter,” I said.

Gran took my hand in both of hers. “You’re wrong about that, Bradley.”

I nodded, failing once again to find the right words to express my gratitude. “I won’t be late.”

“Be late,” Gran said, winking as she let go of my hand. “And take a few of these.”

Before I knew it, I was leaving the apartment with hot cookies wrapped in a napkin. As I reached the bottom landing and walked out, I realized my mistake. Madison didn’t eat sweets. He’d only had a third of his ice cream for Lily’s sake.

I cringed as I walked toward him. “Gran sends these. We can throw them away if you…”

“Are those cookies?” Madison asked.

“Yeah,” I said apologetically. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Are you crazy? We’re not throwing them away,” Madison said, reaching for one chocolate chip cookie. “They’re still warm.”

“I thought you couldn’t eat whatever you liked,” I said.

“Call it a cheat day,” Madison said, biting into the cookie. He let out a sound of pleasure that was borderline erotic, and I laughed out loud. “It’s worth it, dammit. How can I live like this?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question all day,” I admitted.

“You’re blessed,” Madison said. He started walking slowly as he snacked, and I moved shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “I wonder how much longer I can keep going like that.”

I swallowed and said nothing. To tell him that I envied the body he had would have been the worst misjudgment of the day. But I had to wonder if I only thought that the grass was greener on another hill. We all wanted what we couldn’t have. It was the human experience.

“I just want to have a snack once in a while,” he said. “And stay in, watching TV, instead of spending my life at the gym.”

“I never thought of it that way,” I admitted.

“This was heavenly,” Madison said of the cookie and helped himself to another one. I did the same.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He looked at me. “Somewhere private?”

I nodded. There wasn’t a better way to end the day than to be somewhere alone with Madison. Even if we only spent the evening talking, it would be a win. But since this morning, the idea that I could live solely on the memory of having been with him was proving treacherous.

“I was debating this a lot,” Madison said, casting a spotlight on pretty much all of my insecurities. My mind came up with a million things he could say to follow this up that would result in disappointment. “I don’t want us to go someplace where we’ll be recognized. I don’t want to act the way I do in public.”

“I don’t want you to, either,” I said.

“I know.” There was a flirtatious smile on his lips when he said that. “I have this place—you will be sworn to secrecy, Bradley, if you want to step inside—and I think we should go there.”

I pulled an imaginary zipper across my lips and lifted my eyebrows in curiosity.

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