Page 75 of Holiday Interference
The bench shifts beside me.
I don’t need to look to know it’s Maddox.
He never says much. Doesn’t have to. His presence alone is like gravity—quiet, steady, and absolute. He doesn’t deal in noise. Just truth.
“You looked good out there,” he says finally, voice low.
“Thanks,” I manage, voice rough around the edges. “Tried to shake off whatever the hell that was earlier.”
“Well, you did.”
We sit in silence for a beat.
My fingers tighten around my knee pads. My ribs are still too tight, too full of all the words I didn’t say when she left. All the ways I let myself feel too much for something that was never going to last.
I clear my throat. “You ever skate like someone’s watching?”
Maddox doesn’t blink. Just leans forward on his knees, wrists resting against taped knuckles. “Of course,” he says. “Someone always is.”
His voice is even, but the weight behind it lands heavy.
He doesn’t say her name.
Doesn’t need to.
I’ve seen the way he looks at Sloane Carrington like she’s the only thing worth winning.
The way she watcheshimlike he’s not just her goalie—he’s her reason for being.
That’swhat it looks like when someone matters and you don’t run from it.
My chest squeezes like someone tied a skate lace around my heart and yanked it hard.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had that,” I say, before I can stop myself. “Not really.”
Maddox doesn’t offer comfort. He doesn’t do soft edges. But his voice is steel-cut steady when he says, “You will. When it’s real, you’ll know.”
I nod, swallowing past the knot in my throat.
My locker feels a mile away. I lean back, head hitting the cinderblock wall behind me, wishing I had answers. Wishing I hadher number. Or even just a breadcrumb to follow.
But there’s nothing.
All our contact came through The Pit. Through the event. Through proximity that doesn’t exist anymore.
And now?
Now she’s just a ghost in red, cheering from the stands one minute and gone the next.
I close my eyes for half a second.
Then pull open my phone, fingers hesitating over the screen like maybe—just maybe—she’ll be there.
But there’s no contact.
No number.
No thread to pull.
