But it was too late. She turned around and took the elevator down with Dad.
Chase: You’re not in your office.
Maddie: Thanks, Captain Obvious.
Chase: I’m coming to your place.
Maddie: I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
Chase: I can explain.
(I couldn’t, at this point, but it seemed like something people said often.)
Maddie: Which part, the one where your father uncovered us? Or maybe it’s the part where you screwed my brains out in my office, then proceeded to throw it in Julian’s face when he ruffled your feathers? Yes, Chase. Thin glass door. EVERYBODY heard.
Maddie: Or maybe you can explain the part where you FATHERED CLEMENTINE AND FORGOT TO MENTION IT TO EVERYONE?
Maddie: I thought I hated you then. I was wrong. This, right here, right now, is hate.
Maddie: There’s nothing to talk about. This was temporary, right? You said so yourself. Mission accomplished. You screwed me. You bragged about it. Everyone knows. Now let me go.
Maddie: And one more thing. Be good to Clemmy. That’s the least you can do.
It was pissing rain by the time the taxi stopped by Madison’s brownstone. I tucked the papers into my blazer to prevent them from getting wet, ducking my head as I slipped out of the cab. I punched her buzzer three times, pacing back and forth. No answer. I tried calling her. She didn’t pick up. I could clearly see her light was on through her window. Her plants tucked behind the glass cozily as the rain pounded on the glass from outside. I called and texted and begged for twenty minutes straight before the door opened from the inside of the building.
“Jesus, Mad. Finally. I . . .” I stopped when I saw who it was. Layla.
“Wow, Satan, you look like shit. Which is frankly an accomplishment, considering your genetics.” She bit off the edge of a Twizzler, taking a whole lot of pleasure in watching me soaked to the bone. She was still in. I was still out. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure what I was doing here in the first place. Madison had made valid points in her text messages—this was supposed to be temporary, and now we were uncovered. Done. What did I care if she knew the truth or not? Especially now, when my life was one giant fire in need of extinguishing.
“Let me in.” I scowled, noticing rain dripping from my hair and the tip of my nose. How come I didn’t even feel wet?
“Try again. This time nicer,” she singsonged, crossing her arms over her chest. Her neon-green bomber jacket matched her hair.
“Not familiar with the term,” I bit out.
“Crying shame.” She moved for the door, half closing it in my face.
“Please, may I come in?” I asked loudly. Fuck. She reopened the door.
“What are your intentions with my friend?” She pretended to consider my request, taking another bite of the Twizzler.
Well, I would like to explain myself, fuck her six ways from Sunday, then yell at her for being so goddamn impossible, then fuck her again.
“Talk,” I said, opting for the shorter, safe-for-work answer. “I just want to talk to her.”
The rain was pounding on my head. Layla was taking her sweet-ass time to make a decision. The list of people I wanted to kill was growing by the nanosecond.
“She’s hella upset with you, so you might get through this door, but not necessarily through her door.” She finally opened the door all the way. “Good luck, Satan.”
I raced up the stairs, taking them three at a time. When I got to Madison’s door, a rush of something weird washed over me. I could almost smell Daisy and the flowers and Mad’s shampoo and freshly baked goods through the crack of the door. I wanted to take a shit and a shower and a nap, then have two of her cupcakes with a side of a blowjob. I wanted her comfort, not another fucking quarrel out of the three thousand ones we had on a daily basis.
“Madison.” I pounded on the door. I dripped all over the hallway, my clothes heavy with rain. I couldn’t feel the lower half of my body either. My goddamn ass would probably need to be amputated after it froze off. “Open the door.”
“I don’t think so.”
I wondered how I’d ended up here. Not just today but in general. I’d seen this side of her door so many times, always with a half-cocked plan, forever with some explaining and convincing to do, constantly un-fucking-invited.
I begged and I stole and I bargained and I manipulated her so many times it became a full-time job to be around her. And whenever we were alone, when I finally had her to myself, I kept reminding her it wasn’t serious. That it was temporary. That I didn’t care.
Spoiler alert: I cared. A whole lot. That was a plot twist I hadn’t seen coming, and it made me stumble backward, my back pressing against Layla’s door (thank fuck she’d just headed out). I let out a frustrated growl.
Shit. I was in love with Mad.
Madison “Maddie” Goldbloom, of all the women in the universe. The girl who wore patterned, horrible clothes and had a short pixie haircut that had gone out of style in the nineties and was obsessed with pleasing people and flowers and weddings. I loved that she was sweet and kind and thoughtful but also sassy and quick witted and made her own money.
I was painfully in love with Mad, and I hadn’t even known it until it was a second too late.
“Mad.” I stumbled back to her door, plastering my forehead to it and closing my eyes. Jesus. Losing my father and the woman I loved in close succession was too much. What had I ever done to karma to deserve this lubeless ass fucking?
Never mind. There was a long list of whats.
“Please.”
“Chase,” I heard from behind the door. Her voice was soft, pleading. “There’s not much more to say. I feel humiliated. Nina has been bugging me all day at the office, and your family probably hates me, which I really don’t want to deal with, and the thing with Clemmy is straight out of a Ricki Lake episode.”
At least she hadn’t said Jerry Springer. Progress, right?
“Just open up. Please. I’ll explain; then I’ll go.”
“Not falling for that one.” I heard her smile bitterly behind the door. “That’s how you snuck your way back into my life in the first place.”
Knowing I couldn’t convince her, I turned around and slid my back across her door. Sitting. Waiting. She knew I was there. There was a pause.
“Are you sitting against my door?”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
“I want you to see something. I’ll wait.”
And I did. I waited for an hour and a goddamn half. I heard Madison going about her evening. Cooking (pasta, basil, and olive oil—the scent was too much not to notice), feeding Daisy, and watching an episode of You I hadn’t seen yet (God dammit). Then, and only then, she came back to the door.
“Okay. I’m ready to hear what you have to say, but make it quick.”
The door was still shut. I turned around, glowering at it. Fine. We were going to do it her way.
“I’m not Booger Face’s father. Here. I took a paternity test this afternoon. As soon as Julian showed me his.” I slipped the paper through the door crack. I’d known I couldn’t be Clemmy’s father. The dates didn’t add up. Not unless I’d managed to impregnate Amber from Malta, if I’d done the math correctly (and I always did the math correctly).
My eyes were fixed on the edge of the paper sitting under the door. Mad picked it up from the other side. I let out a breath, closing my eyes in relief.
“I always knew I could never be Booger Face’s dad. That’s why I kept asking Amber for a paternity test when she banged on about it. You think I’d turn my back on a kid of mine?” I growled. “Fuck, I love her like my own kid, and she isn’t even mine. In fact, she was supposedly the very goddamn product of my fiancée and brother bumping uglies behind my back.”
Silence. Ouch. Okay. In all honesty, I’d seen it coming. There was much more to my shitty behavior than supposedly not telling her I was my ex-fiancée’s baby daddy.
“Who’s her biological father?” Mad asked through the door.
“Some dudebro from Wisconsin. I went to confront Amber after I took the paternity test.” I ran a hand through my hair. “After Amber and I broke up, she got hit with the finality of it and tried calling me, ghosting Julian, trying to make amends. By then, I was traveling and didn’t pick up. She went back home to nurse her broken whatever the fuck she has in her chest. Clemmy’s dad is an old high school flame. Amber said she’ll talk to him. We’re figuring it out so that Booger Face has the best childhood.”
“What a mess.” Mad sighed.
“Yeah.”
“Poor Clemmy.”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
I loved my niece to death, but she wasn’t what I’d come here to talk about.
“Anyway”—I cleared my throat—“my family doesn’t hate you. Just putting it out there. Mom thinks I’m a first-rate asshole, and Dad is probably taking me out of his will. But they still like you. If anything, once I explained you didn’t even ask for money or anything and just did it for Dad, you became even more heroic and perfect.”
I’d call her Martyr Maddie, but the truth was lately she hadn’t been that same meek, insecure girl I’d met all those months ago at all. She stood up for herself constantly and only did what she believed in.
And unfortunately, it made her stupidly irresistible.
The quiet from the other side of the door grated on my nerves. I dragged my forehead over the wood, squeezing my eyes shut.
“I don’t want this to be over.” The admission fell from my mouth on a whisper.
I wasn’t ready to tell her everything yet. I recognized it seemed like a highly convenient time for me to realize I was in love with her. But waking up tomorrow knowing there was no Mad on the agenda seemed like a prospect worth offing myself for.
“Please.” Her voice trembled. “Leave.”
I pressed my fingers to her door, then walked away, respecting her boundaries for the first time since I’d met her. They said doing the right thing made you feel good.
They were wrong.
It felt shitty to do the right thing. Downright stupid. When I was back on the street, I looked up at her window, ignoring the rain pounding on my face. I saw her face pop behind the glass. She was crying.
And as I got into my Uber and the drops kept running down my face, I thought maybe so was I.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MADDIE
I’d done it.
I stood up for myself.
Martyr Maddie no more. I went against Chase Black. Flat-out refused him. I cut things off with Ethan. I even sent Katie a message, explaining how okay I was with her dating my ex-something. I was taking a proactive stance in my life.
So why was I feeling anything but empowered?
I’d always thought standing up for myself would feel celestial. Like a fully grown butterfly bursting out of a cocoon, flapping its colorful wings. In practice, I felt grossed out with myself by the way I’d turned Chase away on the day he’d hurried to the clinic to take a paternity test. I felt so empty I could feel my bones rattling inside my body as I set foot in the studio the next morning. New York Fashion Week was mere weeks away. August had bled into September, and my sketch was ready and submitted to Sven. We were supposed to start stitching the dress today. The model was supposed to be on her way to the office. Sven told me he had taken our discussion about the sketch to heart. Not only had he not made one change to my sketch, but he’d also suggested we use an everyday woman to model the dress. And by “everyday woman,” he still meant a nineteen-year-old, ridiculously gorgeous model with perfect skin and silky hair. But unlike most runway models, she was a whopping size six. Super skinny and fit to the rest of the world, but on the curvy side in fashion standards.
All I had to do was see the production of the dress through, stage by stage.
“If it isn’t the office mattress. Grab a ticket, gentlemen. Everyone gets a lay,” Nina proclaimed as I skulked into the office. We were the only two people in. Everyone else at Croquis liked to be fashionably late. Yesterday, Nina had reached an all-time-bitch level. The type normally saved for Korean high school dramas and daytime soap operas. When I’d gone downstairs to buy a salad, condoms had spilled at my feet from my shoulder bag. She’d crammed them into it when I wasn’t looking.
“Shut up, Nina,” I said tiredly, collapsing into my seat and powering up my laptop.
Realizing I’d actually answered her back, Nina whipped her head around, twisting her mouth in distaste. She was wearing a Stella McCartney black day dress paired with flat Louboutins. “So now you have a mouth? I mean, for more than blowing important men? Figures.”
Figures?What did she mean?
“Seriously.” I rolled my eyes, fed up with her crass behavior. “That mean-girl cliché is super early 2000s. It’s 2020. Throw shade. Finstagram me. Graduate from petty slut-shaming me. This is getting real tiring.”
“You’re so lucky to not have any principles,” she continued, undeterred. “I bet I could get where you are if I chose to let the right people in the industry get a piece of me.”
I snapped my laptop shut. “Nina,” I warned, finally taking a good look at her. She was shoving pictures of her with her lobbyist boyfriend into a cardboard box. Her eyes were red. She was . . . oh God, she was packing.