Even if this is real, he’s just trying to be nice to a fellow orphan.
“Maddie?” Kelly asks, with a speck of doubt in her voice. “Is everything okay?”
I thrust the letter toward her, my throat growing tight as a sob tries to escape me.
Her face lights up as her eyes skim over the words. I’ve heard that phrase so many times. But her face really does light up. In typically optimistic Kelly fashion, she’s able to appreciate the moment without darkening it with fearful thoughts.
“This is great,” she says, tilting her head at me. “Isn’t it?”
“This is some cruel piece of work at his publishing house having some fun. That’s what it is.”
“What?” She narrows her eyes. “I highly doubt that, Maddie. Why would anybody do that? No, I’m sure it’s him. This is a chance you can’t pass up.”
“But what if…”
I trail off as anxiety surges, waves and waves of it battering against me.
What if he’s not attracted to me?
That’s what I was going to say, but I stopped myself because it makes no freaking sense.
Of course, he’s not going to be attracted to me.
He’s a highly successful forty-three year old writer, built like a heavyweight MMA fighter, with the looks of a GQ model.
But maybe that’s just it.
Without meeting him, I’m able to lie to myself, able to tell myself that one day, if we were to meet, he’d want me.
Meeting him will suddenly shatter that silly impossible fantasy.
“What are you going to say?” Kelly murmurs, handing me the letter back.
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “I need to think about it.”
“What is there to think about? He wants to see your writing. Maybe he could put you in touch with his agent or something. This is a big chance, Maddie.”
“I know. And I know you only want the best for me. Really. But the idea of meeting him just makes me so freaking nervous.”
She steps forward and places her hand on my shoulder, squeezing softly. “I get that. Honestly, I do. But you’ll kick yourself for the rest of your life if you don’t take this chance.”
I swallow, nodding, knowing she’s right.
“So you’ll email him?”
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her because lying to my best friend is impossible.
She nods. “Okay. Just don’t wait too long. Chances like this only come along once in a lifetime.”
Chapter Four
Madden
I sit outside her apartment building, squeezing my hands so hard on the steering wheel my palms hurt.
It’s been a week since I sent the letter – sent it as a high priority, paid extra to make sure she got it right away.
And nothing.
During the past week, I’ve tried to force her words from my mind, but they follow me into my dreams, whisper at the edges of my consciousness every damn second of every day. I can’t stop thinking about her, can’t beat down these confusing and impossible feelings that surge up inside of me.
I haven’t been able to write, to work, to do anything apart from walk Boxcar and muse about my woman.
My woman.
I’m not sure when I started thinking of Maddison like that, but it feels right every time those words rise in my mind.
It’s a warm summer evening, the sun beaming, but that does little to hearten me about the state of her apartment building. Graffiti is streaked across the front, the main door not even closed – propped open as a bunch of young men sit around it passing around a joint.
My woman belongs in a place so much better than this.
I shake my head, telling myself to drive home right now, to go and wrestle with Boxcar, or force myself to hammer out some words.
I shouldn’t be here, sitting outside her apartment like a villain in one of my goddamned books.
But I can’t fight the compulsion, a completely consuming drive to lay my eyes on this woman.
I failed so damn hard when I wrote that letter.
I told myself to rein in my feelings, to temper my desire, but the idea of only communicating with this woman by words alone caused panic in me.
Panic.
Soul-crushing terror.
Because living without Maddison is simply unacceptable.
Squeezing the steering wheel even harder, I tell myself to stop being so damn stupid.
I remind myself I don’t even know what she looks like.
I remind myself that destiny and fate and Cupid and all that crazy shit doesn’t exist.
And the result?
I only want her more, need her more.
I ache for her.
Maybe when I lay eyes on her these feelings will go away.
But I know that’s never going to happen, even as I try to convince myself of the lie.
I warn myself to stay in the car, to push down these feelings and forget I ever had them. I tell myself that it’s not possible to fall for a woman based on a heart above an i, based on a single page of a letter.