Going Mad For Maddox

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

MADDOX

"WHO IS SHE to you?" I pull my jacket off, un-holstering my gun and take a seat in front of my grandfather. "She's important to you, isn't she?"

"She's my best friend's little sister of course she's important to me."

He tsks, believing there's more to the story than what I'm relaying. "She's more." I say nothing, "you're just like your father, Maddy. You have the same look he had when he first met your mother."

I decide to humor him. "And whats that look?"

He disregards my question and carries on. "Before your father met Phillipa he was such an angry boy. Just like you. Kept to himself, hated anything and everything because he couldn't understand who he was or what he was supposed to be."

His eyes swing to the photo of my father and him standing outside our family hunting cabin, grasping a dead dear by its antlers. "I tried to be there for him just how any good father will try to be there for their son, but his stubbornness never wavered."

I smirk, knowing where this story is going.

"Until he met his much more stubborn match."

"My mother."

He brings his glass of ice tea to his lips, smiling into his cup. "Your mother." He takes a sip and continues, "and your dear old daddy hated her."

I lift myself higher in my chair not knowing this part of the story, "dad hated mom?"

"Loathed her." His eyes go to another photo. This one capturing my parent's wedding day. "Phillipa was stubborn and with this she never gave up on your father. His hatred for her made her curious and you know your mother—"

"She loves a challenge." I finish for him.

"That she did."

"Why did dad not like her?"

"Because my dear boy." He stands, "he wanted her."

"That makes no sense." Yet it's exactly the same situation between Kodi and I.

I hated her for the sole reason that something deep in my body craved her, but knowing that having her meant I had to lose the control I spent years crafting.

I am my father's son at the end of the day.

"Your mother came over one night and they got into a nasty fight. She was tired of him keeping her out when all she has ever wanted was for him to finally let her in. I can't remember what he said, but he said something rude enough for your mother to hit him in the face." He laughs as if remembering this memory is worth every ounce fondness. "And you want to know what your dad did?"

"Hmm?"

"He grabbed your mom and finally kissed her." He looks out his study window, "and ever since then they've been inseparable."

"To see mom hitting dad is something I'd pay good cash for."

There's a knock and then the soft unmistakable voice of the very woman who gave me life suddenly asks from behind me. "How much are we talking? I'll call your dad right now."

Phillipa Ashely comes into view, giving my grandfather a quick kiss to his temple and then squares me with a look only a mother has the power to garner. "How come I had to over hear that my baby boy met someone and not hear it comes from my own kids mouth?" She tilts her head to the side, the blonde hair I didn't get falls over her shoulder, hiding my father's initials that are tattooed there.