Page 66 of On The Edge

Just spit it out and let’s be done already. Christ.

“Do what?”

“Make light of this. Try and joke your way out of things. You don’t get to be how you were last night and then be like this this morning.” Her teeth grit. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

She motions to me. “Like that.”

“I can’t help it if you’re sexy when you’re angry.”

By the scowl on her face, I probably shouldn’t have said that.

“Cruz. Stop it. It’s not just you in this, and you keep seeming to forget that.”

“So we are having our first fight, then. Okay. Gotcha. Because me needing space and you giving it to me seems like a really stupid thing to fight over. Especially when we have the jet on the runway, a new place to go, and a flight plan filed to get us there.”

“Classic fucking Cruz. Let’s just brush it under the rug, shall we? You seem to be really good at that. At getting to say your piece and being selfish enough to think that no one else deserves to say theirs. Well, I’m here and am every part of this fucked-up plan as you are so respect the fact that my voice fucking matters too.”

I stand there holding her stare at a loss for words. What the actual fuck? And yes, in Classic fucking Cruz fashion, I’m going to react like the selfish, sarcastic asshole that I am.

“I wasn’t aware you knew me enough to know what I do or don’t brush under the rug, but by all means.” I motion my hands like the floor is hers. “Please practice your psychology degree on me.”

“Now you’re just being an asshole.”

“Bingo. You just figured that one out?”

“Do you ever think about anyone else besides yourself?” Tears suddenly well in her eyes and cause panic to take hold of me. I’m not good with tears. Never have been. Thank fuck she blinks them away.

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Madds?” My voice is softer this time. Probing. “Something I should know?”

She swallows audibly and I brace myself for the floodgates to open. Ones for the life of me I wish could stay padlocked closed.

“I’m getting calls left and right. From my mom. From Kevin. Am I all right? Are we all right?” Her voice escalates with each and every syllable. “Do my job. Do it better. Every fucking person picking me apart. Every—everything. And then there’s the—” She throws her hand out like that’s supposed to explain everything, and now I’m just more fucking confused.

“Maddix.” I round the table, stand behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on? I can’t fix it if I don’t know what to fix.”

“It’s not fixable. Don’t you see that?”

But it’s then that I do see it. What she was motioning at. The screen of her laptop. The images. The headlines. The hurtful fucking words. The petty bullshit.

My dad’s words come rushing back to me. The ones I now know she overheard. The ones I have learned to brush off, to disregard, to let eat at me until I drink enough for them not to—but fucking hell. I skim them again. Add his words combined with these headlines and . . . just fuck.

Texas Rags to F1 Riches. Sleeping her way to the top.

The Navarro’s Case for Charity Taken Too Far.

What Does Cruz Navarro Know That We Don’t?

Each headline is demeaning. Each one a slight to Maddix in some way. Every one I click on has an unflattering picture of her, courtesy of paparazzi taking a ration of photos and using the one that fits their narrative best.

I lean over and click the last one. Trouble in Paradise: She can’t give him what he needs. This is the image being repeated over and over. The one being manipulated to fit the story. It’s when she reached out to me yesterday after the race. When she tried to comfort me, and I yanked my arm back from her.

I didn’t want to be touched. To be soothed. It’s the last thing I deserved from her. All she’s been is kind to me and my asshole father denigrates her like he does everyone else.

That’s what I know to be true, but by the looks of the articles, the media interpreted it as a fight. As me being furious with her. As Madds asking for too much and me being sick of giving it to her.

Cruelty.