Page 23 of Trade It All

The reaction is immediate. Grady groans from the back. Luka physically recoils like he’s been hit with something.

“Don’t say her name,” Luka mutters. “You’ll summon her.”

“Seriously,” Grady adds. “I thought we all agreed she wasn’t allowed near the team anymore.”

“That’s not how that works,” I say flatly.

“It should be,” Luka replies.

Jasper’s still watching me. “So?” he presses. “Where is she?”

“Not here.”

“That sounds promising.” He smiles.

“It means nothing,” I say.

“Feels like it means something,” Luka adds.

Before I can answer, Jasper twists in his seat and raises his voice toward the front of the bus.

“Maddie!” The reaction is immediate. Grady groans. Luka laughs. I don’t move, but my attention shifts before I can stop it. She’s a few rows up, tucked into her seat near the window, her head turning at the sound of her name. There’s a second where she looks surprised, like she wasn’t expecting to be pulled into whatever this is.

Jasper grins like he’s already entertained by it. “You wanna go out tonight?”

There’s a beat. Then she laughs. It’s soft at first, like she’s caught off guard, but it builds into something real as she shakes her head. “I am not going out with you.”

“Why not?” he calls back, completely unfazed.

“Because I am not being your plus one while you try to get laid.” The bus erupts.

Luka doubles over laughing. Grady’s voice cuts through from the back with a loud “Damn,” and even Jake glances up from his tablet, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

Jasper presses a hand to his chest like he’s offended. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“That is exactly what you’re doing,” she shoots back, still smiling.

“At least I’m honest about it,” he argues.

She leans slightly into the aisle, her expression soft but completely unmoved. “Go be honest by yourself.”

Another round of laughter rolls through the bus.

Jasper shakes his head, but there’s no real frustration in it. “Your loss.”

“I’m okay with that,” she says easily, settling back into her seat.

The moment passes as quickly as it started, the conversation shifting, the energy of it blending back into everything else happening around us.

But I don’t. My focus stays where it shouldn’t. On her. It’s not just the way she handled it. Not just the easy confidence inher voice or the way she didn’t hesitate when she said no. It’s everything. The way she laughed without thinking about it. The way her shoulders loosened in that moment, like whatever she’d been holding onto earlier slipped just enough to let something real through. The way she fits here, in this space, without trying too hard or demanding attention. She doesn’t pull focus. But somehow—she holds it anyway.

My gaze lingers a second longer than it should before I force it away, leaning back into my seat, my jaw tightening slightly as I refocus on the conversation happening around me. Because this is exactly what I shouldn’t be doing. Noticing her like this. Watching her like this. Letting it sit the way it does instead of shutting it down. There are too many reasons for it to stop here. She works for me. She’s younger. She has a boyfriend. There are lines in place for a reason, and I’ve never been the kind of man who blurs them just because something feels different.

And it does feel different. That’s the problem. Because it’s not just awareness anymore. It’s instinct.

The kind that doesn’t turn off when I’m not looking. The kind that settles in without permission and stays there whether I want it to or not. I know where she is in a room before I think to look. I notice when she’s quieter than usual. I notice when she’s not.

And worse than that…I notice when she smiles. Not the one she uses when she’s working. Not the one she gives the guys when she’s filming or trying to keep things easy. The real one. The one that slips out when she forgets herself for half a second. That’s the one that stays with me. That’s the one I’ve started to recognize before it even fully shows. And somewhere along the way, without making a decision to do it, I started wanting to see it again. That’s where the line blurs. Because I don’t do things halfway. I don’t step into something unless I’m willing to see it through to the end, and I already know what that would look like if I let this go any further than it already has.