Page 11 of Let it Crackle (Playing with Fire #4)

Maddox

Ten years later

Our house is never quiet.

There’s always someone yelling, running, screaming, singing, stomping, swearing, or slamming a door. This morning, it’s the twins—barefoot in the hallway, chasing each other with foam swords and exactly one sock between them.

“Mama!” our oldest shouts from the living room. “The baby just threw up on the dog again!”

Of course she did.

Ten years ago, I was standing in the middle of a library with a laminated card and a desperate hope she’d say yes.

Now I’m Maddox Cole—full-time firefighter, part-time station mentor, soccer coach to tiny tyrants, husband to a bestselling novelist, and dad to four wild kids who somehow have all of Maya’s stubbornness and none of her volume control.

Five kids, if you count Basil, our old mutt, who’s currently drenched in baby puke and zero shame.

I walk in from the garage, wiping grease off my hands with an old firehouse rag, and just stop for a second.

Foam swords. Glitter explosions. A baby gnawing on a board book like it owes her money.

And Maya at the center of it, standing in the middle of the storm, radiating this tired magic that still stops me in my tracks.

“Just checking,” I say, leaning down to kiss the top of her head, “you still writing… or shopping for your next book boyfriend?”

She swats my chest with a dish towel. “You wish you were fictional.”

I grin. “Babe, I’m the blueprint.”

And honestly, she’s not wrong. I’m still broad-shouldered and cocky, still the guy who flips to the last page of her drafts just to mess with her.

But I’ve softened in all the ways that matter.

These days, I spend less time charging into burning buildings and more time fixing leaking faucets, hauling snack coolers to soccer practice, and making sure Maya remembers to eat something besides granola bars when she’s on deadline.

When her brain locks up, I find her in our little converted sunroom—the one we turned into a library.

She’ll be curled up between the shelves, eyes haunted with storylines and self-doubt, and I’ll just sit there, read beside her, breathe beside her, remind her she’s built entire worlds from blank pages before.

“You’ve got the signing next week,” I say, running a hand over her shoulder.

She nods. “Mostly ready.”

I tilt my head. “You’re nervous.”

“A little.”

I step in behind her, close enough to feel the warmth of her back against my chest. “Your readers adore you. And so do I. Even if you kill off the main character again.”

“It was poetic,” she mumbles, like we haven’t had this argument twelve times.

“It was traumatic,” I whisper, brushing a kiss to her neck. “We’ll debrief in bed later.”

She snorts. “After snacks, bedtime tantrums, and five rounds of ‘please, just brush your teeth’?”

“Obviously.”

The twins are still sword-fighting in the hall. And our eldest—God help me—has somehow gotten her hands on glitter again.

But my chest feels so full I don’t even care.

This life—this loud, messy, beautiful life—is more than I ever thought I’d have.

It’s baby vomit and deadline panic and Maya’s soft fingers tugging at my shirt.

It’s grocery lists scrawled on the backs of royalty check envelopes.

It’s that damn library card still living in my wallet, edges worn and corners curled.

I cross the room, scoop up the baby from the playpen. She immediately stops crying and fists her chubby hands in my shirt, pressing her cheek to my neck.

“She’s got your temper,” Maya says with a tired smile.

“And your stubborn streak,” I shoot back, swaying gently as I rock our girl.

We meet in the middle, our foreheads touching. No grand speeches. No big declarations.

Just us.

The quiet kind of love.

The kind you write stories about.

The kind that lasts.

Later That Night

The house is finally still.

It took three bedtime stories, two spilled sippy cups, a broken nightlight emergency, and the kind of bargaining that would put hostage negotiators to shame—but all four kids are asleep.

Thank God.

I ease the door shut behind me, exhale, and pad down the hall barefoot. The floor creaks once beneath me—Basil lifts his head from the couch, gives me a lazy wag, then flops back down like even he’s too exhausted to care.

And then I step into our room.

Soft lamplight spills across the bed. Maya’s already there, curled beneath the covers in one of my old T-shirts. She sighs when she sees me, reaching a hand across the sheets.

I’m not even halfway to the mattress before I’m hard.

Because even now—after four kids, a thousand school runs, and a decade of double grocery store runs because she forgot eggs the first time—she still does that to me. Still makes me feel seventeen and desperate and stupid in love.

I slide in behind her, wrap an arm around her waist, and press a kiss to the base of her neck. Her skin is warm and faintly sweet—vanilla and sleep and something soft that’s just Maya .

“You smell like cookies,” I murmur into her hair.

“I baked,” she says, voice already half-asleep. “You wrangled toddlers. We all contributed to the survival effort.”

I chuckle, rough and low in my throat. “You still wearing that little cherry-printed pair under here?”

“Nope,” she says, popping the “p” with a grin I can feel even in the dark. “Too much laundry. Too little energy.”

Fuck.

I roll her beneath me before she can blink, bracing myself on my forearms, and look down at her like I’m starving. Because I am.

That look in her eyes? It’s the same one she gave me the first time she kissed me back in the library. The same one when she said yes to a proposal made between dusty shelves and fairy lights. The same one every time one of our babies entered the world.

Soft. Fierce. Mine.

“You do realize,” she says, fingertips brushing my jaw, “we’re pushing forty.”

I smirk. “And yet you still get me hard just by breathing.”

She rolls her eyes—but her cheeks flush, and that mouth I’ve kissed a thousand times curves in that way that tells me I’m winning.

“Bet that line kills at the fire station.”

“You think I’m out here turning hoses for anyone but you, Gibbons?”

She laughs—really laughs—and it shoots straight to my chest. That sound is still my favorite thing in the world. Right next to the way her body curves into mine like we were made to fit.

I kiss her jaw, her throat, the soft slope of her collarbone. Her hands slide up my chest, fingertips trailing the line of my shoulders.

“You’re still it for me,” she whispers, and her voice wobbles, just a little. “Even after all this time.”

I go still. Because I know she means it. And because it still floors me—this quiet, daily love she hands me without asking for anything back.

“Yeah?” I say, brushing her hair back, watching every flicker of emotion in her face.

She nods, eyes soft. “You still make me feel like the heroine. Like I’m not just the one writing the story... I’m living it.”

And that?

That wrecks me.

I kiss her again, slower this time… Like a prayer whispered into skin. And when my hand slides down, when her breath catches, when her legs wrap around me with a familiarity that’s somehow still thrilling—I feel it again.

This life.

This woman.

This story we built with nothing but broken hearts, overdue books, and a lot of stubborn love.

She arches up against me, mouth against my ear. “Just checking… you still obsessed with your hot writer wife?”

I groan, burying my face in her chest with a muffled laugh. “Smartass.”

Her fingers tangle in my hair, tugging me back toward her. “Oh please—you didn’t marry me for my cooking.”

I smirk against her skin, already sliding my hands lower.

She leans in, eyes gleaming. “You know, I was planning on finishing that novel I was reading. If we do this, I won’t have time. Better be worth it.”

And I show her, slowly, that this is so much better than any fiction.