Chapter 9
Maggie
Maggie nursed a lukewarm glass of water on the balcony, the city glittering below like it had been waiting all day to show off.
Inside, Gwen was already asleep — curled on the pullout like she had something to prove about not needing comfort.
Maggie had hovered for a minute, watching her breathe, before retreating out here where the air didn’t taste quite so thick.
She should have been tired. She was tired.
But her brain had other ideas. Top priority among those thoughts seemed to be: Gwen at the bar earlier, talking to Lillian.
She’d met Lillian before, back in college, and had even liked her back then.
Back when she was kind of awkward and nerdy.
Now she was gorgeous, desert-biologist Lillian, who wore her confidence easily.
Maggie had only caught bits of the conversation, the easy tilt of Gwen’s smile, but it had been enough to make something sharp flare under her ribs.
Jealousy. God, she hated it. She wasn’t supposed to feel that anymore. They were separated — technically free. She had no right to bristle over whoever Gwen did or didn’t talk to, no matter how perfect their bone structure.
And yet.
Maybe Gwen would do better with someone like Lillian. Someone cool and contained, who didn’t leave laundry in damp clumps on the bathroom floor or cry at sappy commercials. Someone who wouldn’t fall apart when things got hard.
The thought made Maggie wince. She took another sip of water, forcing it down like penance.
The balcony door slid open with a soft scrape, and Danica stepped out, equally rumpled, carrying her own glass. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Maggie huffed. “Still dehydrated from all the tequila we pretended wasn’t tequila.”
Danica chuckled, lowering herself into the chair beside hers. “God, I’m drunk enough to feel this tomorrow.”
“Me too.” Maggie grinned despite herself. “We’re not as young as we used to be, huh?”
“Speak for yourself,” Danica said primly, and they both snorted into their water.
Silence stretched for a beat, not uncomfortable, just the kind that knew how to breathe. The Strip’s neon pulse filled the space between them.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Danica said finally, quiet but certain.
Maggie’s chest pinched. Guilt, sharp as always. She was glad too, but being here meant pretending, meant smiling at Gwen when her heart was a mess of contradictions. Still, she found herself nodding, voice rough. “Yeah. Me too.”
Danica shifted, side-eyeing her. “So. Are you going to tell me more about your life? Or do I have to drag it out of you like always?”
Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t this your trip? Shouldn’t we be talking wedding plans or something?”
Danica grimaced. “Dear god, no. Please don’t even mention a wedding to me right now. Wedding planning is the worst.”
Maggie nodded in understanding.
“So, you know how Pete had that Bulgarian fort in mind for the ceremony?”
Maggie nodded. Pete had told everyone to wait on buying flights or hotels but had at least given them a destination to start planning for.
Maggie figured it’d be somewhere strange and wonderful.
The good thing about a small wedding was Pete and Danica’s ability to be a little chaotic about the cemented plans.
She’d expect nothing less from Pete, but she was sure Danica was panicking internally.
“No, wait, I just said I wasn’t going to talk about this,” Danica paused.
Maggie raised a brow. “What’s up with the fort?”
“They suddenly want this hysterically large rental fee, like five times the amount we’d agreed on,” Danica said. “I don’t know. Pete is crushed. She had her sights set on this stupid fort—”
“What do you want?” Maggie asked, sipping her water.
“I don’t care where we get married. I just care that my best friends and my family are there. It could be in my parents’ backyard for all I care,” Danica said. “Hence why I’ve let Pete decide that part. I don’t know if you know this, but she tends to have strong opinions.”
“Ah, yes, she hides it well.” Maggie snorted. “Wherever you get married, we will all be there, and it will be wonderful. I promise.”
Danica offered her a small smile, then sniffled and took a deep breath like she was clearing her head. “Okay, now your turn.” She nodded. “Catch me up.”
Maggie groaned, tipping her head back. “How much are you willing to bribe me with greasy breakfast food tomorrow in exchange for my life story?”
Danica laughed, bumping her shoulder lightly against Maggie’s. “Unlimited hash browns. Now talk.”
Maggie swirled the last of her water, watching the ice melt into nothing. “Okay, fine. Life updates. Let’s see…” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Still helping part-time at the shop. Kids are healthy, occasionally feral. Gwen’s mom comes over and helps with the kids sometimes, which is nice.”
“That does sound nice. You like her, right?”
Maggie shrugged. “She’s always been very kind to me.”
Danica reached across the space between their chairs and squeezed Maggie’s hand. The unsaid phrase hung in the air: You like her, but she’s not your mom.
Maggie squeezed Danica’s hand back. “So, yep, that’s the highlight reel.”
Danica smiled into her glass. “Not to make this weird, but your hair looks amazing right now.”
Maggie snorted. “It’s just the lack of humidity, I bet. My hairspray doesn’t melt off before it can set here.”
For a while they just sat, the Strip buzzing like a different planet below them. It was almost easy, falling into the kind of friendship rhythm they used to have before everything got complicated.
“How are things with Gwen? When we were there after…” Danica paused, as if she wasn’t sure she should remind Maggie about her mother’s funeral. Like it wasn’t always in Maggie’s mind. “Well, when we were there last time, I was worried about you.”
Maggie’s mind flicked through everything she could unload — the shouting match where she’d said she was done, the uneasy quiet that followed, the not-quite resolution of the guest room arrangement. All of it sitting just under her tongue, waiting, but too heavy to hand over tonight.
Maggie shrugged again. “It’s fine.” It wasn’t a lie. Things were fine. She was fine. She was dealing with everything just fine.
Danica gave her a long look. “I’m always here if you want to talk.”
“I pay someone a lot of money to hear about all that, don’t worry,” Maggie said.
Her mind flashed to Dr. Elowen pulling her aside after their last session, suggesting she consider a personal therapist to work through her grief.
She’d handed Maggie a list of colleagues.
Maggie had tucked it into her nightstand, telling herself she’d revisit it after Vegas.
“I am always here. Not as an objective listener, but as a Team Maggie listener,” Danica added.
“I know.” Maggie nodded, pressing her lips together. “Tell me something good. How’s work?”
Danica’s expression softened in that way it always did when someone mentioned her job.
“Quiet, for once. But it’s actually bad luck to say that.
If you say the Q word, it never lasts long.
You know how it is — one week I’m getting a full three or four hours of sleep, and the next it’s every isolette full, alarms going off down every hallway. ”
“Jesus,” Maggie muttered. “And you just… handle that.”
Danica gave a little shrug, almost embarrassed. “It’s what I signed up for.” Then, after a beat, “Sometimes it’s a lot. But I love it.”
“Of course you do.” Maggie smirked, shaking her head. “You’re like the calmest person under pressure I’ve ever met.”
Danica laughed, bumping her knee against Maggie’s. “Hardly. You should’ve seen me lose it at the coffee machine last week when someone left an empty pot. I wrote a strongly worded Post-it.”
Maggie barked a laugh loud enough to echo against the glass railing. “Wow, slow down, you absolute lunatic.”
And for a second, it was simple again — the two of them, tipsy and honest, the night stretched wide open around them.
By the time she slipped back inside, Danica had gone to bed, and the suite was quiet except for the hum of the AC. The pullout couch looked almost inviting in its awkwardness, sheets rumpled, Gwen cocooned in them like she’d negotiated a truce with the hotel bedding.
Maggie set down her empty water glass, then crawled carefully onto the mattress beside Gwen. The frame squeaked a little, and Gwen shifted but didn’t wake. Typical. She could sleep through fire alarms.
Maggie lay there on her side, staring. Which was stupid. Creepy, even. But her chest ached with it — the soft line of Gwen’s jaw, the strands of hair fallen across her forehead, the shape of her breathing, steady and unbothered. It was like muscle memory, that pull toward her.
A massive pang of longing crashed over her, so sharp it left her breathless. All she wanted was to tuck herself into that curve, slide her arm around Gwen’s waist, pretend none of the last year had happened.
But then — on cue — her brain marched out the litany. Gwen the workaholic, gone more nights than not. Gwen, sitting stiff and silent when Maggie needed her most, like when they’d chosen to have an abortion. Like when her mom died and Maggie was the only one with her.
She’d shoved that afternoon into the basement of her memory — the blur of paramedics in the hallway, the metallic smell of oxygen tanks, her body shaking so badly she could barely hold her mother’s hand.
And the guilt lingered, sticky and insistent: that in her mom’s final moments, she hadn’t been the calm, soothing daughter she thought she should be.
She hadn’t been graceful or strong. She had been terrified, begging her mom not to leave her, and she still carried the shame of it like a hidden scar.
Gwen had never known that. Maggie had never let her. She’d never felt more alone in that moment, and all she’d wanted was Gwen to be there.