Chapter 13
Maggie
Maggie hadn’t let herself feel this light in months.
Maybe years. The piano players had rolled through Queen and Pat Benatar and back again, the whole room shouting lyrics like they were gospel, and Maggie was in the middle of it — hair wild, sweat slick, Pete egging her on like they were co-captains of chaos.
For once, she wasn’t thinking about Gwen watching her, or what tomorrow would feel like.
She was just moving, laughing, spilling neon cocktails down her arm and not caring.
Then the pianists shifted gears. One slid into something soft, tender, the keys spilling a melody that hushed the room. Etta James’s “At Last.”
Pete turned immediately toward Danica. “Come here, wife-to-be.”
Danica rolled her eyes, blushing as always, but she stepped straight into Pete’s arms, her laugh muffled against Pete’s shoulder as they started to sway.
Maggie turned to find Kiera in front of her, holding out her hand like they were about to waltz in the middle school gym.
Maggie laughed. “Oh, is this happening?”
“Don’t leave me stranded,” Kiera said, mock-dramatic, glancing around at the couples already pairing off. Her eyes were bright, flushed from dancing but still shy in that Kiera way.
Maggie took her hand. “Fine. But I’m leading.”
“Obviously,” Kiera said, her arm looping around Maggie’s shoulder.
And just like that, they were swaying among the crowd — Pete and Danica twirling nearby, strangers slow-dancing like they’d known each other forever. The whole bar softened around them, neon and noise dissolving into something intimate.
For the first time all weekend, Maggie didn’t feel like she was trying to prove anything. Just warmth, music, and the comfort of a friend.
Kiera’s hand was steady on her shoulder as she guided them in a small circle as if they’d actually practiced this. Maggie let herself sink into the rhythm, the sway easy, no pressure to perform.
Halfway through the song, Izzy appeared at Maggie’s elbow. “May I cut in?” she asked, already sliding a hand onto Kiera’s waist.
Kiera pretended to balk, but her smile gave her away. “I guess you may.” She leaned into Izzy without hesitation, their foreheads nearly brushing as they found their own sway.
Maggie stepped back, letting her hands fall to her sides. For a second she smiled, genuinely — because god, Izzy looked like she might actually burst with happiness. But then the awkwardness crept in, heavy and familiar. She was suddenly just… spare. An extra in someone else’s love story.
She turned toward the bar, scanning for a server, ready to disappear into another drink. Anything to give her hands something to do besides clench.
And then Gwen was there.
Not suddenly, not dramatically, but close, warm, cutting into Maggie’s line of sight like she’d only been waiting her turn. Her mouth was set in that calm line Maggie knew too well.
“Shall we?” Gwen asked, offering a hand.
It was so simple, so Gwen — understated, even with all the heat thrumming underneath.
Maggie’s pulse kicked. She should’ve said no, she knew that. But her hand was already moving, sliding into Gwen’s before her brain could catch up.
“You hate dancing,” she said, arching a brow as Gwen guided her back into the slow rhythm of the song.
“I hate bad dancing,” Gwen countered, sliding an arm around her waist with infuriating ease.
Maggie snorted. “Guess I should warn you, I peaked at middle school mixers.”
“I remember,” Gwen said, a flicker of a smile ghosting across her lips. “You stepped on my foot three times during our first dance.”
“That was nerves, not skill,” Maggie said, chin tilting up.
Gwen huffed a laugh, quiet but real, and it buzzed in Maggie’s chest like victory.
Still, being this close — Gwen’s hand firm at her back, the clean scent of her shampoo threading through the whiskey-soaked air — was undoing her more than she wanted to admit. Banter was safer. Banter she could handle.
“So what’s this, then?” she asked lightly, letting her tone edge toward teasing. “Some kind of pity dance?”
Gwen’s eyes flicked down, briefly, to her mouth. Then back up. “Not pity,” she said.
Maggie’s throat tightened. She forced a grin, playful, reckless. “Flattery?”
“Saving everyone else from your heels,” Gwen murmured. “Since you’re still a menace on the dance floor.”
Maggie laughed, loud enough to earn a glance from a nearby table. But the laugh didn’t chase away the heat rising up her neck, or the way her body leaned, just slightly, treacherously, into Gwen’s.
Their steps stayed easy, side to side, like they’d done this a thousand times before — and they had, in kitchens, at weddings, in living rooms with a baby monitor crackling in the corner.
“Practice, huh?” Maggie said, her grin daring, though her voice cracked a little.
Gwen didn’t answer right away. Her hand was steady at Maggie’s back, fingers spread, the warmth seeping straight through her dress. The kind of hand that could hold her upright or pull her under without effort.
And then Gwen’s gaze dropped. Not subtly, not in passing. Straight to Maggie’s mouth.
Maggie’s lips parted before she could stop herself, her chest tightening. Every nerve in her body tuned to the fact of Gwen’s hand — how close it was to the base of her spine, how it guided her with the lightest touch, how it could so easily pull her closer.
“You’re staring,” Maggie said, trying for light, but it came out softer.
“I know,” Gwen murmured.
The words knocked the breath from her. Maggie let out a shaky laugh, covering the sound of her heart hammering. “Dangerous game.”
Gwen’s eyes flicked up again, steady, unreadable except for the heat that lingered there. Her hand pressed just a fraction firmer at Maggie’s back, and Maggie swore she could feel the ghost of every time Gwen had ever touched her layered into that single moment.
The song swelled, other couples swaying around them, but Maggie barely noticed. All she knew was Gwen’s eyes, Gwen’s mouth, Gwen’s hands — everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
Maggie swallowed hard, her pulse thrumming everywhere Gwen’s hand touched. She should’ve said something flippant, tossed out a joke to puncture the tension. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe right, not with Gwen looking at her like that.
“Careful,” Maggie managed, voice thin. “You keep staring like that and people might think you actually like me.”
Gwen’s mouth curved, slow, deliberate. Her gaze dipped to Maggie’s lips again before rising to meet her eyes.
“I never stopped liking you,” she said quietly.
The words hit like a strike to the chest. They were simple, devastating, undeniable.
Maggie’s laugh snagged in her throat, half a gasp. She felt her fingers twitch against Gwen’s shoulder, wanting to grip, to hold, to believe.
And then the song ended.
The last chords rippled off the pianos, the crowd clapping, whooping, breaking the spell. But Maggie and Gwen didn’t move. They stayed there, still swaying faintly out of habit, hands locked in place, caught in a bubble of too much history and not nearly enough air.
Someone at the bar shouted for another Sinatra tune, glasses clinked, Pete hollered something obscene — but none of it reached Maggie.
All she knew was that Gwen hadn’t let go.
The applause rolled through the bar, people clinking glasses and laughing, but Maggie barely heard it. Gwen’s hand was still at her waist — no, not just there. Tighter now. A subtle press, firm enough that Maggie felt her whole body tip toward Gwen like gravity had decided.
Her breath caught.
Gwen didn’t step back, didn’t break the spell. Her gaze slipped down again, unmistakable this time, landing squarely on Maggie’s mouth.
Maggie’s lips parted without permission, a reflex as old as muscle memory. She could feel Gwen’s thumb flex just slightly against the small of her back, as if steadying herself… or claiming her.
The room around them kept moving. Izzy and Kiera tangled in their own quiet world, Pete shouting requests at the pianist, Danica clutching her drink with her whole body laughing — but Maggie and Gwen were suspended, untouched, balanced on the precarious edge of something they both knew and had no business chasing.
Maggie’s heart thundered: Do it. Don’t. Do it. Don’t. Do it do it do it.
And still Gwen’s eyes lingered on her mouth, so close Maggie swore she could feel the ghost of the kiss already.
All she could see was Gwen. The hand tight at her waist. The eyes fixed on her mouth. The press of years, memories, everything unsaid tightening the air between them until she couldn’t stand it.
So she leaned in.
It wasn’t calculated. It wasn’t about proving a point, or showing off, or pretending. It was the most reckless kind of instinct, the simple act of closing the half-inch gap, chasing the thing she’d been aching for all night.
But Gwen pulled back.
Not harshly, not with a shove. Just a subtle step away, the grip at her waist loosening, her face unreadable in the low light.
The rejection landed like a cold splash down Maggie’s spine.
Her breath stuttered, lips still parted. For a heartbeat, the urge to laugh it off surged. To make a joke, roll her eyes, blame the alcohol. Anything to keep from showing how it cracked her open.
But inside, she was buzzing, split between humiliation and the undeniable truth that she’d wanted Gwen to meet her halfway, and Gwen hadn’t.
Of course Gwen had pulled back. Of course Gwen was the predictable, stable, unyielding one.
Maggie shoved a hand through her hair, trying to laugh at herself, but it came out brittle.
What the hell had she been thinking? That Gwen — calm, composed, always-in-control Gwen — would just give in to a messy, public kiss in the middle of a Vegas piano bar when they hadn’t been performing for an audience? When it had just been them?