Chapter 13 #3
The glow from the street barely reached them, just enough to paint Gwen’s jaw in pink and blue as she pulled back for half a breath, eyes dark, lips swollen.
“Still sure?” Gwen rasped.
“Shut up,” Maggie said, tugging her back in, kissing her harder, needier, like the years apart had been erased in an instant.
Her back scraped against the brick as Gwen pressed her deeper into it, their mouths clashing, Maggie’s fingers sliding into Gwen’s damp hair, tugging, pulling. Gwen groaned — god, that sound — and Maggie felt it roll through her like heat, pooling low, making her want more, more, more.
More of Gwen’s mouth, Gwen’s body, the press of her thigh, the taste of her.
“Oh my god, get a room,” Kiera’s voice cut sharp through the night, higher than usual, the teasing tone undercut by the obvious awkwardness lacing it.
Maggie jolted like she’d been doused with ice water, scrambling to tug her shirt back down where it had ridden up. Gwen stepped back instantly, expression shuttered, as if she’d been caught in something illicit — which, technically, they had.
Kiera stood a few feet away in the alley glow, arms folded but smile plastered on, not quite reaching her eyes. “Hey,” she said, overly bright. “Just wanted to give you the heads-up we’re about to do a group song. Danica said to get you for the lower harmonies.”
Maggie’s pulse was still thundering, her breath coming in uneven bursts. Her mouth tasted like Gwen, her body still humming from the press of her hands. She managed a crooked grin, trying for casual, though her cheeks burned. “Lower harmonies. Got it.”
“Yeah.” Kiera’s gaze flicked between them, lingering a beat too long.
Maggie nodded, pushing her hair off her face. “Be right there.”
As Kiera turned and slipped inside, Maggie exhaled hard, pressing her back to the brick. Gwen was still there, inches away, silent.
Her whole body buzzed with want, with humiliation, with the sick thrill of having been caught.
Neither of them moved.
The door had swung shut behind Kiera, leaving them in the dark, but whatever spark had been igniting them seconds ago was gone — snuffed out by the real world crashing back down around them.
Gwen adjusted the cuff of her sleeve, eyes on the ground, her breath still uneven but her expression composed again, maddeningly so. “We should… go in,” she said finally, quiet.
She straightened fast, forcing her arms down, her face into something neutral. “Yeah. We should go,” she muttered, already stepping toward the door before Gwen could say anything else, before Gwen could look at her like that again.
Inside was chaos, yes. But at least it was safe chaos.
Back inside, the air hit Maggie like a wall — smoke machine haze, stale beer, disco ball lights bouncing off mirrored walls. The pianists were already hammering out the opening chords of “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and the crowd lost its collective mind.
“Maggie!” Pete bellowed, waving her forward like a deranged choir director.
Someone shoved a microphone into Maggie’s hand before she could protest. The others surged to the front — Pete clutching Danica’s waist as if they were storming a barricade, Izzy practically glowing as she dragged Kiera beside her, Lillian smirking from the sidelines like she’d known this circus would happen all along, and Gwen joining her to stand nearby without a mic.
Maggie leaned in with the others, shouting the lyrics, pointing to the crowd when the chorus rang of being halfway there.
But inside, she was unraveling.
Her chest still buzzed from Gwen’s hands on her, from the taste of her mouth, from the look in her eyes when she’d said Are you sure? And then the way she’d stepped back, instantly composed the moment Kiera appeared.
What had made her think that was a good idea? What had made her want that taste, knowing it’d become a craving?
Pete thrust her arm around Maggie’s shoulder mid-chorus, sloshing beer down both their backs, and Maggie whooped like she was having the time of her life.
On the outside, the room was roaring. On the inside, her heart was splintering, every lyric cutting like a cruel joke.
The last chorus shook the walls — every drunk tourist, every bachelorette party, every one of her friends screaming until the pianists banged out the final chords and threw their hands in the air like preachers finishing a sermon.
The crowd went wild.
Pete collapsed against Danica’s shoulder, shrieking with laughter. Izzy pulled Kiera into a kiss that earned a whoop from three tables over. Even Lillian clapped with a faint smile, the picture of composure in a room of chaos.
Maggie bent over her mic stand, hair sticking to her forehead, lungs burning. Her grin was wide, practiced, perfect. Nobody would guess her hands were still trembling.
She shoved the mic back at the pianist, forcing her voice into something bright. “Another round,” she hollered, waving at the waitress. “Shots! Rainbow if you’ve got ’em.”
The table erupted again, everyone cheering like Maggie had just won them the jackpot.
She turned back, smiling with them, laughing too loud. And if her chest still ached, if her mascara was smudged, if her heart felt raw and stupid in her rib cage… well. Shots would fix it. Or at least blur the edges.