Chapter 14
Gwen
The suite felt cavernous without the whole crew crammed inside it. Gwen slipped her shoes off the moment the door closed, sighing as her shoulders dropped. She could still hear the ghost of the piano chords in her ears, the crowd roaring along to Bon Jovi like it was scripture.
Maggie, Pete, Danica, and Izzy had peeled off at Fremont, lured toward the flashing lights of the blackjack tables. Gwen, Kiera, and Lillian had shared a cab back, their laughter quieter, a little worn out at the edges.
Now the three of them sat scattered around the living room that wasn’t currently moonlighting as Gwen and Maggie’s bedroom — Kiera curled up with her legs tucked under her, Gwen in an armchair with a bottle of water, and Lillian perched gracefully on the couch, kicking off sleek sandals.
Kiera was the first to break the silence. “I kind of can’t believe I left them out there unsupervised,” she said, half grinning. “Pete with money and alcohol is… well. Good luck to Vegas.”
“They’ll be fine,” Gwen said, taking a sip of water. “And we needed the break.”
Kiera nodded, leaning her cheek against her knee.
“True. I miss my girls, though. I keep checking my phone like something huge is going to happen in the five hours since my mom texted me last.” She laughed at herself, soft and tired.
“They’re probably just asleep after eating weirdly healthy cereal for dinner and watching K-Pop Demon Hunters again. ”
Gwen smiled faintly. “That sounds familiar. The boys are obsessed with that one.” She let herself exhale. “Isn’t it weird to miss them even when you’re enjoying yourself on vacation?”
“So weird,” Kiera agreed, the word popping with tired affection.
Lillian tipped her head, her dark hair catching the lamplight. “See, that’s what makes me certain I’m not cut out for it. That constant vigilance, that permanent ache when they’re not in the room? I know myself too well.”
Her tone wasn’t sharp, just steady, almost self-aware.
She folded her hands in her lap. “I mean, I know Pete probably doesn’t talk about it, but growing up in foster care, bouncing around until I was seventeen…
It sucks. For a long time, I thought maybe I’d want to give a kid the stability I never had.
But the truth is… I don’t think I have it in me. ”
Kiera shifted, her face open, gentle. “And that’s perfectly okay.”
“More than okay,” Gwen added, surprising herself with the conviction in her voice. “Knowing what you want — or don’t want — doesn’t make you less. It makes you honest.”
Lillian’s lips curved in a grateful smile, softer than Gwen had seen all night. “Thank you. Most people just give me the ‘oh, you’ll change your mind’ speech.”
“Not me,” Kiera said firmly, then smirked. “I can’t believe I had more than one, most days. I love them, but they do take over your entire life, you know?”
The three of them laughed, easy and tired, and the room felt warmer for it.
Kiera leaned back against the pullout cushions, twisting the cap off her water. “Honestly,” she said, “I can’t even picture Pete and Danica with kids. Can you imagine?”
Gwen huffed a laugh before she could stop herself. “I can imagine the baby having a surfboard and chore chart by the time it’s two.”
“And Pete teaching it to swear before it can talk,” Kiera added, grinning now. “They’d be those parents who bring the toddler to poker night and let it stack the chips.”
Lillian’s mouth curved, amused. “Or take it to Vegas for its first birthday.”
That got Kiera snorting water out of her nose. Gwen couldn’t help laughing too, the sound easing something tight in her chest.
“God help us if they ever do it,” Kiera said, wiping her face with her sleeve, still smiling. “The world’s not ready for a Pete-and-Danica baby.”
“Maybe the world needs one,” Gwen offered, still chuckling. “Chaos balanced with color-coded spreadsheets. It could be, like, the first President of Earth or something.”
They all laughed again, the sound filling the quiet suite, and for the first time since slipping out of the piano bar alley, Gwen felt her shoulders unclench.
The laughter tapered, leaving only the hum of the minibar fridge. Kiera twisted the cap of her water bottle in her hands, her expression softening.
“Can I ask you something?” she said gently.
Gwen looked over, wary but open. “Of course.”
“Do you think you and Maggie will ever have more?” Kiera asked, voice careful, like she was stepping barefoot across glass.
For a moment, Gwen couldn’t breathe. Her throat worked.
It was one of the first times Gwen had talked so openly about babies since they’d lost their last pregnancy.
A termination due to a nonviable chromosomal anomaly.
She felt her shoulders stiffen under the weight of it — the memory of sterile hallways, monitors beeping, Maggie’s hand clutched in hers as the doctor explained there was no safe way forward.
The way Maggie had cried, and how Gwen had swallowed her own tears because one of them had to.
That was when their marriage had initially gotten so closed off, when Maggie had begun to retreat into herself instead of lean on Gwen.
And Gwen had dealt with it all by throwing herself into work, to get through each day without trying to get lost in the loss of something that hadn’t even begun.
She shook her head, quick, firm. “No,” she said, her voice steady enough that only she could hear the crack in it. “No, that’s… not in the cards.”
Kiera nodded softly, her eyes kind, not pushing.
Gwen cleared her throat, forcing her tone lighter. “What about you and Izzy? Think you’ll have more?”
Kiera shrugged, leaning back into the cushions.
“The girls are already a handful. Most days it feels like I’m running a circus with just the two of them.
” She smiled, faint but warm. “But Izzy… she’s going to make a great stepmom.
Eliza and Quinn already adore her. So who knows? Maybe two’s enough.”
Something in her voice — pride, love, maybe even surprise — made Gwen’s chest ache in a gentler way this time. She smiled, small and real, and tipped her water bottle toward Kiera’s. “They’re lucky,” she said quietly.
Kiera flushed, ducking her head, but the smile didn’t leave her face.
Kiera took a long sip of water, still blushing faintly, and Gwen let the silence rest between them, easy and companionable.
Then Lillian, who’d been quiet for a beat, shifted on the couch. Her bare feet tucked neatly beneath her, posture softening in a way Gwen hadn’t seen much of.
“You know,” she said, her voice low but sure, “you’re all incredibly lucky.” She glanced between them, the lamplight catching the curve of her smile. “To have this. To have each other as family, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy.”
Kiera blinked, surprised, then smiled. “Yeah. We are.”
Lillian looked down at her hands, then back up, and her expression carried something rawer than her usual polish. “I’m grateful Izzy — and you, Kiera — made sure I got pulled into the circle, too. I’ve… never had people like this before, so it’s nice to know it’s even a possibility.”
The words landed softly, but they stayed. Gwen felt them in her chest, the quiet kind of truth that couldn’t be brushed aside.
Kiera’s smile widened, warm and a little damp at the edges. “You’re stuck with us now. No take-backs.”
Lillian let out a laugh, light but real, and Gwen found herself smiling too.
For a moment, the chaos of Vegas, the sharp edges of her own thoughts, even the ache Maggie had left buzzing in her veins — it all quieted. Just three women in a hotel suite, tired and full of honesty and grace.
Lillian excused herself first, thanking them both with a small smile before disappearing to return to her private room a few floors below.
A few minutes later, Kiera stretched, yawned, and murmured something about checking in with her mom before bed.
Gwen hugged her briefly, then watched the door close behind her.
And then it was just Gwen.
She poured herself another glass of water and carried it out onto the balcony. The night air was dry and warm, neon spilling up from the strip like restless lightning. Somewhere below, a busker was murdering “Viva Las Vegas” on an electric violin.
Gwen sat heavily in one of the metal chairs, tucking one leg beneath her, the other stretched out. She took a slow sip of water, then another, as if hydration could calm the thrum in her chest.
But of course her mind went back there. The alley. Maggie’s mouth, soft and frantic against hers. The taste of tears and whiskey. The way her body had fit so perfectly against Gwen’s it felt like no time had passed at all.
Her fingers found her hair, tugging through the damp strands, pulling hard enough to sting as if pain might ground her. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, exhaling.
It had been wrong. Hadn’t it? They weren’t together. They’d said as much — lived as much — day after day in separate rooms, separate lives. And yet, the moment Maggie leaned in, Gwen hadn’t thought. She’d only wanted. God, how she’d wanted.
She closed her eyes, the memory replaying anyway. Maggie saying I want you to kiss me. The way she’d said it twice, had been so sure.
Gwen scrubbed her face with both hands. Wrong or not, she couldn’t shake the truth humming under her skin: That kiss had felt like coming home.
And now she sat alone on a balcony in Vegas, waiting for a woman she wasn’t supposed to love anymore, wondering how she’d survive the rest of this weekend without falling apart completely.
It was another hour before the door clattered open, voices spilling in from the hall — Pete and Danica laughing too loud as they stumbled to their room, Izzy’s singsong teasing trailing after them. Then quiet again, the suite settling.
Gwen didn’t move from the balcony, her half-empty water glass sweating in her hand. She heard Maggie’s uneven steps before she saw her — heels clicking, then the soft scrape as she kicked them off.
The sliding door opened, and Maggie stepped out, her hair mussed, her dress wrinkled, her makeup smudged into something softer. She dropped into the chair beside Gwen with a sigh, sprawling, the picture of messy exhaustion.
Without a word, Gwen reached behind her and slid a cold water bottle across the table. Maggie blinked at it, then at Gwen, then twisted the cap off and took a long drink.
For a while, they just sat there. The lights still pulsed below them, a wash of pinks and blues flickering over Maggie’s tired profile. The night air smelled faintly of smoke and sugar, the city still alive while the two of them let silence stretch.
Finally, Maggie tipped her head back against the chair and let out a sigh that was half a laugh. “What do you think Dr. Elowen would make of tonight?”
Gwen’s mouth curved, though it wasn’t quite a smile. Trust Maggie to invoke their couples therapist like an after-hours punchline.
She swirled the water in her glass, watching the condensation bead and drip. “Depends on which part of tonight you mean.”
Maggie gave a short laugh, no real humor in it. “Any of it. All of it. Take your pick.”
Gwen looked at her then, really looked. At the woman who was still half-wild from the night, still messy, still luminous, still the only person who could make her feel like this.
Her chest ached with the answer.
Gwen let the corner of her mouth lift, the safer edge of a smile. “Well, for starters, she’d probably say we have questionable impulse control.”
Maggie snorted into her water bottle. “That’s generous.” She sat forward, elbows on her knees, the bottle dangling between them. Her hair fell into her face, the bright lights of the strip streaking through the strands, and she glanced at Gwen sidelong. “But come on. You know what I meant.”
Gwen’s smile faltered. She swirled the last inch of water in her glass, listening to the faint rattle of Fremont below. “Yeah,” she said finally. “I know.”
The silence stretched again, thicker this time. Maggie’s question still hung there, unspoken but heavy.
The silence settled like Austin humidity in summer, thick and unrelenting. Neither of them moved. Neither of them said it.
And maybe that was safer. Maybe Dr. Elowen would call it progress — choosing not to claw at the wound when both of them were still bleeding.
Maggie cleared her throat, the sound rough in the quiet. “We should get to bed.”
Gwen nodded, her fingers tightening once around the empty glass before setting it down with too much care. “Yeah.”
Maggie stood first, the scrape of her chair loud against the tile. She hesitated just long enough for Gwen to notice, then slipped back inside without looking over her shoulder.
Gwen stayed a moment longer, breathing in the night air and neon and ache, before following her in.