Chapter 19
Maggie
Maggie slammed the rest of her drink harder than she meant to, the cheap plastic cup crunching in her hand.
Across the room, Gwen and Lillian were tucked in a corner, all low voices and leaning shoulders.
Lillian with her perfect skin and her oh, I’m effortlessly cool in every situation vibe, laughing at something Gwen said like she’d just been handed the world’s best secret.
It was infuriating.
In front of her. In front of everyone.
“Hey.” Kiera’s voice cut in beside her, warm and concerned. She nudged Maggie with her elbow, eyes searching her face. “You okay? You look like you’re about to light something on fire.”
Maggie barked a laugh, sharp and flippant. “Just admiring Gwen’s type. Guess I should’ve started wearing one-piece swimsuits and quoting poetry about now.”
Kiera frowned, glancing around. “What? Maggie—”
Before she could finish, Pete swooped in, tiara lopsided, cheeks flushed from her last round of shots. “Are we talking about Lillian?” she crowed, catching only half of what Maggie had said.
Maggie stiffened. “Unfortunately.”
Pete threw an arm around Maggie’s shoulders, nearly knocking her off-balance. “Best person you’ll ever meet. Dead serious. She’s solid. Kind. Smart as hell. No drama. She’s like…” Pete searched for the word, her drunken brain working hard. “Like if a golden retriever could do advanced calculus.”
Kiera laughed, but Maggie just tightened her jaw.
“Great,” she muttered. “Perfect. Exactly what Gwen needs. Thanks, Pete.”
Pete didn’t catch the bite in her tone, already weaving toward the DJ booth to request another terrible song.
Maggie forced a smile, but the jealousy was simmering hot in her chest, too loud to ignore.
Across the room, Gwen was still in that corner with Lillian, smiling like Maggie wasn’t even there.
The music was pounding, bodies pressed together on the dance floor, lights strobing in dizzy colors. Maggie had finally let herself get pulled into the crush, hair flying, her skin damp with sweat and liquor.
And then she caught it.
Out of the corner of her eye — Gwen by the bar, Lillian leaning close, her manicured hand brushing Gwen’s. A quick flick of white, small and rectangular. A hotel key card.
Maggie’s stomach dropped, heat flooding her chest so fast it made her dizzy. No way. No way Lillian was that bold. No way Gwen would…
She didn’t even think. She turned, found the nearest warm body — a man in a cowboy hat, grinning at her like he’d won the lottery — and grabbed his hand.
It wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about fun.
It was about Gwen. About making sure Gwen saw her — saw that Maggie could still burn brighter, command attention, take up more space than anyone else in the room.
Her pulse thudded in her ears, wild and reckless, as she let the stranger spin her, her laughter sharp and glittering.
All the while, her eyes kept darting back toward the bar, waiting to see if Gwen was watching.
Cowboy Hat spun her again, his grin sloppy and delighted. Maggie laughed too loudly, head tossed back, tiara sliding down her hairline. Her pulse was still hammering from that flick of a key card, the image burned into her mind.
She was mid-twirl when two familiar bodies pressed in on either side of her — Danica, sash glittering across her chest, and Kiera, already laughing as she looped an arm through Maggie’s.
“Excuse us, sir,” Danica said politely, even as she shouldered Cowboy Hat out of the circle. “We are too gay for this.”
Kiera tugged Maggie closer, her voice pitched high over the music. “Come on, dance with us instead.”
Maggie blinked, then barked a laugh, too sharp around the edges. “I was only trying to get close enough to steal that hat.”
“Clearly,” Kiera deadpanned, shimmying beside her.
Danica spun her in a messy circle, her laugh bright and earnest. “The hat was hideous anyway, babe.”
Maggie let them pull her in, their laughter tugging her out of her spiral, even if just for a beat. She moved with them, matching their silly spins, their flailing arms, letting the tension ease by inches.
Still, her eyes darted back to the bar. To Gwen. To Lillian.
Her friends were keeping her anchored, distracting her, but the jealousy sat hot in her chest, fizzing just under the surface.
Time blurred under the lights. Maggie let Danica and Kiera whirl her until her lungs burned, until sweat dampened the sash Danica had forced over her shoulders.
The music shifted again, a pulsing remix of something early 2000s, and before she could catch her breath, Pete and Izzy barreled onto the floor like a wrecking crew.
Pete zeroed in on the still lingering Cowboy Hat instantly. “Well, howdy there, partner,” she drawled in the worst fake accent Maggie had ever heard. She yanked the hat clean off his head and plopped it on her own, grinning like she’d just won a prize pig at a county fair.
The guy didn’t even seem to mind. He laughed, clapping his hands, clearly charmed by Pete’s chaos.
Pete threw one arm around Izzy, spinning her in a dizzy circle, then shoved her toward Maggie. “Spin her, cowboy style.”
Izzy, already laughing too hard, twirled Maggie sloppily, nearly knocking into Kiera, who squeaked but managed to stay upright.
“Yeehaw!” Pete bellowed, switching partners again, grabbing Danica by both hands and swinging her wildly until her sash nearly flew off.
“Pete,” Danica shrieked, laughing so hard she could barely stand.
Pete tipped the cowboy hat low over her eyes and did a terrible boot-scootin’ shuffle in the middle of the crowd. “Ladies, you’re all lookin’ mighty fine tonight,” she said in a bad Southern baritone. “Step right up, I’ll twirl ya proper.”
And she did — one by one, spinning Maggie, then Kiera, then Izzy, then Danica again, each turn wilder than the last.
By the time Pete yanked Cowboy Hat guy himself into the circle, twirling him so fast the whole dance floor cheered, Maggie was doubled over, gasping with laughter.
For a few minutes, the jealousy and the ache slipped out of focus, lost in the chaos of Pete’s hat-stealing rodeo routine.
Maggie’s legs were rubbery and her cheeks hurt from laughing. This last bar was a Coyote Ugly knockoff — sticky floors, twangy music blasting from blown-out speakers, and bartenders in cutoff denim dancing on the bar with bottles raised like weapons, women dancing beside them.
“Don’t you dare,” Gwen’s voice said faintly behind her, steady, warning, drowned out by the music.
Maggie grinned, wild and reckless, and promptly hauled herself onto the bar anyway.
The crowd whooped, the bartenders cheering her on like she’d passed initiation. One slid a half-empty bottle her way, and before Gwen’s voice could even cut through again, Maggie tipped her head back and let the liquor pour straight from the spout into her mouth.
The burn hit instantly — sharp, sweet, wrong. Mystery alcohol. Rum, maybe. Whiskey. She didn’t care.
The room roared approval. Pete was pounding on the bar like she’d just witnessed the second coming. Kiera buried her face in Izzy’s shoulder, half laughing, half mortified. Danica was shouting something Maggie couldn’t hear but looked suspiciously like her full name.
Maggie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, tiara slipping sideways, arms thrown wide. “Vegas, baby!” she shouted, her voice ragged, her grin blinding.
As the song ended, she crouched to climb down from the bar. Strong arms swept around her waist, steady and sure, pulling her down before she could wobble on her heels.
Gwen’s arms.
The crowd whooped, but Gwen barely glanced at them, her focus only on Maggie as she set her back on solid ground, one hand still braced at her hip. “You doing okay?” she asked, low enough that only Maggie could hear.
Maggie’s heart lurched at the gentleness, at the steadiness, at how much she wanted to collapse into it. Instead, the bitterness ripped out of her, sharp and ugly.
“Where’s Lillian?” she snapped. “Aren’t you more interested in her tonight?”
Gwen blinked at her, slow and steady. “I’m asking about you,” Gwen said finally, voice even, almost swallowed by the roar of Shania Twain blaring from the speakers.
Maggie laughed, sharp and ugly. “Sure. Because you’re suddenly so concerned.” She tried to wrench her arm back, but Gwen’s grip on her elbow tightened just slightly — not rough, but not soft either. Just like she knew Maggie was a flight risk and had no intention of letting her bolt into the neon.
Behind them, Pete was trying to convince Danica that riding the mechanical bull was a good idea.
Izzy was egging her on with solemn nods, as if this were a sacred rite.
Danica had her phone out, recording the chaos.
Kiera was trying to wrangle them toward the exit.
The whole scene buzzed with laughter, shouting, stomping boots.
And still, Maggie could only hear Gwen’s voice. Low, careful. Always careful.
“You’re drunk,” Gwen said.
“No shit,” Maggie snapped. “That was sort of the point of a party.”
Gwen’s mouth twitched — whether with irritation or something softer, Maggie couldn’t tell. God, she hated that she still looked for softness.
“Come on.” Gwen angled her body closer, guiding her toward the side of the bar where it was marginally less mayhem.
Her hand slid down from Maggie’s elbow to her wrist, warm against her pulse.
Maggie tried not to notice the heat curling low in her stomach.
She tried even harder not to notice that Gwen’s thumb brushed once, just once, against her skin before pulling back like it hadn’t happened.
“You don’t get to do this,” Maggie said, her voice breaking just enough that she had to laugh to cover it. “You don’t get to swoop in like… like some gallant knight pulling me off the bar when five minutes ago you were practically undressing Lillian with your eyes.”
That got a reaction. Gwen’s jaw clenched. She looked away, toward the crush of people, then back at Maggie. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t—”