Chapter 20
Gwen
The room was quiet, the kind of quiet only Vegas mornings allowed — air conditioner humming, faint traffic far below, the curtains letting slivers of dawn light bleed at the edges.
Gwen lay on her back, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Maggie was curled against her side, bare skin pressed warm along her own, one arm flung across her stomach like it had always belonged there.
It should have felt right. It did feel right. And that was the problem.
Her chest ached, heavy with the certainty that she’d crossed a line. Maggie had been drunk — angry, jealous, reckless, all sharp edges and glassy eyes. Gwen should have gotten her into bed, pulled the blankets over her, let her sleep it off. She should have been the responsible one.
Instead, she’d kissed her. And then kept kissing her until neither of them had the sense to stop.
Maggie stirred, mumbling something unintelligible, burrowing closer, and Gwen’s throat went tight. The way she fit against her was so familiar it was unbearable. Years of muscle memory, sliding back into place like it had never left.
And yet it had.
Gwen let out a breath through her nose, careful not to wake her. She stared at the ceiling and waited.
Her hand twitched, wanting to smooth over Maggie’s hair again, but she forced it still against the sheets. She didn’t get to touch her like that. Not anymore.
Maggie let out a soft sigh in her sleep, her lips brushing Gwen’s shoulder. And Gwen — stoic, controlled, practical Gwen — closed her eyes against the guilty flood of want. Because no matter how much last night had felt like love, this morning it felt like betrayal.
Gwen stayed put. She told herself it was because moving might wake Maggie, that sliding out of bed would risk the inevitable confrontation too soon. But the truth was simpler, uglier: She didn’t want to let go.
Maggie shifted against her, breath warming the hollow of Gwen’s throat.
Any second now. She braced for it — the recoil, the angry what-the-hell-did-you-do, the look that would tell her Maggie had finally realized how wrong last night had been.
Instead, Maggie blinked up at her, eyes still heavy with sleep, hair wild after sleeping with it wet. For one suspended heartbeat, Maggie just looked at her. No anger, no judgment. Just raw, unguarded, too close.
Gwen’s pulse roared in her ears. She almost spoke, almost blurted out I’m sorry, you were drunk, I shouldn’t have touched you. But then Maggie’s hand moved, slow and deliberate, sliding across Gwen’s chest, splaying wide like she was testing if this was real.
“Morning,” Maggie whispered, her voice rough, blinking blearily up at her. Her smile was small, crooked, so intimate it made Gwen’s chest seize. “You’re still awake.”
“I never really slept.” Gwen’s voice was rough, too honest.
Maggie hummed, pressing her face back into Gwen’s shoulder. “You always were terrible at turning your brain off.”
Gwen let out a low breath, trying to steady herself. Because the guilt was there, just under her ribs, pressing hard. The memory of last night — how drunk Maggie had been, how reckless it all was — threatened to sour everything.
“You should hate me for last night,” Gwen murmured before she could stop herself.
Maggie shifted again, lifting her chin just enough to look at her. Her eyes were clear now, if tired. “Why would you think that?”
She reached out, brushed her thumb over Maggie’s cheekbone. “I don’t ever want you to feel like I took advantage of you.”
Maggie studied her, quiet for a long moment. Then she shook her head, hair tickling Gwen’s skin. “You didn’t.”
Gwen wanted to believe her. Needed to. The sunlight was creeping in, illuminating the room, and for just a second, she let herself pretend. Pretend this was morning-after, not some fragile truce in a city built on illusions.
Maggie sighed, settling back against her chest. “Stop thinking so loud,” she muttered.
Gwen’s throat worked. She nodded once, because words would’ve cracked her open.
And then Maggie kissed her. Soft, almost tentative at first — so wildly different from the frantic collision of last night that it shattered something in Gwen’s chest. Gwen kissed back before she could think better of it, the guilt still there but drowned under the pull, the impossible sweetness of Maggie choosing her even for one more moment.
It deepened gradually, like they’d both agreed not to rush this time. Maggie’s fingers curled into Gwen’s hair, tugging gently, and Gwen let her hand slip to Maggie’s waist, holding her steady, grounding them both.
This wasn’t fury, wasn’t jealousy. It was slower, surer. Like rediscovering something they’d once built together and thought they’d lost. It was familiarity in morning breath and bedhead and pillow lines on cheeks.
And when Maggie climbed over her, lips trailing lower, Gwen couldn’t stop the broken sound that escaped. She let herself believe, just for now, that this wasn’t a mistake — that maybe, impossibly, they were finding their way back.
The difference was staggering. Last night had been a wildfire in a reckless, consuming, dangerous way. This morning was a slow burn, steady and devastating in its own way.
Maggie kissed her like she was relearning the shape of her mouth, patient and intent, every brush of lips more deliberate than the last. Gwen’s chest ached with it, her hand sliding up Maggie’s back, fingers tracing familiar ridges of bone and muscle as if they hadn’t been apart.
Maggie straddled her, hair falling in a curtain around their faces. She was smiling, and Gwen nearly broke apart right there. How long had it been since she’d seen that smile directed at her, unguarded, without bitterness shading the edges?
“You’re staring,” Maggie whispered against her mouth.
“I know,” Gwen admitted, voice hoarse. She didn’t look away.
Their movements were slower, unhurried, but no less desperate.
The urgency had simply shifted — less about punishment, more about proof.
Gwen’s hands mapped her body like she was committing it to memory, Maggie’s touch lingering, dragging, savoring.
Every sigh, every shiver, every whispered word sank deep.
Maggie shifted until their thighs were entwined, their centers slick and sliding against one another. As close as their bodies could possibly be, like they were two halves reconnecting into a whole. Maggie was gentle, careful as she circled her hips, and Gwen pushed up into her, greedy with want.
The room was still quiet — only their breaths, the rustle of sheets, the occasional half-choked laugh when a kiss missed its mark.
Gwen let herself get lost in it, let the guilt recede for a moment.
This wasn’t taking advantage. This was Maggie choosing her, Maggie coming back, Maggie pressing close and murmuring her name like it still meant something.
Gwen’s own climax peaked quickly, the visual of Maggie atop her unwinding every bit of self-restraint she’d ever had.
When Maggie finally trembled and gasped and collapsed against her, Gwen wrapped her arms tight around her and didn’t let go.
The blackout curtains didn’t hold forever. By the time it was over, a gray-pink line of dawn had found its way into the room, cutting across the sheets, softening everything it touched.
Maggie lay draped over her chest, skin warm, breaths shallow with exhaustion.
Gwen stared at the ceiling, the ache in her body nothing compared to the ache everywhere else.
She’d forgotten how Maggie loved to sleep after sex — messy, all limbs and weight, claiming every inch of space like it belonged to her.
And god help her, Gwen had missed the heaviness of it.
Missed the way it tethered her to the bed.
She brushed a wild strand from Maggie’s temple without thinking. Old habits were treacherous like that.
Maggie’s breathing evened against her chest again, the weight of her body warm and anchoring. Gwen kept perfectly still, afraid to disturb the fragile peace. But something in her chest was changing, almost painfully light, like the first break of sun after weeks of gray.
Maggie had kissed her. Chosen her. Not in anger this time, not in desperation, but in the slow, steady way Gwen remembered from the beginning. And if Maggie could do that — if she could climb back into Gwen’s arms and smile like that in the faint pink of dawn — then maybe they weren’t lost.
Maybe they had a chance.
The thought spread through her like champagne bubbles, effervescent and ridiculous. She almost laughed at herself, lying there half-naked in a wrecked hotel bed, smelling like sweat and liquor and Maggie’s shampoo, feeling lighter than she had in months.
For the first time since Maggie left, Gwen didn’t feel like she was bracing for impact. She felt… hope. Sharp, giddy, impossible hope.
She glanced down at Maggie’s face, soft in sleep, lips parted just slightly. Gwen traced the line of her jaw with her eyes, committing it to memory all over again.
Yes. They could overcome this. They had to.
The champagne-bubble lightness lasted all of ten minutes.
Gwen was tracing the curve of Maggie’s shoulder with her eyes when her phone buzzed across the nightstand. Once, twice, insistent. The sound cut straight through the quiet.
She considered ignoring it. Just let it die out, stay cocooned in the warmth of Maggie’s body. But her gut twisted. Monday morning. Work didn’t care that she’d spent the night tearing herself open and stitching herself back together again.
She leaned, careful not to jostle Maggie too much, and squinted at the screen.
Melinda
Can you jump on a quick call about the zoning revisions?
Of course. How she wanted to say no, to bask in this moment forever…
But she couldn’t. She owed it to the project and to herself to see this through.
She’d been having visions all weekend about what she’d rather be doing to the area — revitalizing instead of scraping the entire block and the history of the area.
Melinda would say she was being too romantic about the past, about code issues and the immense cost of repairing older buildings instead of building something new, safe, efficient.
Melinda was probably right. Gwen was just romanticizing.
Gwen patted Maggie’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry to wake you, but I just need to hop on a quick call with Melinda.”
Maggie stirred, blinking awake as Gwen exhaled sharply. “Seriously?” she rasped, hair wild, eyes narrowing on the phone.
Gwen felt the bottom drop out. “I just need ten minutes,” she said quickly, already hating how it sounded like a script she’d performed a hundred times before. Reassure. Compartmentalize. Slot Maggie into the waiting room of her priorities.
Maggie pushed up onto one elbow, her expression flattening. The dawn light caught the crease in her forehead, the set of her mouth. “Unbelievable. We just—” She broke off, shaking her head.
Gwen’s chest tightened. She reached for the word that had always soothed, the one that came before apology, before explanation. “Baby—”
“No. You don’t get to ‘baby’ me.”
It landed like a slap. Gwen flinched, pulse rattling in her throat.
She searched Maggie’s face, desperate. “But last night… what was last night if not…” She swallowed hard, hearing how pathetic it sounded, but she pressed on anyway.
“I kind of thought last night meant we were back together. Or at least this morning.”
Maggie’s laugh was sharp, brittle, a blade disguised as humor. “Last night was… fun. A bit of nostalgia. Let’s just call it what it was.”
The words carved into her. Gwen’s phone slipped in her hand, the screen dimming as her grip went slack. “Mags—”
“It didn’t mean anything,” Maggie said.
Gwen’s vision blurred. She wanted to argue, to call the bluff, to pour out every unsaid thing she’d been holding down for months.
To tell Maggie that nothing about last night had been casual, that it had cracked her wide open.
But her throat locked up. All she managed was a nod — thin, brittle, cowardly.
And the second it left her, she hated herself for it.
Maggie swung her legs out of bed, pulling on her clothes with jerky, furious motions. “You should take that call, Gwen. Wouldn’t want me to get in the way of your calendar.”
Panic flared. Gwen sat up, reaching instinctively for her. “Mags, wait—”
But Maggie was already walking into the bathroom, her voice echoing sharp against the tile. “Don’t.”
Gwen’s chest burned. “It’s not—” she started, but the words came out too small, swallowed by the room.
Maggie stumbled back out, tugging her shorts into place, muttering, “Should’ve known better than to think I came first, even for a morning. You know what? Maybe last night, and this morning, maybe it was a mistake. Clearly nothing has changed for you, so nothing can change for us.”
Each word was a gut punch, one after another. Gwen couldn’t move fast enough to stop her, couldn’t form a response before Maggie was at the door, yanking it open.
A whirl of wild hair. Leftover anger. The muted click of the door.
And then silence.
Gwen sat frozen on the edge of the bed, phone buzzing again in her hand, its glow cutting across the sheets where Maggie had just been.
The champagne bubbles were gone. Just like that.