12. Maggie
TWELVE
maggie
This time, I thought I might actually kill Delia.
The thought had crossed my mind more than once since we started hanging out. Yes, I was really starting to like her, we were actually becoming friends, she was honestly a delight.
But she was also a schemer. And right now, her attention seemed solely fixed on humiliating me.
She had promised me that she knew the other bartender at Rick’s, that said bartender had told her for a fact that Nash would not be here tonight. Delia had lied. I didn’t know if it was because she was trying to help me in some messed up way or if she just loved the chaos.
I plastered a smile on my face as she came back to the table, meeting my eyes with a wink—then I mouthed I hate you under my breath as she slid into the booth opposite me. Jake and Connor didn’t notice, too busy portioning out their beers.
“Where’s mine?” I asked. “I said I would just have whatever—”
“Oh, I asked him to make your usual,” Delia said with a completely shameless smile. “He’ll bring it over.”
My cheeks went hot. Thank goodness no one could see the blush in the dark…I hoped.
Connor looked over at me. “You a regular here? I didn’t really take you for much of a dive bar girl.”
I laughed. “Yeah…I’m really not. I actually prefer to stay at home and drink tea with a good book.”
“But you have a usual…?”
I bit my lip. “It’s really just orange juice on a bad night,” I said, trying to brush it off.
I didn’t know if that was working.
Because of course…even the idea of drinking orange juice now brought up a whole host of memories.
Of Nash boxing me in at the bar and telling me every dirty thing he was going to do to me, sunshine on my lips.
Of him thrusting his hips and burying himself inside me while he told me I deserved so much better.
Can’t imagine someone letting you go.
“Not judging you at all,” Connor was saying. “This place is great. Wish we had a spot like this back in Boston, but it’s either all hipsters or music that’s too loud.”
“Yeah, Nash would hate that,” I laughed under my breath.
“That the bartender?”
Delia chimed in for me, catching me in the slip-up. “Mmhm. They know each other pretty well; she’s his kid’s teacher. Small town and all. And…there he is, the man himself!”
I raised my eyes to see that he was almost at our table, a screwdriver in his hand. I watched him like he was a force of nature and not just a man, drinking in the sight of him—once again in a dark henley, sleeves pushed up to show his forearms, and I was undressing him with my eyes even though—
“Got a screwdriver here?” he asked, looking pointedly at me.
I tentatively raised my hand. “That’s mine.”
As if he didn’t know.
He handed it right to me, our fingers brushing. I guess the interaction was more than a little weird, because Connor gave me a quizzical look.
“This place is awesome, dude,” Jake was saying. “Can’t believe you aren’t busier.”
“This is just about as busy as I like it,” Nash said. “Tourist season can get crazy—don’t want it to be too hard on my employees.”
“That’s very thoughtful,” Connor said, trying for friendly.
Nash wasn’t taking him up on it. “Mm.”
One syllable. Completely neutral. I felt it like a temperature drop.
“You guys up for the week?” Nash asked.
“Through Sunday,” Jake said. “Came up for the foliage, do some fishing. You know how it is.”
“Sure,” Nash said. The way he said sure meant approximately nothing and somehow also meant I have been watching men like you come through this town for twenty years and I will be here long after you leave.
I took a long sip of my screwdriver.
Delia was watching this exchange with the focused attention of someone at a tennis match who had bet money on the outcome.
“Maggie tells us you’re her student’s dad,” Connor said, pleasantly, attempting to find common ground. “That must be a trip, seeing your kid’s teacher out.”
Nash looked at me then.
Just briefly.
“Small town,” he said.
“Right, right.” Connor nodded. “Must be a tight community. Everyone knowing everyone.”
“Something like that,” Nash said.
Another pause. The jukebox shifted songs. Someone at the bar laughed loudly at something.
“Well, we’ll definitely be back before Sunday,” Jake said. “Great spot.”
“Appreciate it,” Nash said, voice flat.
He looked at me one more time. At the screwdriver in my hand.
“You need anything else,” he said, “flag down Tess.”
And then he was walking back to the bar.
I stared at the table.
The silence was stifling.
“Interesting guy,” Connor finally said.
“He’s great,” Delia said brightly. “Very community-minded. Very devoted dad.” She looked at me. “Maggie just loves Nell, don’t you, Maggie?”
“Delia,” I said.
“She does,” Delia confirmed to the table. “Talks about her constantly.”
“She’s a great kid,” I said through my teeth.
Delia smiled her most innocent smile and took a sip of her beer.
Everyone else got to talking about their weekend plans—seemed like we’d been invited to hang out with them at the lake tomorrow, they’d rented a boat, blah blah blah…
but I was totally fixated on the bar. Because now that I was actually looking, I couldn’t stop.
And Nash…he wasn’t alone. He was talking to a woman, the two of them close enough that it had to be intimate, and she was trailing her finger around the rim of the glass and he kept laughing.
She looked pretty—but a grown-up kind of pretty that I’d never been, mature, closer to his age. I bet she didn’t trip over herself and embarrass herself and I bet she was much better in bed than I was, more like Nash, who was so experienced and—
“I need to pee,” I announced to the table.
Connor nodded. “Yeah…sure, I’ll let you out.”
He stood so I could slide out of the booth, and I strode across the room with my head down, brushing past people standing at high-tops and playing pool. The noise was suddenly overwhelming, all of it just…too much.
I made it to the bathroom and found myself alone in there—just one room, clean—and I locked the door.
I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked my reflection. “You said no. He asked you out and you said no, this was your choice.”
Then I just…started crying.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I was stupid and because I had feelings for someone I wasn’t supposed to, and because I desperately, desperately wanted Nash and Nell in my life.
I didn’t just want sex after hours at the bar or in my classroom, I wanted to spend the night in his bed.
I wanted to make pancakes in his tiny little kitchen. I wanted to read to Nell.
I took this ugly, ragged inhale and cried some more. My makeup was getting all messed up.
“Pull it together,” I muttered. “You’re being so stupid, Margot.”
I ran the cold water and pressed my hands against my face, willing the redness down.
The bathroom was small and smelled like old wood and lemon cleaner and I was standing in it crying over a man who was out there laughing with a beautiful woman his own age who probably had her life together and didn’t accidentally look at people’s crotches while talking about wanting children.
You wanted to figure out who you are here, I reminded myself. Without someone else being the whole reason.
The problem was I was starting to suspect that Nash wasn’t someone else being the reason.
Nash was just—a person I wanted. Separately from everything else.
Not because I needed someone, not because I was lonely or raw from Bryce, but because he was him.
Because he made Nell feel safe. Because he put a dollar in a swear jar and then a ten for the guinea pig and picked up every single pen off the floor without being asked.
Because he’d listened to me for three hours on the worst night of my recent life and given me mostly orange juice and meant it kindly.
I wanted him the way I’d wanted kids since I was old enough to understand what wanting something meant—not as a fix for something broken, just as a fact about myself. A thing that was true regardless of circumstances.
That was so much more inconvenient than just being lonely.
I blew out a breath. Fixed my mascara as best I could with a piece of toilet paper. Told myself I was going to go back out there, be normal, be kind to Connor who had done nothing wrong, and go home at a reasonable hour.
I unlocked the door.
Nash was in the hallway.
He was leaning against the wall a few feet away with his hands in his pockets, watching the door like he’d been waiting—and it occurred to me then that he really was waiting, waiting for me, to…do what?
I swallowed hard.
I was going to cry again.
He clocked it right away, taking a step toward me.
“Did that asshole say something to you?” he muttered. “You’re—you’re crying—”
“It’s not him,” I rushed out. “It’s you.”
He stopped in his tracks, frowning. “It’s—what the hell did I do?”
“You were flirting with her,” I said. “That woman at the bar.”
“Kathleen.”
“I don’t care what her name is—“
“We’re old friends,” he said. “That’s it.”
“You were laughing,” I said, and I heard how unhinged that sounded the second it came out of my mouth. “You were laughing and she was touching her glass and you looked—you looked like you were having a great time and you just—you asked me to dinner a week ago, Nash—”
“And you said no,” he said.
I stopped.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m—I’m being crazy. This is so stupid, I’m drunk—”
I tried to walk past him, shame making me want to cry all over again—but he stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“You’re not drunk,” he said. “You don’t get drunk.”
He wasn’t wrong. Two glasses of wine at Summit and Vine, one screwdriver here. I wasn’t drunk. I was just—undone, which was somehow worse.
“I know,” I said. “I know I’m not drunk. I’m just—“ I pressed my hand over my eyes. “I’m being ridiculous. You didn’t do anything wrong. You asked me to dinner and I said no and you’re allowed to talk to whoever you want and I don’t have any—“
“Maggie.”
“—right to be upset about it, I know that, I just—”
“Maggie.” Quieter. “Stop.”
I stopped.
His hand was still on my arm, warm and steady. I looked up into his hazel eyes.
“I’m not gonna fuck her,” he said, voice low. “I don’t want to fuck anyone but you. I don’t want anyone in my bed but you. If you don’t like seeing me with other women…need you to know I’m not with other women. You’re the only thing on my mind, I can’t fucking stop thinking of you.”
My breath was stuck in my throat. All the sounds of the bar had just…faded away.
“You can go back to that table,” he said. “But it’s driving me crazy watching you with him.”
I didn’t have anything else to say.
Knew now that he was feeling exactly the way I did.
So the only thing left to do was to kiss him.