Chapter Six
Brody
Iwas pretty sure Maggie was pissed at me.
Maggie didn’t like being wrong, and I didn’t necessarily tell her she was, but I intervened in a situation she felt was hers to navigate.
Hence, Maggie was definitely pissed at me.
Hence again, why I was on Mr. Waterman’s steps with a bouquet of roses, waiting for her to get off work.
“You here to take me to the dance?” Mr. Waterman’s voice called out from the window.
I looked up, grinning at the white-haired old man sneering at me with disgust.
“I would, but I didn’t bring my dancing shoes.” I smiled cheekily up at him.
“Then why the hell are you on my steps again, boy?”
“I’m waiting for my girlfriend!” I called back. “I told you. She works over there.” I pointed in the direction of Maggie’s law office, only to see her crossing the street toward me with a quizzical expression.
“Why are you yelling?” she asked, coming to stand by my side.
“See!” I wrapped an arm around her, gesturing for Mr. Waterman to see. “My girlfriend!”
Mr. Waterman scowled.
“She’s too good for ya.”
“Right you are, you old rascal,” I said before planting a kiss on Maggie’s lips. “But don’t say it too loud. I was hoping she wouldn’t find that out.”
Maggie looked between us in concern.
“Brody, are you harassing an old man?” she whispered in horror.
“Yes, he is!” Mr. Waterman yelled back at the same time I denied it. “Keep him off my steps.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes on me and I laughed.
“He keeps me company while I wait for you to get off work,” I explained, before noticing her eyes on the flowers in my hand.
“For you,” I said, holding them out for her.
She peered down at them suspiciously, then looked back up at Mr. Waterman, then back to me.
Then she accepted them, smiling brightly.
“You’re really something, you know that?”
But that something didn’t seem like such a bad thing, considering the way she had those happy crinkles by her eyes and was pulling me in for a kiss.
I smiled against her lips, feeling balance restored to the universe once more.
When I looked up, Mr. Waterman had left, his window shut—and probably locked—behind him.
Apparently sitting on his steps was off limits, but he was fine with me kissing beautiful girls there.
“So,” I said, rubbing a hand down her arm, “we have guests.”
Maggie’s brows furrowed for a moment before clearing into an expression of realization. Maggie always figured things out before I gave her any clues.
“Are your sisters here?” she asked, lighting up.
I nodded, amused at how thrilled she was by the prospect of seeing my family.
“Not only that,” I said, “but Mom and Dad, too.”
“SHARON AND TOM ARE HERE?” she practically shrieked, grabbing onto my wrist with an intensity I didn’t think possible for someone her size.
“Yup,” I nodded. “The whole Callahan gang has hit Boston.”
“Where are they?” she asked. “Are they staying with us?”
“You think my three sisters and both my parents can fit in our shoebox?” I rolled my eyes. “I got them hotel rooms.”
“We could’ve squeezed,” she said half-heartedly.
“Or we could upgrade our living quarters.”
“Never,” she said, affronted. “I’ve been in that apartment for eight years and it’s the perfect proximity to everything in Boston.”
“Fine,” I held my hands up in defeat. “We’ll put that conversation on the back burner. Again.”
She rolled her eyes.
“But we have to get going because we have a dinner reservation with them,” I glanced down at my watch, “now.”
Maggie let out a yelp and took off down the sidewalk to the spot where I always parked my car, her heels clicking against the pavement as she scurried along. I had to laugh when she turned around with frantic expectation on her face.
“Come on,” she beckoned, “I don’t want to be late.”
Not for the first time in my life, I chased after Maggie Brynn. Somehow, it never got old.
It wasn’t easy getting the whole Callahan gang together. We’d all ventured a long way from the tiny town in Michigan we grew up in.
Our parents were still there, but all three of my sisters had spread out to other parts of the country, because as Leah liked to say, “nothing exciting ever happens in Michigan.”
But we were still close, despite the distance. I guess that happens when you grow up in a small house where six people have to share one bathroom.
Stuff like that bonds you.
And even though my sisters had only known Maggie the past few years, they’d taken to her as if she had grown up in the sticks of Michigan right along with us.
Sometimes I think they preferred her over me, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“—and I showed everyone that article of you being in Boston’s 30 Under 30,” Leah bragged, as if she were the one who had achieved it. “They couldn’t believe I have such a smart sister-in-law.”
“We have it framed in our kitchen,” Mom smiled at Maggie while Dad nodded along. “We are so proud of you.”
“It really is amazing,” Tara agreed, while Megan nodded along with her.
“If only you already had our last name, then it would be like a whole family achievement,” Leah lamented with a heavy sigh.
Maggie squirmed under everyone’s attention. She was funny like that. Being the center of attention was where she was most comfortable—except when it came to other people acknowledging how incredible she was.
I rubbed Maggie’s knee under the table.
“Great way to make it all about you, Lee,” I laughed.
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” Maggie said. “It’s easy to achieve that when it’s the only thing I’ve been working toward. And honestly, I couldn’t have done it without Brody.”
She gazed up at me with a shy smile.
“You cannot seriously be crediting me with this.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if you weren’t taking care of everything else in our lives,” she said.
“Cooking a few meals won’t get me featured in any magazines,” I told her. “Come on, Mags. You’re a rockstar. Own it.”
She smiled, but for some reason, it was like she still couldn’t believe it. That she did it on her own.
My family was about to back me up on that, if it weren’t for the waitress coming over to take our order.
“You guys talk so funny here,” Tara scrunched her nose after the waitress left.
“Do not!” Maggie said, feigning insult.
“Uh, you do.”
I laughed when Maggie looked to me for backup.
“Sorry, babe,” I laughed, “but no one in any other part of the country says ‘cawfee.’”
“And neither do I!” She turned her nose up at me.
“Then say it,” Megan dared her.
“No.” Maggie refused.
“Why not?” I asked, poking her side.
“Because I know my speech patterns better than anyone,” she said, meeting everyone’s smug gaze, “and I know perfectly well that I know how to say ‘coffee.’”
The table erupted in a fit of laughter.
“There it is!” Leah pointed.
“Girls, leave her alone,” my dad ordered, but even he was biting back a laugh.
“Maggie, dear,” my mom reached out to grab her hand from across the table, “your accent is perfectly charming.”
Maggie sat back in her seat, defeated, but with a smile tugging at her lips anyway.
“At least I don’t call soda ‘pop’ like I’m in some fifty’s movie.”
“It’s okay, babe. You’re still the most beautiful woman in Boston.” I kissed her cheek. “Even if you do talk funny.”
Boston Common was still lit with Christmas lights, even though it was nearing the end of January.
I didn’t mind. It made the bleak winter feel more cozy, somehow. I could handle the cold, but the constant cover of gray skies and muddied mounds of snow made something in me die a little each time the season came around.
“That was nice,” Maggie said, taking a long inhale of the winter air. “It’s always so nice. How do you guys do that?”
“Do what?” I asked, looking over to where she walked on the path beside me.
“You all talk the whole time without any undermining or bashing each other or making each other feel like they’re not doing enough with their lives—”
“Uh, excuse me,” I interrupted with a laugh, “but did you miss the entire portion of dinner where everyone came at Leah for trying to make a career out of being a part-time meditation coach?”
“But even then,” Maggie said, “it was just teasing. She could still feel that you guys would support her no matter what.”
“That’s just family,” I shrugged.
“Not all,” she said. “Actually, not even most.”
I thought about it. I guess on one hand I knew she was right, but I’d never known anything different. My family genuinely loved each other and liked each other.
I didn’t stop to think that I might’ve taken it for granted all these years.
“I guess I am pretty lucky,” I admitted, feeling self-conscious about it somehow.
Maggie looked off into the distance, feeling like she was a million miles away from me.
“Hey,” I nudged her, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Bull.”
“I guess I just wish I could be part of something like that,” she admitted, refusing to meet my eyes. “I mean, I have both my parents and a brother—but they’re all so separate, you know? I hate that we’re so broken up from each other.”
“You already are part of something like that,” I told her. “You’re a Callahan already, through and through.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
I frowned.
“All we have to do is make it official,” I grinned.
I joked about it a lot with Maggie, mostly as a way to see where she was at. I knew going into this thing that she was more independent than most. But I also knew she felt forced into that role in a way.
I’d let us move things at her pace. On her terms. She wanted to build her career first, get established. I couldn’t fault her for that. But lately, I’d had the itch to start moving things along.
And with all this mention of family lately, I was starting to think Maggie was dropping hints that she was ready for that too. For
all of it.
She paused, looking over at me with wide eyes.
Was she nervous?
“Don’t worry, Mags.” I laughed at her bewildered expression. “I won’t pop the question here next to the Make Way for Ducklings statue.”
She laughed, but it came out strained, and I realized my mistake.
Tara, my oldest sister, always said girls liked surprises. I forgot that a proposal was probably the biggest surprise in their life—which meant talking about even the potential of it should be strictly off limits until the actual moment, right?
I cleared my throat, moving on from the topic swiftly, but it didn’t escape my notice that the tension in Maggie’s shoulders didn’t quite seem to settle.