20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Grady
I t was strange having her in my house. She trailed her hand along books piled on the shelves, flicking open a few of them and flipping through the pages. A beer hung from her other hand, her fingers clasping the neck, occasionally shooting me amused glances when she found a book she knew. I leaned my shoulder against the doorway. There was nothing better than watching her mind at work.
“So many books on these shelves.” Her chocolate-brown eyes were lit with a teasing light as she raised her beer to her lips. “If these were organized and you were anyone else, I’d say you were a man after my heart.”
I wasn’t sure what I was after, but I wasn’t ruling out her heart. Perhaps I’d organize those shelves and see what happened.
She picked up one of the well-worn books and turned it. “Remember this one?” Her light laugh filled the room. “ A Thousand Splendid Suns . I was convinced you hadn’t read this.”
With a grin, I pushed off the doorframe and took the book from her hand. This was the first one she’d grilled me about reading. I’d carted this paperback on all my travels, one of the few books I’d reread. “My book club reading days. Or rather,” I said with a wry grin, “weeks. I was always racing to get a goddamned book done before you came on Sunday.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit with surprise, and a grin tugged at the edges of her lips.
“Sometimes I’d wait until Thursday to pick a book, hoping you wouldn’t have time to read it before Sunday.”
A real laugh escaped her, and she eyed me as she sipped her beer. “Wanna know a secret?”
I placed the book back in the pile. “You never read any of them?”
She shoved my shoulder and shook her head. “No, the librarian used to call me as soon as you’d left and let me know what you’d picked up. The Thursday reads were fine. It was when you took out more than one book that screwed me over.”
I grinned. “I wish I’d been clever enough to do it on purpose more often.”
“I am glad you were not.” She took a sip of her beer, picked up another book and read the back cover before replacing it. “Those weeks, I’d get so caught up in reading, Trent would complain I wasn’t giving him enough help.”
The moment the slip registered, her face fell. She turned and her shoulders tensed, as though she was waiting for me to jump all over her admission. The words help with what floated between us, but I let them pass. I was enjoying her company, and a full-court press would send her fleeing. There was an ease developing between us that we’d never had before.
Besides, the longer I had mulled over Trent’s words about earning the truth, the more I’d wondered if he was right. I’d never given her the benefit of the doubt—never gave her the chance to explain. That night sent me spiraling. Not once had I asked Trent about her, about the drug trafficking, about how he had probably lied to them all. I’d been too busy blaming myself for not seeing the signs, for sleeping with Maggie, for letting Dan into the house. Every betrayal was mine to bear, intentional or not. Assigning some of the blame to her had seemed fair, then. She’d cheated Trent in more ways than one, hadn’t she?
I was pretty sure now that I’d gotten it all wrong.
Maggie ran her hands along a few more books, avoiding eye contact.
“Our book club for two is a highlight for me.” I leaned against the wall beside the closest bookcase.
From across the room, her lips quirked up into a smile. “Me too. I never knew what you were thinking about me. But I loved talking to you about books. You felt so much older—four years. A lifetime.” Nostalgia tinged her expression. “I won’t say wiser.”
“I’ll accept that.” I drank my beer and relished the sight of her in this house, talking like we were friends instead of rivals. I’d thought about her a lot, too much, more than I could ever have expressed in words.
“And you approached things so differently,” she said. “I was analytical, and you were straight from the gut, from the heart. You loved a book or hated it, and you had reasons why you felt that way.”
“I’d never had anyone to talk to about books before.” The light from the floor lamp cast a glow over the room, softening everything. Books had been a connection to my dad. Mom and Trent hadn’t shared it, and my friends had been into dating, drinking, drugs, sports, but not reading.
“No?” Maggie glanced over her shoulder. “Sabrina isn’t much of a reader?”
The warm feeling in my chest cooled. “She wasn’t, no.”
“But she is now?”
I shook my head. “Maggie, I—”
“I need another drink.” She breezed past me and out the door before I had a chance to stop her.
I followed her to the kitchen. She paused in the middle of the room and then spied the beer cases by the back door. Slotting the bottle into an empty space, she grabbed another cold one from my new fridge. I liked the way she moved around my house with so much self-assurance. It was also possible she was already a bit drunk.
“You a lightweight?” I got myself another beer.
“What do you mean?” Maggie flicked the cap off her bottle and then tossed it in the trash.
“Not much of a drinker?”
She laughed and rolled the bottle in her hands. “I haven’t drunk more than a glass of wine since…” She looked at the ceiling and squinted. “You wrote that asshole song about me and Trent.”
Yeah, she was definitely a bit drunk. Granted, the beer was European, so it was probably stronger than she was used to drinking.
“Was that the night you wrote your little diatribe on my fan page?” I’d never thought too much about Maggie’s message. Hadn’t made a whole lot of sense, which I remembered thinking was odd. Before I could reply, the post had disappeared, and then when I’d tried searching for her username, there had been no results. Later on, I’d figured out she’d blocked me.
Color rose to her cheeks. “In fact, it was. I deleted the post as soon as I sobered up. So stupid. Why would you give a shit what I thought?” She let out a derisive laugh. “Trent was really pissed off at you, you know.”
I did. One of a thousand fractures in our relationship. Felt like a lifetime ago, remembering how badly I’d wanted to punish her. For what? I couldn’t even be sure anymore. I’d been ridiculous. Juvenile. Idiotic. The idea I might have caused her pain made my insides twist. Hurting Trent hadn’t occurred, either. Everything just felt so fucked-up. “I was an asshole.”
With a grin, she raised her bottle. “I’ll drink to that.” She spun around the room in a slow circle. “I can’t believe you live like this.”
“I’m not here much.” Most of my time was spent at the train station overseeing the renovations Joseph Goldtooth was completing.
“I want to disinfect, paint, and decorate this place. Being here might make me break out in hives.”
“You sound like Kelvin.” I tried to see the room through her eyes. Gray walls that should probably be white. Cupboards made of thin wood. The linoleum floor had some tears in places. The house didn’t smell, though. Or at least, I didn’t think it did.
As though she suddenly realized something, she narrowed her eyes. “Where are your beasts?”
“With Emily. Amir was here this week with your dad, and they bonded. He wanted to have a sleepover with them.” I shrugged and picked at the label of my beer, focused on the task. “I dropped them off on my way to the studio.”
When I glanced up, our gazes locked, and the room popped to life. Her hand was pressed against her pelvis. Was she holding her breath? We scanned each other’s faces, and I resisted the urge to slide my beer onto the counter and sweep her into my arms to cart her upstairs. Trent had told me to stay away. I needed to fix my relationship with him before I tried to figure out if this feeling between us was more than rampant lust. My chances with Trent were numbered. Another screwup on my part and I might never get us back to where we’d once been.
“Do you want to see where the magic happens?”
“If that’s an invitation to your bed, you’re giving yourself a lot of credit.”
I grinned. The temptation to tell her the credit was well-deserved rested on my tongue. She was drunk, but I wasn’t sure she was drunk enough to joke about my sexual conquests. None of them mattered much with her standing so close, with this electrical current humming between us. Maggie’s name ran through my veins like oxygen.
I held out my hand, and she slipped her free one into mine, glancing up under her lashes. Would she object if I led her upstairs? God, I was playing with fire by having her here.
She followed me down the hall into the front room where there were chairs of various shapes and sizes. Jim had also insisted on getting someplace for Amir to sit while we’d practiced for the concert. For anyone else, I might have balked at the suggestion that what I had wasn’t good enough. But it was hard to say no to Maggie’s dad.
Releasing her hand, I pulled the bench seat over to the keyboard and slid onto one side. I patted the seat beside me and glanced at her over my shoulder. Her focus shifted from me to the keyboard, to the bench, indecision written all over her.
“Just a sec.” She disappeared down the hall. When she returned, she had another beer.
“You finish the last one?”
“Liquid courage.”
At first, I thought it was a joke and almost laughed. But when she avoided eye contact, I realized she was serious. “What do you need courage for?” She slid onto the bench beside me, and our shoulders grazed.
“Being around you.” She set her beer on the far side and placed her fingers on the keyboard. “Teach me, Mozart.”
I leaned toward her, my lips grazing her temple. Her eyes fluttered closed at the contact.
“You don’t use a guitar anymore?” Her eyes were still closed, and I wondered what she was thinking. I wanted to kiss her again—for real.
“Sometimes. Most of the time, this is better for composing. It can do a lot. Far more than any guitar.” I didn’t want to talk about songwriting; I wanted to talk about how the scent of vanilla surrounded me, even in my dreams.
She picked up her beer and chugged half of it.
Liquid courage, indeed.
“You’re not going to throw up on me, are you? Or on the keyboard? It’s actually quite expensive.”
The bottle dangled from her fingers. “If I promise to make it to your bathroom, will you hold my hair back?”
“Holding your hair back is the gold standard, isn’t it?” My hands itched to thread through the loose locks, test out the texture, draw her lips closer.
She nodded.
“Then I’d do it, even if you were sick all over my keyboard.”
Her forehead fell against my shoulder, and I kissed the crown of her head. The air around us was dense with barely suppressed desire.
She sighed. “I always thought you could be sweet.”
I put my arm around her, drawing her tight to my side. “But I never was?” Having her this close was a bad idea. The places my mind kept straying would snap the uneasy truce between Trent and me.
“No, you never were.” She glanced up under her lashes. “I always thought it was kinda unfair you didn’t believe me about me and Trent.”
I scanned her face, searching for whatever she was leaving unsaid. “Why’s that?”
“Trent slept with lots of girls before we were together. Probably while we were together too. I never asked. No one could find out. That’s all I told him. I didn’t want people to think I was a fool.”
How could my brother choose another woman, any woman, over Maggie? The idea caused my stomach to twist in knots. I examined her claim, trying to figure out why the arrangement would have suited either of them. Why would she have agreed to let him sleep with other women? Why would Trent want to be with anyone but her? I hated the jealous surge zipping through at the thought of them together, at the notion that Trent would betray her.
“Didn’t it seem weird to you?” she asked.
I frowned, not following her drunken logic.
She stretched up toward my ear and whispered, “Oh, Maggie, you’re so fucking tight . You feel so fucking good.”
My dick twitched at her words, the tone of her voice. That voice was designed for seduction. My heart raced, and my fingers tugged at the front of my pants which had grown painfully snug. The memory of being inside her was visceral. I’d relived it far too many times without her voice whispering those words in my ear. To go back to that moment, I didn’t need to close my eyes because it had always lived too close to the surface. Now the two versions would be melded together, that voice, that memory, forever.
“Do you know how many times I’ve gotten off thinking about you saying those words in my ear when you slipped into me the first time?” she asked.
My mouth went dry. She wasn’t going to be the only one getting off to the memory. “Maggie—”
“I thought you’d be able to tell, but you couldn’t, could you?” Her voice was hushed in the room.
Like a key being fit into a lock, her meaning clicked. Up to then, I hadn’t considered where this conversation was going. I searched her face in careful disbelief, trying to make sure I was reading her right. “You and Trent weren’t...”
“We weren’t together, not like that.”
“So, I was…”
She slid off the bench, putting some distance between us. I rotated to follow her, wanted to reach for her. I couldn’t decide if I was grateful or disappointed at her physical absence. Was I processing this right? I hadn’t realized. How had I missed that truth? Of course, I’d been drunk. My brother was no virgin, and I’d believed they were dating for real. It never occurred to me for even a minute that they weren’t sleeping together. The thought of them together had often made my stomach queasy with jealousy.
Tipping back the rest of her beer, she flopped into the beanbag chair near the windows on the other side of the room.
“Christ, Maggie. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” The call about his brother’s arrest had come right after, and everything had been blown to hell. “I don’t remember exactly how I treated you—”
“After?” She laughed but it had no humor. “Pretty shitty. I mean, I didn’t blame you. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I thought it probably hadn’t been very good for you.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s pretty fucking far from the truth.” Their night had haunted me, been the source of many sleepless nights, and my inability to let go hadn’t been because being with her wasn’t good. The opposite. I’d never felt so much for someone in a moment like that before, and I’d been caught by surprise.
She ignored me and continued, “Then, you were so mad at me about Trent. I didn’t know what he’d been doing any more than anyone else. Not a clue. Sometimes I look back and think, God, Maggie, you were so dumb. ”
“None of us were at our finest.” I’d led her to believe our night meant nothing. So callous. I wished I’d been a better man for her and for Trent. There was still time to be better. I just needed to figure out how.
“Got that right.” She eyed me from her seat, contemplating something. “Can I watch you write a song?”
I stared at her for a beat, unsure. “We’re done talking about the other thing?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“About how you stole my virginity? Yeah, I’m over it. Also, I’m drunk. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I would have said any of this otherwise. Can we play the game where we pretend this conversation didn’t happen? It seems to be one of our favorites.”
“I’m getting kinda tired of that one.”
“Shame.” Maggie pursed her lips.
“You going to be sick?”
“Nope, just thinking about what a bad idea this was.”
I took in her furrowed brow, and the way her eyes kept shifting as she analyzed whatever was bouncing around her head. Overthinking what she’d said would end up driving a wedge between us. Whether or not it was smart, I didn’t want distance between us, not anymore. I wanted to figure out a way to make amends.
“Watching me write a song would make you happy?”
Surprise registered on her face. “Can you? Does it work like that? Can you switch it on? I know it used to, or it seemed like it used to, work like that. But you said you don’t write for yourself much anymore.”
Her babbling was adorable. I smiled and wished she was close enough to touch. Already, I missed the connection, the intimacy that shrouded us as soon as we got close. Utterly astonishing how quickly my emotions were spiraling out of control.
Trent . I had to remember our deal.
Turning back to the keyboard, I played the opening notes of a song which had been dancing at the edges of my consciousness for the last week.
“That’s pretty,” she said.
“Bit of a ballad.”
“A love song.”
“Something like that.” I played for a while, feeling it out and writing down notes when I thought I’d found something that worked.
“What’s the secret?” she asked.
I glanced over my shoulder. She was flopped in the beanbag, her head tilted toward the ceiling. I loved the sight of her in this house, so relaxed and at ease…even if it had taken several beers to get her there. “To what?”
“Writing a good song.”
I turned back to the keyboard and played the opening notes from a few of the songs I’d written recently. “For me, the music comes first. Different people write different ways. That’s my way. If I can get the music to be something which wells up in people, makes it easy for them to get swept away, it’ll sell.” I chuckled. “Even if the lyrics make no sense.”
“That’s when you write for other people?”
“Yeah.”
“What about your songs? The ones for you.”
I paused my fingers on the keys, and I rolled my shoulders. This bench wasn’t particularly comfortable for songwriting. It was meant for collaborating, for having someone sitting next to me, not across the room. “Beyond the music, at least if I’m writing for myself, it’s the feeling behind the lyrics. When an emotion needs to come out. When the overflowing happens in me .”
“Does that happen a lot?”
I kept my back to her when I admitted, “Almost never.” Not anymore.
There was a heavy silence, and I was tempted to look at her. I wasn’t sure if I’d like what I’d see on her face.
“It must make you sad,” she whispered.
“Sometimes,” I agreed. I played a few random notes which served no purpose other than to break the melancholy mood between us. “But I’m well paid either way.”
If I kept busy enough, I didn’t have time to think about what I was missing. Everything she’d said played in my mind while I continued to work out the melody. How did Trent and Maggie not hate me? I’d gotten so many things wrong for so long.
Lost in the rhythm of writing, it took me a while to realize she wasn’t participating in the process. Frowning, I turned to see her passed out in the beanbag chair, curled up on her side. Her auburn hair partially covered her pale face. That familiar ache spread across my chest at the sight of her looking so peaceful and vulnerable. We hadn’t talked about where she’d sleep, but after the amount she and I drank, there was no way she could easily get home.
I dropped my pencil and wandered over to crouch beside her. Would she rather I woke her? A better option was carrying her up to my bed. It was king-sized. We could sleep there comfortably without any danger of touching. I didn’t want her to wake up tomorrow and think I took advantage of her. The changes taking place between us needed to be protected.
Unable to resist, I scooped her into my arms. She murmured something, her head resting on my shoulder. In my bedroom, I slid her under the covers. For a moment, I watched her, wishing it was okay to stay, but I couldn’t risk her hating me again in the morning. With a sigh, I headed for the bedroom door.
“Grady?”
I halted and turned to lean against the frame. “What’s up Maggie May?”
“Stay with me?”
Never had I been drawn to another person like I was with her. “You sure?”
“You owe me cuddles.” She cracked open one eye.
Drunk Maggie’s ability to cut to the truth made me chuckle. Circling the bed, I slid under the covers beside her. She rolled over to face me and then scooted closer to rest her head on my shoulder.
“Is this okay?” she whispered.
I extended my arm around her, tucking her tight to my side. Her leg came across mine, and our hands laced on my stomach. “More than okay.”
Within minutes, her even breathing floated across my neck. As I listened to her, I stared at the ceiling, wondering which one of us would be let down first.