28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Maggie
W e were going through the last spreadsheet at the kitchen table in Lila’s house when Lila flipped the laptop screen shut, turned and stared at me.
“Something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong.”
“For the last two or three days, you’ve been unbearable. On cloud nine. Grady. Grady. Grady. Today? You haven’t said his name once, and a few times, you would’ve been right to mention him since he did so much work for the concert and strip show.”
I picked up my coffee and took a sip, waving off Lila with fake nonchalance. Since I’d seen his text message, I’d been whirling, lost in a haze of negative thoughts. “I’m taking a deep breath and getting some perspective.”
“What does that mean?” Lila arched her eyebrows and threw another teaspoon of sugar into her mug.
“It means Grady and I have been having fun the last few days, but it doesn’t mean whatever this is will last.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you kidding me?” She held up her hand and shook her head. “The two of you have been a jumble of knots, sexual tension, and misunderstandings for months, and now you’ve banged a few times and you’re over him? That might happen to other people, but I don’t believe that’s happening to you .”
I picked up my spoon and stirred my coffee, even though I was drinking it black today. That wasn’t what I was saying, but how did I tell Lila the truth without admitting I’d read his text message? When he checked his phone later and frowned, his expression only confirmed that Jack’s message hadn’t been a surprise. Then, he hadn’t brought up the offer over lunch or at any other point before he left my house, which only confirmed he didn’t want me involved.
Lila grabbed my spoon, heaped it full of sugar and dumped it in my cup, stirring furiously.
“Hey!” I snatched the spoon back. “What was that for?”
“Black coffee? That’s the drink of depressed people.”
“No, it’s not.”
Lila shrugged. “Maybe it’s serial killers. You take sugar in your coffee. Always. And when you’re feeling really good, it’s hazelnut from Kathy’s Café.”
I hadn’t been able to stir up the enthusiasm for drinking coffee at all. This one was almost cold. Maybe Lila had a point.
“Just tell me. You only hesitate when you think you’ve done something to make you look bad. Hello? I don’t care. You’re my bestie. You could be plotting to destroy the world, and I’d ask how to help.”
“You think you know me that well?” I sipped my coffee and had to admit it was better with sugar. Perhaps telling Lila what I’d read would make the news easier to digest.
Lila stared expectantly and then picked up her coffee and took a sip. Her gaze never left my face.
“When Grady was in the kitchen today, I saw a text on his phone.”
“As long as the text wasn’t from Sabrina about the Plan B pill, nothing can be that bad.” She gestured to my slumped position in the chair.
“He’s been offered a producing job in LA and hasn’t told me.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “I think I might almost prefer him banging Sabrina.”
I winced. “I would not. Gross. No. Just, no. But I don’t know why he hasn’t told me about the job.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Obviously not. Then I’d have to admit I looked at his phone. I’d also have to admit I care whether he stays or goes.”
Lila frowned and chugged the last of her coffee before taking the cup to the sink. “You do care.”
My extreme caring was the biggest problem in this scenario. If I didn’t have all these stupid feelings, I could enjoy the sex and let him leave, off on another adventure. The temporary relationship would be a blip in our respective lives.
I cared far, far too much. The thought of him leaving made me physically ill, and that intensity was after three days of sleeping with him. How would I feel if we managed to last any longer? I rubbed my face and took another drink before following Lila to the sink. “Trent warned me Grady would probably leave.”
“He’s still running for mayor.”
“Do you honestly think he cares? I’m pretty sure he ran because he knew it would piss me off.” I’d come to that conclusion after hours of obsessive Grady thoughts.
“That’s a fair point,” she agreed. “But Maggie, the way he looks at you.”
His expression was probably filled with lust—so was mine. Not a surprise. The two of us couldn’t get enough of each other. Even this afternoon when I’d been frustrated and hurt he hadn’t told me about the producing job, I’d let him take me from behind, making me come again that morning. The minute he touched me, a fire lit and blazed so bright and hot my brain shut off.
“Someday, when I grow up, I want a man to look at me like that,” Lila said.
“It’s not hard. Unlimited sex. That’s your ticket.”
Lila ran her hand down my arm. “He hurt you last time. I was there. I saw it. I didn’t understand how much or why until you finally told me most of the truth. Once you gave me the last piece, that he was the first guy you slept with, your emotions and reactions made a lot more sense.” She searched my face, tenderness in her gaze. A rare moment of seriousness from her. “The two of you aren’t the same people. You’re not teenagers. The lies have been flushed out. And if you think the way he looks at you has more to do with lust than love, you’re fucking blind.”
“It’s not like he’s told me he loves me or anything.” I crossed my arms and stared at my feet.
“Have you told him?”
The words were there and instead of saying them, I held them back. If he didn’t feel the same way about me, I didn’t want to embarrass myself. That old hurt was still there, under the surface, coloring our interactions. I didn’t know how to get past what had happened last time. Truthfully, I hadn’t known I needed to get over our past until I’d seen his message this morning.
Maybe time was what I needed, a sense he would stay the course, not abandon me again. Now with the threat of him leaving looming over me, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell him how I felt. Keeping the job offer from me was a sign he didn’t see a future with me and was just biding his time. That’s what I’d done with every just for now guy in the past. They were on a need-to-know basis, and looking back, I realized I told them enough to know my life, but not enough to know me.
“Being honest with him is scary. But if you risk nothing, you get nothing in return.”
“I risked last time. What’d I get in return? Twelve, almost thirteen years of heartache and that fucking song on the radio.” There was bitterness on my tongue, which surprised me. Had I always felt this way? For so long, I’d blamed myself, but now that we’d talked about our past, I couldn’t understand where I’d gone wrong other than trusting Grady would see me for who I was, that he’d recognize I wasn’t the kind of person who’d betray Trent in any context. I wouldn’t have let him go to jail if I’d known how to stop it, and I certainly wouldn’t have fucked his brother behind his back. Well, I did do that, but not the way Grady thought.
The text message this morning had caused all these old hurts I’d buried to rise to the surface. He’d crushed my heart last time with his indifference, and I wasn’t sure I could offer my reconstructed heart. What if he did it again?
Letting him go was a piercing arrow to my heart, but I could survive that. Telling him my feelings and having him reject me wouldn’t be so easy to stitch up. Whether he decided to leave or not wasn’t something I could control.
I told him I’d travel the world, but that was a lie. A calculated one because I wanted whatever was blooming between us to survive. But the truth was that Little Falls was where I’d made my home. Maybe we’d been a bad idea from the start. A poor fit. Without honesty, we were nothing, and we had built our entire relationship on a foundation of lies.
“Until he either tells me he loves me or tells me about the job offer, we’re temporary,” I said. “I can’t go all in with him when it feels like he’s not all in with me.” When Lila opened her mouth to protest, I held up my hand. “I need time to get my head wrapped around everything. Process what’s happened. I don’t want more advice. Let’s finish this spreadsheet so I can get home.”
Lila was quiet for a beat. “All right, if that’s what you want.” She opened the laptop, and the two of us peered at the last spreadsheet in silence.