Chapter 15 #2
“And you’ve always given her too much.” Lilith shook her head. “One fight and she left me. After everything I did for her. Stay with her at your own risk.”
One fight? That was so wrong it was laughable. But it did confirm one thing—she and Maggie had fought that night. The same night, he was assuming, that Maggie had left him.
He waited for the front door to close after Lilith before walking away, but not toward his truck. He headed toward the side of the house. Joel joined him, both of them remaining low and avoiding windows as they slipped around the corner.
He found Maggie in the same place she used to wait for him when they were kids, legs dangling over the edge of the porch roof.
This was how she’d snuck out when she’d wanted to get out of the house but didn’t want to face her aunt.
He stopped beneath her. “Drop.”
A small smile curved her lips. Without a second of hesitation, she shuffled farther over the edge of the ledge and dropped, trusting him to catch her. And he did.
For a moment, he didn’t set her down, just held her in his arms. “Feels like old times.”
“Is that a good thing?” Her warm breath whispered over his lips.
He opened his mouth to respond, to tell her that he’d lived for these moments with her, when a shout-whisper from the roof cut in.
“Hell no! I don’t trust you.”
He and Maggie looked up to see Polly still on the roof.
“Come on, Polly,” Maggie whispered. “We have to go.”
“Isn’t there a less fall-to-my-death kind of way to get down?”
Joel’s lips curled into a grin. “Afraid not, darlin’. I’m your way off that roof. Don’t worry, I’ve had quite a few women fall for me in my day, and they’ve all lived to tell the story.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “But have they lived happily?”
“Polly, drop,” Maggie pushed.
Polly groaned. But she shuffled to the edge and dropped.
Joel caught her, his smile wide. “Hey there, pretty lady. Guess you owe me one.”
Polly whacked his chest. “Put me down.”
“Where’s my thank-you kiss?”
Another shove, and Joel laughed quietly before setting her on her feet.
“We left my old bedroom window open,” Maggie said, glancing up.
Ethan looked at Joel, who stepped over to him, interlaced his fingers and kneeled.
Ethan backed up before taking three fast steps forward, leaping onto Joel’s hands and getting a boost. He grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled himself the rest of the way up.
With quick and quiet steps, he crossed to the window.
Two steps back and he ran and jumped, grabbing the ledge of the window.
He found a small footing to step on, then dragged the window down.
It would be unlocked, but it was the best he could do.
When he returned to the ledge, he crouched then dropped to the ground, the thump of his feet hitting concrete quiet.
Polly’s mouth opened. “Wow. That was like watching an episode of Jack Reacher.”
“Impressed?” Joel asked with a grin.
“Not by you. All you did was give him a boost.”
“Guess that makes me the muscle.”
She wrinkled her nose.
Ethan slid an arm around Maggie’s waist, and they hurried back to the road.
“What were you doing in there?” Ethan asked when they reached his truck parked down the street. Polly’s was across the road from the house, so this conversation was safer at his.
Maggie shot a glance toward her friend.
Polly nodded. “You should tell him.”
Ethan’s muscles locked. “Tell me what?”
“My bodywash and toothpaste went missing,” she said quietly.
He frowned. “What?”
“And the reason I left LA is because similar things happened there. I’d get back from work trips to find stuff out of place. My earrings went missing. Unfamiliar scents would be lingering in my house.”
Ethan shared a look with Joel, his friend’s usual smile nowhere to be seen.
“There were other things too,” Polly added. “She got home from a weeklong trip to a wet loofah and a freshly burned candle.”
What the fuck? “And you thought it was Lilith?”
“That was me,” Polly said. “I had a key to Maggie’s apartment go missing at Bloom. Lilith was in the café the day it disappeared.”
“But so were other people,” Maggie added.
“You need to move in with me.” The words dropped from his mouth unexpectedly, but they didn’t feel wrong.
Maggie’s eyes bulged. “What? No.”
“Why not? You can’t stay where you are.”
“I’m not in the apartment anymore. I moved into Polly’s house. I’ll be fine.”
“Like hell you will. Someone’s followed you from LA. Someone’s entering your home, taking your things. What if they were still in there when you got home last night?”
Her face paled, and dammit, he didn’t want to scare her, but he also needed her to understand the gravity of this situation.
He stepped closer and touched her hips. “Maggie, come on. Let me look after you.”
From his peripheral vision, he saw Polly and Joel step away, giving them privacy.
Maggie shifted her gaze between his eyes. “I want to say yes, but we have a complicated past…and I want us to move in together because we want to be together, not because it’s necessary. Besides, I feel safe in Polly’s house right now.”
His instincts screamed to fight her on it. All he wanted to do was protect her. But he also couldn’t force it. He wasn’t her boyfriend. Not yet.
Like she could read his thoughts, she touched his chest. “If anything else happens, then yes, I’ll consider it. But right now, I’ll be more cautious.”
Cautious would be her moving in with him. “Fine. But I’m going to hold you to that. Any more signs of trouble and you’re with me.”
She nodded. “Thank you for getting me out of there.” Then she leaned her head on him, and he felt it. The softening of every tight muscle. The loosening of his chest.
This was where she belonged. Where they belonged—together.