33. Maggie
Chapter thirty-three
Maggie
“ O h, thank God, you’re here!” Lina exclaimed as she opened her front door.
Her hair was tied in a messy bun, like she was in a rush, and her t-shirt hung loosely over her leggings.
She opened the door wider to welcome me inside and took the bottle of wine from my hands.
“What is this? You didn’t have to bring anything. ”
“Hi, to you, too, Lina,” I chuckled. “I thought it would help coax some information out of you.”
We walked through her cottage’s open-concept living area into the small kitchen, where Lina set the wine on the counter and opened the fridge to pull out some cheese and crackers.
“I don’t think this is something you’d be too excited to hear,” she sighed and gestured to the wine glasses on the counter.
“Mind grabbing those?” I nodded, and she led us toward the couch and set everything down on the coffee table.
“It can’t be that bad,” I half-laughed and sat down.
“Oh, trust me. It is.” She gasped. “Wait! I have your mocktail in the fridge. Let me grab it.” I laughed, opening and pouring her wine as she scurried to the kitchen.
She was stalling. The refrigerator door quickly opened and shut, and before I knew it, she was kneeling beside me on the couch, fingers tapping nervously on her now-full wine glass.
“Okay, go. I need the full story.”
“Ugh, okay.” Lina looked at me with a slight question before rolling her eyes and submitting to giving me an explanation. “Okay, okay.”
When she still didn’t talk, I tipped my head forward and raised my eyebrows.
“Fine! Just know this is freaking hard to say, and I expect the full, detailed story of whatever is going on between you and Jack.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, yes. I will tell you everything. Now, go!”
“Okay, here we go.” She took a deep breath. I was almost amused at her dramatic exaggeration. “So…do you know Felix Aguado?”
“Briefly.” I had seen him play with Jack on their team and knew he was a hotshot from Argentina on his way to the top. According to Jack, though, he was notorious for getting into trouble with his sponsors and colleagues.
“Okay, well, he’s who I was running from today. Things with him are a little… complicated, so to speak.”
“Oh? Complicated, how?” I spoke without judgment. I could tell whatever was going on caused her to worry about her polished reputation as a polo trainer and part-time player.
“So, I may have kissed him a few nights ago.” Lina cringed and threw her head back.
“But I didn’t know it was him!” she quickly rebutted, voice raised.
“It was…it was dark, and we were both so drunk. Paula Franklin had a little bonfire for her players, and since I taught her kids to ride, she invited me. And I swear to you it was pitch-fucking-black, Maggie. I couldn’t see a thing when Francisco poured his full beer can over the fire because he was drunk.
I was off grabbing another drink at a cooler further from the fire and ran into someone—I had no idea who at the time—and we tried to find our way back to the group together.
Of course, as intoxicated as we both were, we had no sense of direction or common sense, so we just ended up talking for a while. ”
“And then you kissed him?” I probed.
“No, no, not yet.” She shifted. “He just smelled so good! And God, even the way he held my forearms to keep me upright loosened my control. Then he told me he wished we weren’t at this party, and I thought it was because he wanted to be like, you know, alone together.”
I nodded.
“So then I kissed him. And Maggie, it was literally the best kiss of my life, and I didn’t even know his name.” My jaw dropped.
“You’re sure you didn’t know it was him?” I asked in surprise.
When Jack and I spent nights in each other’s arms, we knew each other. We felt each other. Every touch, every whisper, every kiss.
“Yes, I’m absolutely, completely, one- hundred percent sure. I would never kiss that man. Ever.” Knowing Lina and her go-lucky, optimistic attitude, her firmness took me by surprise.
“And why is that?” I asked.
“Why is what?”
“Why would you never, ever kiss him? He’s just a guy,” I added with a slight shrug, “A cute one, I guess.”
“Because.” She sipped her wine as quickly as she swallowed it. “Felix Aguado is bad news.”
I motioned for her to continue.
“He’s rude, a total womanizer, has no respect for his sponsors or the game,” she counted off her fingers. “He’s just a bad guy all around.”
“Okay, so…what’s the point of this whole thing? So, you kissed him. It’s not that small of a club. You can just avoid him.”
Her voice rose, and frustration took over her face. “That’s the point! I am trying to avoid him. I have for a few days now, but he keeps showing up at the barn for some reason.”
Internally noting to come back to her point, I asked, “Wait, how do you know it was him? If it was dark out, and you couldn’t tell by his voice, how did you find out who the other was?”
“Somebody near the fire pit yelled, ‘Felix, get over here!’ and that’s when everything hit me.
There’s only one Felix in this club, and I had only had one interaction with him, a few weeks ago, in passing.
I ran toward the voice—and tripped a couple of times—before someone said something like, ‘Lina, how drunk are you?’ And I’m pretty sure Felix didn’t figure out it was me.
Which is why I have no clue why he is trying to talk to me. ”
I took in everything she said. How everything fell into perfectly-fitted puzzle pieces.
It wrenched my heart to think about Jack and my twisted story that could never fit inside a box.
There was no photo displaying what our lives were supposed to look like.
No protocol for our complicated situation.
Lina came off as carefree and uncomplicated, but she cared about other people’s perceptions of her. I was well aware that she wasn’t as surface-level as she portrayed herself to everyone.
“Maybe he just wants to clear the air,” I suggested. “Just to be honest about what happened.”
Lina scoffed. “Nothing about Felix Aguado is honest.”
I arched a brow in response, but Lina just shook her head. A small grin played on my lips. “So…what now?”
She shifted uncomfortably before taking another sip of her wine.
Something about Lina’s demeanor was different tonight.
While she was bubbly and peppy in the arena, it was only an exaggeration of her natural personality.
I wished there was a way to peel off whatever strange wrapping she used to shield herself from everyone.
She was so confident on the outside, but so afraid of tarnishing people’s thoughts of her.
And it wasn’t just Felix that made her feel that way.
Something lingered beneath her sunny exterior, but she wasn’t ready to tell me. So, I simply waited.
“Now you tell me what’s going on between you and Jack.” Her face wasn’t nearly as stern as her voice sounded, and the weight of carrying everything on my shoulders without a confidant was killing me.
Her eyes bore into me, daring me to reveal the secret I kept so close to my chest. I could trust Lina with my life. She deserved this secret.
“Okay, don’t kill me…” I started slowly. Lina squealed, tucking her legs further beneath her. “But there’s something I wasn’t exactly truthful about when Jack and I first moved here.”
She cocked her head and paused for a moment, her eyes a telling sign of the thoughts rushing through her head. “Wait—okay, no, you know what, I’m just going to let you tell this story before I ask questions.”
A nervous chuckle escaped my lips, releasing a bit of tension from my chest. I may as well have ripped the truth off like a Band-Aid. “We weren’t actually in a relationship when we first moved here.”
“What?” Lina cried. “I thought you said you were married, but okay. Go on.”
I couldn’t help the smile that enveloped my face from Lina’s reaction. It was the most comforting resolve I could have asked for. “Well, I guess I should start from the beginning.”
I explained the last seven months to her, reminiscing about the small moments Jack and I shared in my head while answering Lina’s questions along the way.
She nodded and pried for details, and I told her when Jack and I finally confessed that our feelings weren’t fake anymore, and how we had fallen into a perfect, peaceful rhythm throughout the last couple of months.
Recounting everything brought me back to that feeling I always got around Jack.
I was kidding myself to think there hadn’t been something there for so long, even since we played together as little kids, when our dads played in tandem on the field.
It was always Jack and I behind the trailers, wreaking havoc and slowly falling for each other.
This relationship was years in the making, and it hadn’t just started with the baby.
“That is genuinely one of the most rollercoaster ride relationship stories I’ve ever heard. And it’s real, too?” Lina’s excitement was contagious, transferring over to me until the twist in my gut about his recent behavior resurfaced.
“It’s real…I think.” I hesitated.
“Why were you avoiding him today?” Her tone was more patient now, not pleading for answers anymore.
“The last twenty-four hours have just felt…weird.” I sighed. “He came home last night quieter than he’d ever been. He wouldn’t answer my questions clearly. He looked so…I don’t know, not himself.”
Lina’s eyes shifted left before they met mine again. “Do you think he just had an off day? Or was it something more?”
“I honestly couldn’t tell you. It was like he left totally normal and came back as an entirely different person.” It was sending me into a downward spiral.
“You should ask him what’s going on,” Lina suggested. “He might be stressed about the baby coming so soon. And…you know, I am sure there are some fears about what will happen with your relationship as the baby gets older.”
Her words sank in. Since we had fallen into a real relationship, we hadn’t discussed our future together, save for my comment about taking his last name for real.
We were basking in the phase of being a couple before becoming parents.
It made me wish we had kindled this connection long before conceiving a baby, had more time to learn each other on an emotional level before a baby came into the picture.
But baby or no baby, I loved Jack like I had never loved anyone before.
It would take a hell of a lot more than a conversation about our future to turn me away from the man I wanted to keep forever.
Lina was right. We would talk tonight and resolve everything. Then maybe we could be forever for real . I swore to myself that I would never get married. Now I was realizing that was all I wanted.
Me, Jack, and our baby. A real family.
I smirked at my friend. “Take your own advice.”
She rolled her eyes. “Touche.”