Chapter 45
SLOANE
The picnic table behind the Dusty Rose has a wobble in one leg and a carved heart with initials in the surface. It's where I've ended up with a packet of crackers, a pack of sliced cheddar, and a book I've read the same paragraph of four times.
Gloria stayed all afternoon. She'd brought her laptop to go over the accounts, and in between she did the rounds of the animals.
When the work was done she needed Maggie to walk through whatever it is they walk through with spreadsheets.
There was no reason for me to hang around, so I caught the bus back, stopped at the store because I wasn't hungry enough for the diner, and now here I am, watching the light go flat and orange over the field.
I'm not as engaged in the book as I was before. Now that I've stumbled into the real deal, the fantasy feels thin, like watching a cooking show after you've eaten the meal. Or maybe my mind is just too full of Maggie to process anything else.
I put the book face-down on the table, allowing myself to think about her instead.
I've never wanted anyone like this, and it isn't just physical, though God knows that's there too, vividly, right now.
It's that I want to be near her. I want to hear what she thinks about things and I want to make her laugh.
My phone pings on the table. Normally I'd leave it. Then I see the name — Maggie — and grab it.
Hey… I keep thinking about last night. And then today there were people here from the second you arrived. I feel like I haven't had a minute alone with you. Mom only just left.
Yeah. I keep thinking about it too. Your mom seems nice, by the way, I reply.
Took her a while to admit it, but I think she likes you too. Maggie ends the message with a smiley face.
Maggie's still typing. The dots appear, disappear, appear again. Then another message comes in.
I was wondering if you'd like to stay for dinner tomorrow after work.
My stomach swoops. It's not just dinner and we both know it. The thought arrives and brings a dozen flashes with it: Maggie's mouth on mine, her hands under my shirt, the things we didn't get to finish. I picture her without the T-shirt. I picture a lot of things and my face goes hot.
I'd love that. I hesitate, then type another message before I can talk myself out of it. Can I shower there after work? I always feel disgusting by the end of the day. Or is that weird?
Of course. Bring a change of clothes. And I promise to find you a bigger towel this time. :)
I chuckle and decide to be brave. I type it before I lose my nerve.
If it's big enough we could share?
I hit send and immediately want to throw the phone into the field. Too much. Way too much. I stare at the screen, my heart going stupidly fast, and the dots appear, and disappear, and appear again, and I can't breathe until —
Careful, Sloane. Keep talking like that and I won't be responsible for what happens.
I read it about four times. Heat goes through me and I'm grinning at my phone when another message lands.
Goodnight, Sloane. X
I put the phone down on the table, face up, and look at it. Tomorrow, dinner, after work. A shower and a change of clothes and no one else for miles.
I want this. I've thought of it enough times to be sure of that.
But underneath the wanting there's a bundle of nerves.
I've kissed Maggie twice, and both times my whole body knew exactly what it was doing.
But the rest of it? I have no idea. Twenty-eight years of knowing my way around a man and I'm a complete beginner at this.
What if I'm clumsy? What if I do it wrong?
What if I want it so badly and then freeze the moment it's real?
I almost laugh at myself. Sloane Archer, who has done a great many things she shouldn't have with a great many people she shouldn't have done them with, nervous about spending a night with a woman.
But it's different, and the difference is the whole point.
The other times never mattered. This one does.
It feels surreal and I wish I could talk to someone. I have about five hundred contacts in my phone, but there's no one I can trust with the biggest, most thrilling thing that has ever happened to me.
I'd like to think I could trust Sita. We've been friends since high school, and she's the only one of them who's shown support through all of this.
But could she really keep something this juicy to herself?
She turns everything into a story; it's just how she is.
And after these past weeks, I'm honestly not sure how close we still are.
Mom — God. My parents aren't backward about these things; they have the right opinions at the right dinner parties, gay friends they're proud of, all of it.
But it's one thing in theory and another thing when it's your daughter suddenly involved with a woman.
An animal sanctuary owner in Duster of all places.
My mother would need to sit down. And once she'd recovered from that, she'd question Maggie's prospects and quietly decide she was after the family money.
Dad wouldn't say much at all, which is worse because I wouldn't know what he was thinking for weeks.
And the rest of them — Nicole, Mel, the whole glittering crowd — I don't even want to think about what they'd do.
There's no one I trust who could understand it, and the truth is it doesn't matter, because I can't tell any of them anyway. This has to stay between Maggie and me. It would cause far too much trouble if it got out — for both of us, especially while I'm still serving my hours.
The field is slowly going dark and somewhere out past the fence a dog barks. The motel's security light buzzes on behind me, throwing my shadow long across the grass. The moths find it within seconds and start their hopeless campaign against the bulb.
The cheese has gone soft and shiny in the heat but it's not like I could even stomach more than a few bites.
Is this what a real full-on crush feels like?
I read the messages again and obsess over them like I've never been touched in my life.
I feel lit up from the inside, quite happy to sit here behind a shitty motel in a shitty town with mosquitoes attacking my legs.
Before my sentence I'd have called this rock bottom, but tonight it feels a lot like the opposite.
I gather the crackers and the sweating cheese and the book I didn't read a single page of. I'm going to need a very cold shower.