Chapter 6 #3
Did Maddy just willingly bring up her dating life?
God, Aspen wanted to go there so bad. She wanted to know what a Maddy Sterling date looked like, in LA, in the kind of restaurant Maddy probably went to.
She especially wanted to know who Maddy went out with.
Had she ever gone out with a woman? Fifteen years of Bunny’s recaps of their brief phone calls and the few times Bunny had visited—read: surprised—Maddy in LA, and Aspen had, never once, gotten confirmation of exactly who Maddy Sterling dated—
Stop. Walk it back. Phase three had been going so well.
Aspen went over to the shelf and scanned the stacks of remaining boxes.
She pulled one from the shelf that was far lighter than its size suggested and set the box down beside Maddy, kneeling to examine its contents.
Gunny sacks and the red bandanas used for the three-legged race.
All wadded up and thrown in the box without a care.
She pulled them out one by one, smoothing them and folding them neatly as she counted.
She cleared her throat. “What do you like to read?” There. Back to safer ground. “Your old AP history textbooks?” Aspen teased lightly.
Maddy chuckled. An honest-to-God chuckle. Aspen hid her reaction. She’d gloat in private later.
“My palette has expanded since high school.” Maddy shot back.
Aspen glanced up without drawing attention to the motion. There was a small curve to Maddy’s lips and a general lightness on her face that Aspen hadn’t seen once in the five days Maddy had been back.
Maddy pulled another item out. Marked her binder. Like she hadn’t noticed herself engaging. She continued. “I enjoy autobiographies. Historical fiction. Trial transcripts—”
Aspen’s hands went still on the bandana she was folding. “I’m sorry, did you just say you read trial transcripts? For fun?”
“Yeah. You know, famous ones. Or strange ones. The Enron indictment. Theranos. The Murdaugh Murders.” Maddy shrugged, still sorting. “It’s relaxing.”
Aspen laughed. “Wow.” She shook her head. “That’s…very on-brand, actually.”
Trials were really just a competition of who could be the smartest person in the room while systematically dismantling the other person’s case.
The exact high-stakes structured argument Maddy Sterling was built to deliver.
Aspen had actually been very surprised in high school to find out Maddy would be going to film school instead of law school.
Maddy looked up. “On-brand how?”
“You’re the smartest person I know, Maddy. You always have been.” It was true. Aspen had never met anyone whose brain could absorb and retain massive amounts of information the way Maddy’s could.
Maddy raised her brows. “Aren’t you a doctor?”
Aspen tipped her head. “I may know more about the inner workings of the human body than you do after seven years of singularly studying one subject, but I’ve never had that same level of curiosity about the world and devotion to learning in general as you do.”
Maddy resumed her sorting. “I seem to recall you doing okay going head-to-head with me in debate.” Maddy’s voice was quieter than before, like she didn’t mean to voice the words out loud.
Aspen studied her for a moment. A silent battle raging inside of her.
They were moving into dangerous territory, she knew it.
But she didn’t feel the urge to tease or turn it into a joke like she normally did.
She wanted Maddy to know she was being serious, for once.
Not with any ulterior motive. Simply because she admired Maddy—she always had—and wanted Maddy to know how admirable she was.
“I wasn’t passionate or even interested, really, in the subjects we covered in debate.
Not like you were. I just—” Aspen chose her words carefully.
“I enjoyed the challenge. I learned just enough to be dangerous in a six-minute argument, but honestly, if you asked me to recall any of it today, I wouldn’t be able to.
I’m willing to bet you could walk into the House of Representatives right this second and wipe the floor with every congressperson in the room. ”
Maddy didn’t respond to that, but Aspen caught the small smirk on her lips.
Phase three, she thought, was going extremely well.
By nearly seven p.m., the keep pile was taller than the discard pile.
Maddy gestured at a stack of six boxes at the keep end. “These boxes can go to Bunny’s. The rest of this”—Maddy gestured at four boxes she left off to the side—“We don’t have space for right now.”
“I can store the overflow at my place until the Cup.” She sounded too eager. She forced her voice to feign indifference. “It will be easier to coordinate when you need something than coming back to the storage unit.”
Maddy held her gaze for a beat. “Fine.”
There it was again. Aspen turned away to hide her smile.
* * *
Aspen’s bungalow sat at the end of a block that ran parallel to the beach. She pulled into the driveway and killed the engine.
Maddy looked at the outside of Aspen’s home from the passenger seat.
Aspen looked at Maddy looking at the house. “Well, this is it.” She said unnecessarily, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at herself. “Can you help me with the boxes?”
Maddy nodded and unbuckled.
They carried the boxes in. Aspen went first, unlocking the front door and swinging it open. Maddy came in behind her with two boxes stacked. Aspen watched peripherally to see if she would need help, knowing full well Maddy would never admit it if she did.
The door opened into her living room. Maddy set her boxes down with a thud and then straightened and took the room in. “Wow,” she said.
Aspen could not tell whether it meant wow, this is charming or wow, this is smaller than I expected or wow, she has plants.
Maddy wandered further inside. “Who did the decorating?”
Aspen stayed by the door, unsure what to do with her hands. She stuffed them into her pockets. “Me mostly. With some help from Grace.”
Maddy looked over her shoulder. “Grace?”
Aspen smiled. “My best friend. We work together at Offshore.”
Maddy nodded once and said nothing, resuming her slow perusal of the space.
Aspen’s eyes followed Maddy’s and involuntarily began analyzing her own home, noticing, for the first time, every flaw.
The dent in the counter where she’d once dropped a cast-iron pan.
The wine stain on the cream throw pillow she’d been meaning to replace and had somehow always, in the two years since it happened, decided it was not today’s problem.
Maddy made a small “hm” sound as she spun slowly, taking in every detail. “It suits you.”
Aspen’s pulse kicked. She wasn’t positive, but that almost sounded like a compliment.
Maddy walked over to the bookshelf. Her head tilted as she scanned the spines.