Chapter 20 #3
She was thinking about that night, about the bed they’d shared in a stranger’s cabin, when she spotted Maddy coming back down from the direction of Bunny’s house.
Aspen had been hoping to get a moment alone with her since the BBQ.
Her conversation with Noa had left her feeling slightly uneasy, for multiple reasons, but mostly because if she’d learned anything from the Bunny-and-Olly-secretly-dating disaster, it was that keeping any secrets from Maddy had a way of detonating at the worst possible second.
So Aspen got up and met her halfway. “Hey,” she said when Maddy was within earshot.
“Hey.” Maddy stopped in front of her, the noise of the beach forty feet behind them. “Miss me?”
Aspen opened her mouth and the words just fell out. “Noa knows about us.”
Maddy blinked.
“I’m sorry.” Aspen grimaced, the words tumbling now. “I didn’t tell her. I swear. She already guessed it because of, you know—” she gestured vaguely between them “—you generally not hating me anymore. Which apparently made it very obvious.”
For a second Maddy just looked at her. Then she let out a small laugh, and shook her head. “I never hated you, Aspen.” She said it like it was the most obvious fact in the world. “And it’s fine.”
Aspen went still. “It is?”
“Noa could always read me better than anyone.” Maddy lifted one shoulder. “I’m not surprised she figured it out.” Her face softened, the teasing draining out of it. “Thank you for telling me, though.”
The relief came so fast and hard that Aspen’s mouth went off again without her. “I was really worried you were going to get upset and not speak to me for seven days again.”
She cringed at herself. Why the fuck would she bring that up?
But Maddy didn’t flinch. She tipped her head. “That was… a misunderstanding,” she said. “One we’ve very much cleared up. And things are a little different now.” Her mouth curved. “Wouldn’t you say?”
Aspen let out a breath. “Yeah. Yes.”
Maddy took a step closer and gently curled her fingers around Aspen’s wrist. “I’m sorry you were so worried about how I’d react.”
“It’s not your fault.” Aspen shook her head. “Really. I just—” She huffed, Noa’s words about Maddy running for the hills playing through her mind, and decided to just say it. “I really don’t want to fuck this up.”
Maddy looked at her for a long beat. And then she slid her hand down, and instead of an answer, she took Aspen by the hand. “Come on,” she said, giving Aspen’s hand a little tug. “Let’s go watch the fireworks.”
They found a spot off to the side, a little apart from the main clump of blankets, and sat down in the sand.
Maddy didn’t let go of her hand. She settled it between them, half-hidden in the dark, and Aspen looked down at it once and decided not to say anything in case saying something broke the spell.
The first shell went up with a low thump she felt in her chest, climbed, and burst into a wide gold palm that spread and drooped down the sky.
They’d driven all over the county for this show. They’d gotten stranded in the mountains for it. And now it was unspooling over the water exactly the way it was supposed to, and the woman she’d spent five weeks planning this whole 3-day weekend with was holding her hand in the sand.
Beside her, Maddy’s face was tipped up to the sky, lit and unlit and lit again in gold and blue. And then, without looking over, in a voice pitched just for the two of them under the noise of the show, she spoke. “Why did you jump in the water? At the Cup junior year.”
Aspen turned her eyes back to the fireworks.
She could deflect. Or tease. But the way Maddy had asked it kind of seemed like she already knew the answer.
There was a chance acknowledging the truth would make Maddy run, but Aspen was all in and she wanted Maddy to know that.
Another shell bloomed and faded. “I think you know why.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Maddy nod, slow. So she had known. She’d just needed to hear it. “Is that…the same reason you took four years of debate?”
Aspen swallowed. She still didn’t look over. “Yes.”
For a moment there was only the sky going off above them, and the crowd’s low ooh rolling down the beach, and Maddy’s thumb where it had gone still against Aspen’s knuckles.
“How did you know my favorite number?” Maddy’s voice had gotten quieter.
Aspen could feel Maddy’s eyes on her now.
And she couldn’t help but laugh a little at the question.
“Come on. Your locker number. The row you always sat in on the bus ride to tournaments. The floor you always requested at the hotels. The booth number you always sat in when we went to pizza afterwards.” She lifted one shoulder. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”
The fireworks kept going. Maddy was silent for a second, then continued. “So, it’s not a coincidence you always sit in seat thirteen at the stadium? Or that you drink grape-flavored electrolyte powder and coconut milk lattes with a sprinkle of cinnamon?”
Heat climbed up Aspen’s neck. She looked down at the sand between her knees. “I guess I’ve always kind of gravitated toward things that reminded me of you, even when I didn’t realize I was doing it. I’ve been doing it so long I don’t really know how to—”
Maddy didn’t let her finish. She reached over, took Aspen’s jaw in her hand, turned her face, and kissed her.
It was nothing like any of their previous kisses. It was slow and soft and brief. And it was in front of all of their family and friends.
Maddy pulled back just far enough to look at her. The sky lit her face up green, then white. “Come with me.” Then she stood, and held out her hand.
Aspen took it and let Maddy pull her to her feet.
And as Maddy led her up the beach, hand-in-hand, Aspen glanced back and saw the eyes on them.
Bunny gripped Olly’s arm, her face lighting up like the entire fireworks barge had gone off in her chest. Jake elbowed Chloe and tipped his head in their direction, and Chloe’s eyes went wide. And Grace gave her a slow, deliberate, two-handed thumbs up.
Aspen had been looking forward to this fireworks show all year, but at this moment, she couldn’t care less. Wherever Maddy was dragging her, she wanted that so much more.