Maggie Moves On(127)

“No.”

“Then I think it can wait.”

“My mom loved your energy,” she said.

He stilled. “What?”

She pointed to the picture he hadn’t noticed until now. The framed one she kept in her bedroom of her mom laughing.

“Look at the picture, Silas,” she whispered.

He picked it up rather than putting her down because he wasn’t ready to be without Maggie Nichols in his arms for a good, long time.

“She’s beautiful,” he told her.

“Look at what she’s smiling at,” she insisted.

He looked closer, and the recognition dawned slowly. “Wait. Is that—”

“It’s you. You can just barely see your mom’s profile behind her,” she said, tapping a finger to the glass. “I didn’t want to get in the lake because I couldn’t see the bottom. I couldn’t see where I was walking or what was coming. And my mom pointed to a boy charging into the water with a battle cry. He’d run up and attack that water with a cannonball or a front flip. Even a terrible cartwheel. It was you. She was looking at you.”

His throat was closing up. The image was blurring before his eyes. “My cartwheels still need work,” he said.

“My mom said, ‘Maggie, that’s the way you do all the best things in life. You just run and jump and hope for the best. Just like that boy.’ Just like you, Silas.”

“How?” It wasn’t the right question, but it was the only one he could come up with.

“It’s our sign. I’ve been carrying you around with me since I was twelve years old,” she told him.

And then the time for words was over. Their kiss went on and on, spiraling out in time. Reaching both backward and forward until he knew that his life wasn’t just his own. It was Maggie’s, too.

“I love you, Silas.” They were just words. But coming from her mouth, he felt them like a spell.

He kissed her again, loving her with his mouth. With the promises he whispered, the breath he shared with her, they let themselves love.

“We should get back downstairs,” she whispered against his shoulder a long while later.

He stroked his hand down her back. “I guess that wouldn’t be the worst idea.” He still had one surprise left for his girl.

“I missed you,” she confessed as they both searched for her underwear.

“I missed you, too, Mags.”

They heard the click of toenails on hardwood and glanced toward the door of the closet. A wet nose wedged itself in the crack, and suddenly there was Kevin, a caterer’s apron dangling from his mouth. The dog’s eyes widened, and he froze.

“Busted, buddy,” Maggie teased.

Silas groaned. “You thieving butterball.”

Kevin, carefully avoiding making any eye contact, backed out of the doorway and trotted away before either of them could steal his treasure.



It was dark by the time they made it outside. Disheveled and so damn happy. Silas had lipstick not just on his collar, but right down the placket of his shirt. Maggie’s hair couldn’t be tamed, so she’d pinned it back from her face. But it didn’t matter because she kept staring down at the diamond that glinted on her left hand and beaming.

They were so wrapped up in their own happy that it took a solid minute before they realized everyone was shit-faced.

“We’re gonna need to tell everyone the news all over again tomorrow. This is getting dangerous,” Silas complained after he pried Emmett’s and Mama B’s faces off of Maggie when they tried to take a “kissy face selfie” that lasted two minutes too long. Blaire had gone in for a hug and ended up putting the happy couple in headlocks. Morris was asleep at one of the tables. The grinning Michael announced that he was “sho happeeeeee” for the seventh time, and the sober Nirina gleefully recorded the chaos on her phone.

Silas managed to find Elton at the bar. “It’s time,” he said to the man who was juggling four cocktails.

“I’d guess it’s about nine?” Elton said, tilting his hand to look at a watch that wasn’t there and dumping two of the cocktails on his pants. “Ah, man!”

“Focus. It’s time for the fountain,” Silas said, taking the rest of the drinks from him and handing them to Cody’s girlfriend’s parents as they tangoed by to a song that was much slower than the one the band was actually playing.

He got Elton in place—and put him in a chair in case the man’s balance deserted him—and headed over to the band. The band leader gave him the nod and cut off the song as Silas took the stage.

“Excuse me for interrupting the festivities, everyone,” he said into the microphone. “But I just asked a very special lady to marry me, and since she had the good sense to say yes, I have a little surprise for her.”

There was yelling, catcalling, and even a playful “boo” from Wallace’s neighbor Gladys, who kept winking at him.

He found Maggie in the crowd. A wide-awake Keaton on her hip and Dayana’s arm around her waist. She was beaming at him, those brown eyes full of a happiness he’d never seen there before. One he wanted for the rest of his life.

He loved her. Fiercely and forever.

“Hit it, Elton,” he said.

Almost on cue, the first plume of water shot up and out of the fountain, followed by a second and a third.