Maggie Moves On(40)
Shifting gears, she studied Silas’s home.
The professional in Maggie approved of the curb appeal, the whole aesthetic. She hadn’t made a mistake in hiring Mr. Wright. Unless, of course, being able to think about nothing but the feel of his erection grinding against her turned out to be a problem.
Whoops. And there she was thinking about it again. How instantaneous and overwhelming his reaction had been to the kiss. She’d never been pushed up against anything before. Damn if she didn’t like it.
Joyful barking erupted inside, followed by a loud crash.
Then Silas reappeared on the porch in a white hoodie with Kevin on a leash. “I said i-c-e c-r-e-a-m, and he knocked the couch over,” he reported. She wasn’t sure if he was joking.
The dog pranced down the sidewalk to her, shivering with delight.
“Who’s a good boy?” Maggie asked, squishing his giant face between her hands.
“Not Kevin,” Silas said dryly. “You sure you want to walk? That bed in there looks awfully comfortable.”
“Nice try. We’re walking, and you’re feeding us ice cream.”
Kevin made a whimpery moan of delight.
“Hey,” Silas said, his voice suddenly serious. “What’s wrong? Something happen while Hercules here busted up my furniture?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
He closed a hand around her wrist and squeezed. “Uh-uh. That’s a hard line for me, Mags. When something’s wrong, you either tell me what it is or tell me you don’t want to talk about it. You don’t lie. And you don’t try to hide it.”
“You’ve got a lot of rules for third dates,” she joked.
“I’m serious.”
“I…I actually don’t know what to say,” she said on a half laugh. “I don’t know how to tell people things.”
“Sure you do,” he said. “You tell your YouTube people stuff all the time.”
“That’s different. That’s not me being…”
“Vulnerable and real?” he supplied.
“Maybe that,” she admitted.
“It still counts as putting yourself out there. You aren’t showing them some kind of highlight reel in full makeup with studio lighting. You’re putting your hopes and dreams out there and asking strangers to care about them, too.”
“Geez. You’ve really been doing your research,” she said, impressed.
“When something interests me—or when I find out I’m missing out on something great like my asshole siblings and their dumb GIF conversations—I make an effort. Now it’s your turn. Talk, Nichols.”
Kevin, sensing her hesitation, leaned against her legs and looked up at her with unconditional love. She took a breath, and then the plunge.
“I was too selfish to notice Dean was gay, and I all but forced him to marry me, and then when he got up the guts to tell me the truth, just shy of our first anniversary, I put all of it on him. Blamed him for it all when the only thing he’d tried to do was not hurt me. We came back to each other—as friends—eventually, but I swore I would never do that to him or anyone again.
“Yet here we are a decade and change later, and I’m doing it all over again. I haven’t learned a goddamn thing. I’m still a broken twenty-two-year-old hanging on too tight to the pieces, hoping they magically fit back together.”
He didn’t ask her what broke her or if those shards ever cut her from holding them too tightly. He didn’t tell her to go easy on herself or agree or disagree. Instead, he very deliberately cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her softly, steadily.
His mouth was firm and warm against hers, and this time, instead of stealing her breath, it felt like he was giving it back to her. The tightness in her chest loosened, and something light and bright bloomed inside. Like heartburn. Only nice.
She tasted him, breathed him in, and felt both lighter and more firmly grounded.
“Gah,” she managed when she pulled back.
The smile that danced at the corners of his lips was soft and amused. He swiped his thumb over her lower lip.
“What was that for?” she asked, finally finding her vocabulary.
“When Kevin does something good, he gets a treat.”
Maggie felt her mouth fall open in an O. “Are you dog training me?”
“I’m rewarding you for learning to do something that goes against your nature.”
She poked him in the chest. “That’s not a no.”
He shocked the hell out of her again by slipping an arm around her shoulders and dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “Come on, darlin’. Let’s get you some ice cream.”
The dog let out a strangled kind of yodel and danced up on his hind legs.
“Heel, you muscle-bound jerk,” Silas said, giving the leash a tug. Kevin jumped to obey, trotting at his heels.
“Look how good he’s being,” Maggie said, falling into step.
“Fancy dog trainers call it being food-driven, which is usually a great way to motivate during training. But if Kevin gets bored, he just decides to cut out the middleman and give himself the treats. Two weeks ago, I got a call from the ice cream place saying Kevin was waiting in line for his usual. Still don’t know how he got out of the house.”