Maybe Someday (Maybe #1)(58)
I hate it when Warren is right. My eyes slowly scroll from the dress, down her tanned legs, and back up again. I exhale and contemplate asking her to go change. I’m not sure I can deal with this tonight. Especially when Maggie gets here.
Sydney straightens up, pulls away from the refrigerator, and turns toward the counter. I notice she’s talking, but she isn’t talking to me. She pulls a bowl out of the refrigerator, and her mouth is still moving, so naturally, my eyes scan the rest of the apartment to see who it is she’s talking to.
And that’s when both halves of my heart—which were somehow still connected by a small, invisible fiber—snap apart and separate completely.
Maggie is standing in front of the bathroom door, eyeing me hard. I can’t read her expression, because it’s not one I’ve ever been exposed to before. The half of my heart that belongs to her immediately begins to panic.
Look innocent, Ridge. Look innocent. All you did was look at her.
I smile. “There’s my girl,” I sign as I walk to her. The fact that I’m somehow able to hide my guilt seems to ease her concern. She smiles back and wraps her arms around my neck when I reach her. I slip my arms around her waist and kiss her for the first time in two weeks.
God, I’ve missed her. She feels so good. So familiar.
She smells good, she tastes good, she is good. I’ve missed her so damn much. I kiss her cheek and her chin and her forehead, and I love that I’m so relieved to have her here. For the past few days, I began to fear that I wouldn’t have this reaction the next time I saw her.
“I have to go really bad. Long drive.” She winces and points to the door behind her, and I give her another quick kiss. Once she’s inside the bathroom, I slowly turn back around to gauge Sydney’s reaction.
I’ve been as upfront and honest with Sydney as I can possibly be about my feelings for Maggie, but I know it’s not easy for her to see me with Maggie. There’s just no way around it. Do I compromise my relationship with Maggie to spare Sydney’s feelings? Or do I compromise Sydney’s feelings to spare my relationship with Maggie? Unfortunately, there’s no middle ground. No right choice. My actions are becoming split directly down the middle, just like my heart.
I face her, and our eyes meet briefly. She refocuses her attention down to the cake in front of her and inserts candles. When she finishes, she smiles and looks back up at me. She sees the concern in my expression, so she pats her chest and makes the “okay” sign with her hand.
She’s reassuring me that she’s fine. I practically have to pry myself away from her every night, and then I maul my girlfriend right in front of her—and she’s reassuring me?
Her patience and understanding with this whole screwed-up situation should make me happy, but they have the opposite effect. They disappoint me, because they make me like her that much more.
I can’t win for losing.
? ? ?
Oddly enough, Maggie and Sydney seem to be having fun together in the kitchen, prepping ingredients for a pot of chili. I couldn’t hang, so I retreated to my room and claimed I had a lot of work to catch up on. As good as Sydney is with this, I’m not as skilled. It was awkward for me every time Maggie would kiss me or sit on my lap or trail her fingers seductively up my chest. Which, come to think of it, was a bit odd. She’s never really all that touchy-feely when we’re hanging out, so she’s either feeling a tad bit territorial, or she and Sydney have already been hitting the Pine-Sol.
Maggie comes into the bedroom just as I’m shutting the laptop. She kneels down on the edge of the bed, leans forward, and inches her way toward me. She’s looking up at me with a flirtatious smile, so I set the laptop aside and smile back at her.
She crawls her way up my body until she’s face-to-face with me, and then she sits back on her heels, straddling me. She cocks an eyebrow and tilts her head. “You were checking out her ass.”
Shit.
I was hoping that moment had come and gone.
I laugh and cup my hands around Maggie’s backside and scoot her a little closer. I let go and bring my hands back around in front of her and answer her. “I walked out of my room to a rear end pointed toward my bedroom door. I’m a guy. Guys notice things like that, unfortunately.” I kiss her mouth, then pull back.
She’s not smiling. “She’s really nice,” Maggie signs. “And pretty. And funny. And talented. And . . .”
The insecurity in her words makes me feel like a jerk, so I grab her hands and still them. “She’s not you,” I tell her. “No one can ever be you, Maggie. Ever.”
She smiles halfheartedly and places her palms on the sides of my face and slowly runs them down to my neck. She leans forward and presses her mouth to mine with so much force I can feel the fear rolling off of her.
Fear that I put there.
I grab her face and kiss her with everything I have, doing all I can to erase her worries. The last thing this girl needs is something else to stress her out.
When she breaks apart from me, her features are still full of every single negative emotion I’ve spent the past five years helping her drown out.
“Ridge?” She pauses, then drops her eyes while she blows out a long, controlled breath. The nervousness in her demeanor twists around my heart and squeezes it. She brings her eyes carefully back to mine. “Did you tell her about me? Does she know?” Her eyes search mine for an answer to the question she should never even feel the need to ask.