Everyone groans.
Gil and Maggie settle on the sand in front of the driftwood log. He has his arm around her shoulders and gently strokes her hair. Turning her knees, she curls into his side. She looks at the faces of the people who know her best, the people she loves. The warmth of the fire and Gil’s soothing touch anchor her to the moment.
* * *
After the group majority manages to talk Quinn out of another one of his party games, they share stories and memories from college as the fire burns down.
“Remember the time Maggie almost burned down the kitchen trying to make biscuits?” Selah asks.
“The whole house was filled with smoke. It looked like she was trying to make hockey pucks,” Jo adds.
“Where do you think Biscuit got his name? It was a tribute to my inability to make biscuits that summer. Or ever.”
“True, but we discovered your gift for scones, so I can at least forgive you for the hockey pucks.” Gil tousles her hair.
“It was a great summer. Everything changed after that,” Ben says, innocently.
“It did change after that summer. Lizzy and Maggie left for study abroad. Leaving us all behind,” Jo says. Grimacing at the implications of her words, Jo frowns and mouths, “Oops, sorry.”
Maggie sighs. And here we are.
“Right, Maggie ran away to France and fell in love.” Quinn can’t leave it alone.
“I didn’t run away. My focus was French Literature, Q, you know this.” Maggie bristles. “Plus, Lizzy went to France with me.”
“But Lizzy didn’t fall in love. Or lust as it were,” Selah points out.
“Ah, the French Incident discussed at last,” Jo says. “Now that we know Maggie and Gil slept together, it all makes sense.”
“It does?” Gil asks. He pulls his arm away from Maggie.
The cool night air replaces his comforting warmth.
“Sure. You and Maggie were inseparable. She left and you moped for the year. Hence the bet on whether or not you slept with each other,” Jo explains.
“I didn’t mope.” Gil wraps his arms around his bent knees.
“Mope, pine, long, whatever verb you want to use, you did it.” Jo looks at him as she continues, “This was back before sim cards, email, Skype, and Facetime. Once Maggie was in Europe, it really was being on the other side of the world. Then she returned with the Frenchman in tow, and that was that.”
“I’m right here you know,” Maggie huffs. “This is the most awkward way to have this whole conversation. This is something between Gil and me, not the whole class.”
“We all had to suffer, Mags, so it does involve all of us.” Selah gives her and Gil a sympathetic look.
“Life happens, people move on, things change. We’ve all changed,” Maggie says. “Sometimes we make decisions that can’t be undone and send us down a different path.” She looks at Gil, who meets her gaze.
“Sometimes everything works out as it should,” Gil says with a mix of hope and regret in his voice. The easy, familiar comfort between them from their talk down at the water fades.
Selah joins the conversation. “We can’t undo the past. Think of all those strange twists and turns which led us to all be together again. If Maggie hadn’t met and married Julien, she might not have discovered her love of food, if those burned biscuits were any indication. Gil might not have his career if Judith hadn’t been such a hard-ass about him finishing his dissertation,” Selah says.
“Who knows what would have happened if we did all take a road trip to Graceland,” Ben says. “Maybe I would have discovered my inner wanderer, and taken to the road to follow the Dead or Phish around the country instead of going to Harvard.”
“If you became a Dead Head, we would’ve broken up for sure. No kids, no big house, nothing.” Jo frowns.
“See?” Selah sounds more positive. “It all happens for a reason. Each choice made us who we are today, for better or worse.”
“I’m going to go with the better option,” Jo agrees.
Maggie is quiet during this conversation, lost in her own thoughts of past choices bringing them to this point.
“I guess I can see your point, Selah,” Maggie agrees. “If my mother didn’t get sick, I never would have moved to the beach. I’d still be toiling away in a one bedroom apartment in New York. This is much better.” She gestures around the bay, then glances at Gil’s profile as he stares the fire. “The company is much better here. I’m very blessed to have you all in my life.” She begins to get emotional again.
Gil turns to look at Maggie, and pulls her to his side.
“We’re all blessed to have you in our lives, too, sweet girl.” He kisses the top of her head.
Maggie rests her head on Gil’s shoulder again. “Gah, sorry guys.” She wipes a few tears from her cheeks. “Way to pull down the conversation with the emo.”
Gil strokes her hair. “Don’t worry about it. Digging up the past always brings things to the surface.”
Everyone voices their agreement.
Ben yawns, which causes Quinn to yawn.
“What time is it? It has to be one o’clock at least,” Jo asks.
“It’s midnight. Are you turning into a pumpkin?” Ben nudges Jo, who yawns.
“I can’t remember the last time I stayed up until midnight.” Jo stretches. “God, I’m old.” She laughs. In her black yoga pants and North Face fleece she looks like a college student, not a forty-something mother of three.
“We’re all old,” Maggie agrees.
“Speak for yourself. You are only as old as you feel,” Selah says, stretching out her legs under her blanket. “Most days I am about twenty-seven.”
“My mother once told me when she was in her early sixties she still felt thirty-four,” Maggie says. “I guess age is relative.”
“It’s easy to forget how old you are until you see someone who’s twenty-one or even thirty, and you realize how young they seem,” Ben says. “New hires look like teenagers to me. They act like ones sometimes.”
“Well, this teenager is going to bed.” Jo gets up and stretches.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Maggie offers, but doesn’t move from her spot next to Gil. His arm feels good around her.
“I’m going to bed, too. I want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Ryan tomorrow morning.” Quinn stands up and then gathers plastic cups and the empty bottle of Jameson.
“Me too.” Ben follows Jo up to the house, carrying some blankets.
“Then there were three,” Selah declares. “You two don’t need a chaperone, so I think I’ll go in and maybe write some smut.” Selah kisses the top of Maggie’s head as she passes by. “Live in the moment,” she whispers to Maggie.
“And then there were two,” Gil says as he sits up to poke the dying fire. “Do we need to stay until it’s out?”
“We can spread out the logs and pour seawater on them when we want to go to bed.”
“I don’t mind hanging out a little longer. It’s such a gorgeous night.” Gil lies down next to Maggie and tilts his head back on the log to look at the stars.
“Sometimes we can see the Northern Lights here in the winter. They’re amazing.” She follows his lead to keep the conversation neutral. She scoots down so she is lying next to him, her hands clasped on her stomach.
“Must be beautiful. I missed seeing them in Alaska since I went during the summer solstice. Twenty-four hours of sunlight and all that.”
“When did you go to Alaska?”
“I went with Judith and her parents on a cruise.”
“A cruise doesn’t sound like something you would choose.” Maggie acknowledges to herself she doesn’t know everything about this Gil.
“Not really, no.” Gil laughs, but it’s a dry laugh. “There was a lot about our relationship I wouldn’t have chosen. But Selah is right. It was something I did which lead me to be who I am now. To be with who I am with now.”
Maggie turns her head to face him. “I’m glad you’re here. Even if it has taken us too long to come back together.” She reaches out and interlaces her fingers with his. They stay that way for a while as the fire dies out and the stars slowly move across the sky. Neither breaks the comfortable silence as no more words are needed.
Eighteen
Maggie wakes up cold, with something hard under her cheek. It takes a moment or two for her to remember she fell asleep on Gil, on the beach. Gazing up at the stars and the thin wisps of wood smoke, she stretches, and glances over at a sleeping Gil. Her movement causes him to stir.
Blinking open his eyes, he scrubs his face with his hands, and looks at her.
“Hi.”
“We fell asleep.” She yawns, sitting up.
“Any idea how long we’ve been asleep?” He glances around. “The sky isn’t getting light, so it can’t be that late. Or early.”
“No idea, but the fire is almost completely out.” She yawns again. The embers glow and flicker under the accumulated ashes.
“Where’s the bucket?” His own yawn echoes hers. “Let’s put this thing out and go to bed.” He slowly stands and grabs the bucket from behind the log where she points.
While he walks down to the water, Maggie gathers a few stray cups and blankets.
A cloud of steam rises into the air when he tosses the water on the embers, obscuring him for a moment.
After shaking the sand out of the blankets and folding them, she sits on the log and waits for him to get another bucketful of water. Watching the last embers, she is reminded of her conversation earlier with Jo. One small ember could reignite a fire given the right kindling. Her mind drifts to Gil. What they have now is an ember. Fragile and easily extinguished. She frowns at the thought of extinguishing that ember forever.
When he returns, she uses a stick to spread out the dampened wood, checking for any remaining hot spots.
“I think we’re good,” she declares and turns to look at Gil.
He’s standing at her side and watching her. Darker now the firelight is gone, his eyes twinkle in the light reflecting from the slim moon over the water.
She wants to kiss him. Standing here in the dark on a quiet beach, sleepy, and chilled by the night, she wants nothing more than to curl back into his warmth and kiss him.
Gil watches her face.
She licks her lips and tilts her head up to him.
He takes a step closer to her, then leans down to brush his lips against hers. With their lips a breath apart, he waits.
Her breathing pauses when she feels his lips on hers. Before she can process they’ve kissed, he pulls away. Going on instinct, she kisses him back. Her body melts with his as she pulls herself closer to him.
Gil moans when she presses against him. He deepens the kiss and she responds by brushing her tongue against his. She fists the back of his shirt.
When he reaches a hand into her hair and tilts her head, Maggie’s head begins to spin. Needing to take a deep breath, she pulls her mouth from his.
He kisses along her jaw, nibbling behind her ear. “God, you are as amazing as I remembered,” he whispers.
“Memory doesn’t do you justice.” She sighs as he trails kisses down her neck.
He kisses her again, cradling her face in one of his hands. She reaches under his thermal to stroke his back.
Leaning back to meet her eyes, he softly says, “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t dreamt of doing that for the past twenty years.”
“I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind several times since Wednesday.” Her joke falls flat.
“Wednesday? Always out of sight, out of mind with you?”
She hears the hurt in his voice and flinches.
“Gil…” she pauses. What can she say? She’s ruining the moment. “Wednesday of this week and many Wednesdays between now and then, I’ve thought about kissing you, being with you.”
“Nice backtracking. My ego thanks you.” He kisses her forehead.
“I’m sorry, Gil.” She looks at him. “For so many things.”
“Apology accepted,” he says, before gently kissing her again.
Kissing Gil is amazing, and she definitely wants more. Selah might be right about this living in the moment stuff.
“We should go to bed.”
“I thought you’d never offer.” He teases.
“I didn’t mean it that way.” She knows she didn’t mean to invite Gil into her bed, but the idea of Gil sleeping beside her is something she likes.
“I know, I know. I’m not going to push my luck.” He holds her hands and squeezes.
They turn and walk back to the house. When they drop the blankets in the basket by the door, Biscuit gets up from his bed next to the wood stove and walks upstairs.
“What time is it?” Gil asks, walking over to the kitchen. “2:30,” he reads the time on the kitchen clock.
“Wow. We were asleep out for a while.” Maggie takes a glass out of the cupboard. “Water?”
“Sure. I have Jameson and sand breath.”
“Sand breath?” She laughs.
“Mmm hmm,” he hums, drinking his water, and then setting his glass back on the counter. “You didn’t seem to mind my sand breath.” He leans into her and gently kisses by her ear.
“I didn’t even notice your sand breath.” Her heart races. Somehow kissing Gil outside in the dark was different than standing close to him in her own kitchen. This feels more real, bigger than a few kisses.
He pauses and pushes her hair behind her shoulders. “We should go to bed,” he repeats her words from earlier.
Maggie hums and finishes her water. While turning out the downstairs lights, she tries to organize the jumble of mixed thoughts and emotions inside her. A big part of her wants to invite him to sleep in her bed—this part sounds a lot like Selah.
He follows her up the stairs and Biscuit trails behind him. Pausing at the door to the room he’s now sharing with Selah, he waits while she deliberates. After a moment, he moves to turn the knob on the door.
“I think the door is locked,” he whispers.
“That’s weird.” She tries the lock herself. “Well, it appears Selah is meddling again.”
“Guess I’ll find out just how comfortable that couch is after all.”
Making up her mind, she grabs his hand, and pulls him down the hall to her room. “I have the couch in my room. Plus, all the extra linens are locked in that room,” she whispers as she opens her door.
Gil smiles and allows himself to be lead.
Once in her room, with the door closed behind them, she continues to whisper, “You can sleep in here tonight.”
“Why are you whispering?” He chuckles.
“I don’t know,” she whispers again, then laughs.
“Isn’t it only fair to wake up Selah since she’s the one to lock the door to my room?” He teases her. “Or you can admit you want a co-ed sleepover for old time’s sake.”
“One of us can sleep on the love seat.” Maggie ignores his teasing and points to the small sofa.
“Okay…” He sounds confused. “Sounds like a lot of subterfuge to get me into your room. You could just ask. I would say yes.”
She tries not to get flustered. She wants to have Gil close, but isn’t going to have sex with him tonight. Sleep, yes. Sex, no. This is what she tells herself. She pulls a pillow off the bed and then removes the back cushions from the love seat. Unfolding the throw from the arm, she makes a cozy, but very small bed.
“I don’t think you are going to fit.” She glances over her shoulder at him, taking in his long legs and broad shoulders. “Maybe you should take the bed.”
“I’m not kicking you out of your bed,” he says, walking over and sitting on the love seat. It looks tiny beneath him. He lies down, stretching his legs over the arm, his calves and feet dangling in the air.
Maggie laughs at him
looking so uncomfortable.
“Quit laughing at me. I’ll be fine. “Let me grab my toothbrush in the hall bath and I’ll be right back. I’m warning you, I have nothing to sleep in but my boxers.”
“You can get your toothbrush. I’m fine if you sleep in your boxers.” She nods to show how fine she is.
After he steps out of the room, she goes through her nightly routine before changing into her navy cotton nightgown that falls a few inches above her knees. Not sexy, she thinks, but she isn’t trying to seduce Gil. Is she? Her mind drifts to sleeping, or not sleeping, on a twin futon with Gil. She smiles at the memory.
When she leaves the bathroom, Gil goes in to brush his teeth. He walks out and heads over to love seat. She watches him toss and turn into a semblance of a comfortable position.
“Night, Maggie May,” he tells her, turning his head to face her.
Looking at how uncomfortable he looks, she realizes she is being ridiculous. She might not be ready to have sex with him, but she can’t torture the sweet man by making him sleep on what is essentially a large dog bed.
Deciding to be honest, she dramatically sighs. “Okay, you can share the bed. I liked sleeping next to you on the beach. Reminded me of all those times in college we’d fall asleep watching movies or reading.” She hopes she sounds casual.
He unfolds himself from the love seat and approaches the bed. “I see how things work around here. The dog gets the prime spot,” he says, nodding at Biscuit curled up in the middle of the bed.
“Biscuit, get down,” she says, patting the dog’s back. Biscuit gives her what can only be a dirty look as he jumps down, then lies on his cushion in the corner.
“It’s a big bed,” she adds to remind herself of the boundaries she’s created.
He flops on the bed, stretching out his limbs. “This bed isn’t all that big. I’m just sayin’.” He smirks at her.
She pokes his leg where he is starfished across her. “If you’re going to hog the whole thing, you can go back to the love seat or wake up Selah to sleep in your designated twin bed.”
He smiles at her and rolls to one side. “We both slept in the same twin bed a few times in college.” He notices her arched eyebrow. “Fine. I’ll behave. But I can’t promise there won’t be cuddling.”
Geoducks are for Lovers Page 14
