by Ali Parker
We were walking much closer together than people usually did. I tried telling myself it was just so we could have this conversation without the girls overhearing, but the way my entire body was focused on the heat of his hand and the itch to reach for it to comfort him screamed bullshit.
This was Noah next to me. I’d always been intensely attuned to him, and it looked like that part of who we’d been had stood the test of time.
“I carried on that way for too long before I finally realized that none of it was real. Not the people, not the friends, and not the life I was living.” He sighed. “I hit the brakes, but I’d already done so much damage.”
“Damage can be repaired, Noah.” What? Why did I say that? Idiot. “What I mean is that people can be asked for forgiveness if you’re truly willing to ask for it and to do what has to be done to earn it.”
He stopped walking and turned to face me. “Do you really feel that way?”
I kept an eye on the girls, but they were standing with a bunch of other kids on the driveway of the house they’d just hit up. My other was focused on Noah, who was looking at me with an expression more serious than any I’d ever seen from him before. Ever.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I guess it depends on the circumstances.” It was a cop-out, and I knew it, but I couldn’t give him another answer when I honestly wouldn’t know if it was true for me or not. “Does it really matter? It’s not about what I think, anyway. It’s about you and whether you’re willing to ask for and try to earn forgiveness, even knowing that you might not get it. That’s how you show real remorse.”
An emotion I couldn’t quite read crept into his eyes and became so intense that they were blazing under the strength of it. “I am, Maggie. I’m willing to do anything to try, even at the risk of never succeeding. I really am truly remorseful.”
“Well, that’s good.” I took a step away from him. We were too close together. The expression in his eyes too real and raw for me to process while standing out on a street with kids around us. We had to dial this down. Way, way down.
“Here come the girls,” I said. Then I looked down at my watch so I had a good excuse to look away from him. “We should probably get them home. It’s starting to get late.”
He opened his mouth, and I expected him to argue, but then he surprised me by nodding. When he offered to walk us to our car, I accepted.
We kept up small talk on the way, neither of us mentioning anything even close to that minefield we’d stumbled onto earlier. Noah waited for me to get Lydia into her seat before he fixed his gaze to mine.
“Can I take you to dinner sometime?”
My heart stuttered in my chest. Saying yes would be a terrible idea. Awful. “I can have my Mom watch Lydia tomorrow night if you’re free?”
“I’m not, but I will be.” He grinned. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mags.”
Reaching for Della’s hand, they waved at us before they took off down the street. I stood there staring after them for a long minute before I realized I had no idea where he wanted to go to dinner or at what time. I didn’t have his number, and he didn’t have mine.
Maybe that’s a good thing, I told myself. It means dinner won’t happen, and that might be a very, very good thing.
My heart had barely survived round one with Noah, and I’d been a kid then. Would it really be able to handle round two? I sincerely doubted it.
Chapter 15
Noah
Doing up the last button of my shirt, my mind flashed on the last dinner I’d had with Maggie. Man, how times have changed.
Back then, I’d spent an hour rummaging around my closet for my last clean band T-shirt. My jeans had holes in them that had been put there by yours truly. They hadn’t been the fashionable type of holes people bought jeans with but had come from falling off my skateboard, army crawling underneath fences, and getting snagged on tree branches.
I’d paid for our dinner that night with the quarters I’d fished out of the ashtray of my beat-up old car. Ryan had just found out about us and insisted that if I was going to date his sister, I was going to do right by her.
Taking her on a proper date had been just one example of his idea of doing right by her. Another was waiting until after I married her before I even tried to get into her pants.
I chuckled, wondering what he would have said if he knew we were getting ready to go on another date. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t really have to wonder.
I practically heard his voice in my head. Dude, not this again. It’s been thirteen years since your last date. This is a bad idea.
He was probably right about that last one, but I couldn’t help myself. Maggie was a breath of fresh air in my life. She always had been. If I hadn’t been such a hormonal idiot at eighteen, I’d probably have been married to her by now, and Lydia would have been mine.
Before I could let myself dwell on that thought, I shook my head and grabbed my keys off my dresser. No use imagining a parallel universe that doesn’t exist.
Earlier in the afternoon, I’d given Addie a call and asked to speak to Maggie. We’d arranged that I would pick her up at her mother’s house at seven, and I had to admit, I was kind of surprised that she hadn’t backed out on me.
There was still time, since she could easily just get Gayle to answer the door and tell me she didn’t want to see me. The thought made my palms sweat and sent a tremor through my hands.
Jesus. I was more nervous now than I had been when I’d arrived to take her out on our first date, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t had plenty of experience since then.
Taking a deep breath to compose myself as I pulled up outside Ryan’s childhood home, I looked up at the stars dotting the sky. I’m hoping this is okay with you, buddy. I wish that I could’ve asked for your permission again, but since I can’t, feel free to strike me down with lightning if it’s a no. I’d totally understand.
I waited for a beat, and when no lightning bolt fried me to a crisp, I smiled and headed up to the front door.
My heart skipped a beat when Gayle opened the door with Lydia standing beside her.
Disappointment tore through me.
Maggie had changed her mind. She wasn’t going to dinner with me. I deserved it, sure, but it still fucking tore at something deep inside me.
Gayle grinned, then gave me back that torn-off piece of me when she pulled me into the house. “It’s good to see you, Noah. Maggie will be down in a sec. I’m so glad you two are going to catch up a little bit. I was worried she was going to spend all her time with me when she got back. Don’t get me wrong, I love her, but she’s young. She can’t be cooped up with me all night, every night.”
I didn’t even know what to say to that. “I’m sure she loves spending time with you. Hi, Lydia.”
I smiled down at the little girl, who promptly put her hands on her hips and stared me down better than most grown women I knew could. “Are you going to be mommy’s friend who’s a boy?”
“I’ve always been mommy’s friend who’s a boy.” I knew what she meant, but I was going to keep playing dumb. I’d been interrogated by Della enough to know that five-year-old girls were masters at it, and I didn’t want to admit to something that Maggie would have to explain later on. “We just haven’t seen each other for a long time.”
She squinted up at me for another long second before she let out a sigh. “Okay. I guess you can be friends with her. Della’s my best friend now, and she says you’re cool.”
What a glowing recommendation. “Thanks. Della says you’re pretty cool, too. I got to see all of her Halloween candy yesterday. Did you get so many awesome things too?”
“Yeah!” she exclaimed and ran into the living room, presumably to grab some of her stash to brag with.
While she was gone, Gayle tutted and shook her head. “I have no idea where that child gets all her energy, always running this way and that.”
“She gets it from her Meemaw,” Maggie’s voice said from the top of the stairs.
I saw first her foot and then her ankle appearing, and as insane as it was, it felt like the entire world slowed down as I waited to see her. When she finally came into view wearing a fitted black dress with a scooped neckline and a hem that hit just above her knees, my jaw nearly dropped.
Her dress wasn’t at all revealing, but she looked fucking stunning. The gold in her hair shone under the downlights on the staircase, and her light makeup made her green eyes pop like nothing I’d ever seen before.
Everything else dropped away as I watched her approach. There was no living room, no Gayle, and no Lydia about to come running in with Halloween candy. There was only Maggie, only this moment that our eyes locked and I watched her walk toward me.
“You look beautiful, honey.” Gayle’s voice ripped me from the universe where only we existed.
My head bounced up and down of its own accord, and I had to clear my throat before I found my voice. “Yeah, absolutely.”
Why am I hoarse? I cleared my throat again, noticing concern creeping into Maggie’s eyes.
“Thanks,” she said. “Are you okay? Are you getting sick or something?”
“No.” God no. I wasn’t giving her such an easy excuse to back out of our date, especially because I wasn’t getting sick. I had simply been rendered speechless by her, which was a first for me.
I swallowed. “I’m fine.”
She gave me a questioning look but picked up her purse and said her goodbyes to her mom and Lydia. Through the haze of lust, shock, attraction, and God only knew what else, I faintly heard Gayle tell her not to rush home and she’d have Lydia all night.
All night? Fuck yes.
The angel on my other shoulder nearly toppled off. Fuck yes? You mean ‘fuck no.’ This is Ryan’s little sister. She’s not available for your one-night-stand policy, dickhead.
Okay, so maybe even my angel wasn’t such an angel. But he did have a point.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Maggie asked again once we got to the restaurant and were seated at a small white-cloth-covered and candlelit table in the back.
Real plants surrounded us, making the setting seem private even if we were in a dining room with about fifty other people. I spread my napkin out over my lap and nodded.
“Yeah. I’ve just been reminiscing about old times a lot lately, and seeing you come down those stairs brought back a lot of memories.”
I sighed, remembering that I’d vowed to myself that I’d be nothing but honest with her. That was the way it had always been with us, the thing I used to love the most about her. If I was going to try to get some of her realness back in my life, I owed it to both of us to give her the same.
“Okay. I also thought you looked hot as hell in that dress, and I might have briefly had some inappropriate thoughts about what was hidden underneath it.”
“Jesus, fuck, Noah,” Maggie cursed softly, her cheeks turning a flaming-red color. “I’d forgotten you had that mouth on you. You can’t go saying stuff like that to me. We’re friends, right? Or at least, we’re trying to be.”
“We are,” I agreed. “That’s why I said the thoughts were inappropriate. I promised myself I wouldn’t lie to you, though. We’ve always given it to each other straight, right? I figured if we were going to try to get back to a place where we could go back to some semblance of how we used to be, I’d better stick to that.”
“We promised to always tell each other the truth when you were sixteen and I was almost fourteen after bitchy Bella told me you said I was fat.”
“I never said that.” In fact, that was the year I noticed for the first time how fucking sexy she really was. A year and half before I touched her for the first time but just after I’d realized that if she hadn’t been my best friend’s sister, I’d have wanted to.
“I know.” She looked into my eyes from across the table. “My point was that we made that promise a long time ago. Did you really have to come out the gate with all guns blazing?”
“I go balls to the wall on everything I do. I thought you knew that about me.” I smirked. “Besides, we said always so it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since. Always means always.”
“Fair point, but you could have left it at ‘you look nice’ or something equally mundane.”
“Is that what you want, Maggie?” I held her gaze, my voice turning serious. “For me to sugarcoat everything with you? To play it down and not tell you what’s really going on in here?”
I tapped the side of my head and took a sip of my water while I waited for her response. My pulse was racing, but I did my best to hide it. The ball of our friendship was in her court. If she wanted sugarcoated, I’d buy the fucking sugar factory. I owed her at least that much.
Eventually, she released a breath and shook her head. “No. I don’t want that. Guess I’m just going to have to suffer through all your inappropriate thoughts.”
“Suffer?” I brought a hand to my heart in fake hurt. “Really?”
She smirked, nodding. “Suffer. I guess it wasn’t really that inappropriate though, since I had the same brief thoughts about you.”
What the fuck? I nearly swallowed my tongue. My eyes flew wide open, and it felt like she’d wrapped that soft little fist of hers around my cock. “You’re kidding, right?”
She shrugged, amusement dancing in her eyes along with the candlelight. “Maybe, maybe not.”
It might have been my imagination, but I could’ve sworn I saw a flash of heat in her eyes that had nothing to do with the candle. Sexual tension seemed to zap and crack in the air between us. Once more, I felt seventeen again.
But this time, I wasn’t letting my libido run the show. Placing my elbows on the table, I leaned forward. “If we’re being honest, you need to know I didn’t ask you out tonight to try to get into your pants.”
“I didn’t think you had,” she said without needing any time to consider her answer. “You asked me to dinner to try to kickstart our friendship again, so have at it.”
“Tell me about you.” We were interrupted by the waiter, but since this was my favorite restaurant, I placed my order without having to break eye contact with Maggie.
She held my gaze unwaveringly. “I’ll have the same.”
When he went to get our wine, she added, “What do you want to know?”
“How about everything.” I’d been desperate for weeks now to fill in the blanks about her life that I’d missed the opportunity to find out about over coffee. I wondered and speculated for more hours in a day than was healthy about what I’d missed and what I might have found out if I hadn’t been such an asshole that day.
Maggie nodded and waited for our waiter, who had returned with our drinks, to fill our glasses. When he was done, she picked up her glass, thanked him, and finally filled in some of the gaps for me.
“I moved to New York after graduation, went to design school, got pregnant, and had Lydia. Those are the basics.”
I wanted so much more than the basics, but I had to start somewhere. Figured it was best to start with the obvious. “How about Lydia’s father? Do I have to be worried that there’s a boyfriend or someone out there who’s going to punch me for sharing inappropriate thoughts or taking you out?”
There was a flash of pain in her eyes, but she quickly covered it up by laughing. “If I was with someone, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet you for coffee or tonight, and I definitely wouldn’t be listening to your inappropriate thoughts or sharing my own.”
“Good point.” Maggie just wasn’t the type. “Sorry, it’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to a woman I knew better about. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything by asking. I’m just curious.”
She sighed. “It’s only natural. There’s nothing to really tell you about him, though. He had no interest in being a father or being with me. You said you went through a tough phase after Ryan’s death, and well, so did I.”
Pain laced itself into her tone. Her brow furrowed, and her shoulders hunched before she caught
herself and recovered.
Obviously, this was a touchy subject. The last thing I wanted to do was to remind her of someone who had hurt her, or to make her think about a time that had to have been difficult for her. If I ever met the guy, though, his balls were getting ripped off. Fair warning, douche.
It was rich coming from me, wanting to rip off the balls of someone who hurt her. I wasn’t blind to that fact, but it didn’t change the fact that thinking about someone hurting her made my blood boil. What? You’re allowed to hurt her, but no one else is?
“That sucks,” I said. Then I changed the topic to something safer, something that wouldn’t leave both of us spiraling into depression.
Throughout dinner, I made an effort to keep our conversation light and easy. Nothing serious and nothing painful.
We reminisced more about old times, but the happy memories only. We discussed her job with Addie and all the Addie-isms we both knew and loved. I told her more about the water filtration system, but only after she’d asked to hear about it.
We got caught up on how each other’s moms were really doing and a whole host of other things.
By the time dinner was done, I was finding myself looking for excuses to prolong our date. It usually wasn’t a problem for me, but this was Maggie we were talking about.
“How did you guys end up trick or treating in that neighborhood yesterday?” I asked while I tried to figure out what to suggest we do after dinner that wouldn’t make me sound like I was trying to take her home.
Maggie shrugged. “It’s where all the rich people live. They have the nicest candy. Everyone knows that. Did you even see the amount of kids around there? I think everyone in the city ended up there. I mean, what were you doing there?”
“I live there,” I replied without thinking about how it sounded after what she’d said. “I didn’t mean that in an ‘I’m so rich’ arrogant kind of way. It’s just that’s how we ended up there. We started walking around Mom’s house, then eventually decided to head over there.”
