What If

by A. J. Pine

  She slaps my fingers. “It’s not that kind of game, mister.”

  I hold up both my hands in mock surrender, waiting to hear the rest of the rules.

  “If you draw a WILD card, you get to ask me one question.” She pauses. “Anything you want,” she continues. “And I have to answer honestly.”

  “Let me get this straight. I have to answer any number of questions, one through nine, depending on what card I pick, and you have to answer one, and only if I draw a WILD?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t make the rules.”

  With mock grudging I pick a card. “Yeah, actually. You do.”

  Maggie bounces with excitement when she sees my card. A green four.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go easy on you the first time. One—what’s your middle name?”

  I smirk and answer proudly, “Caldwell.”

  She snorts with laughter, and I raise my eyebrows at the sound.

  “Griffin Caldwell Reed? Does the name come with a Rolls Royce?” She drops the cards long enough to mime rolling down her window. “Pardon me, would you have any Gray Poupon?”

  I nod my approval. “Old school. I like it. And it’s Griffin Caldwell Reed the second, if that helps.” She laughs even harder. “It’s my grandmother’s maiden name.”

  “And if you have a son, he gets to ride around in the back of a Rolls, too?”

  I lean against the arm of the couch and watch her laugh. She’s smiled for me before, but this vision of her is new, a Maggie filled with unrelenting happiness, if only for a few minutes. So I let her laugh, let myself watch, enjoying that I played a small role in making this beautiful girl snort.

  “Is that your second question?” I ask. “What I’ll name my offspring should there ever be any?” The question is meant as a joke, but inwardly I flinch at the idea, at the thought of someone small and vulnerable relying on me to show them the way.

  She shakes her head. “Okay. Um…favorite TV show.”

  “Current or canceled?”

  “Either.”

  “Easy. Firefly.”

  “Good one. I would have guessed Game of Thrones.”

  “Reading the books first. Are you a watcher before a reader?”

  “I don’t have the attention span for long books anymore.” She fidgets with the cards after she says this.

  “Anymore?” I ask and wish I hadn’t. Because to know the answer means to dig deeper into who this girl is, and to know her—to really know her—would mean something, and what if I’m not capable of giving back?

  She gives her head another shake, and a teasing smile takes over whatever it is she didn’t mean to admit with that last remark. “It’s not your turn to ask me a question yet. That was a freebee.”

  I cross my arms. “I see how it is. Okay. Two questions left, and I promise you I’ll pick a WILD card.”

  “Why do you deflect? I’m not buying the whole judgment thing.”

  Well, I guess we’re going there.

  “With my family?”

  Her shoulders rise and fall. “In general, I guess. That’s a deflection, right?” She nods toward the empty beer bottle on the coffee table and then up at the breakfast bar, empty bottles from the week lined up to take to the recycling bin. My gut wrenches.

  “I’m not a drunk, Maggie.”

  “But it’s a good diversion, right? And what you looked like last week when we met…your eye? What happens when you go home to Griffin Cartwright…I mean Carrington…shit!”

  “Caldwell?” I ask, trying to get her to smile, to get whatever is going off the rails back on, but she keeps going.

  “Yes, Griffin. Yes. What happens when you go home to Griffin Caldwell Reed Senior looking like that?”

  Her green eyes burn, and this whole line of questioning—I don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s like she’s trying to make me angry. And it’s fucking working.

  “Jesus, Maggie. You act like there’s an easy answer to shit you know nothing about. I think it’s time to deflect.”

  Maybe it’s an overreaction, but this isn’t what I signed up for. Intimacy leads to judgment, and Maggie just proved that. I get enough of that at home. That’s what I was trying to make clear. But she’s just like everyone else, and she doesn’t even know me yet. So I drop the card on the couch and head to the kitchen. Looks like I won’t be leaving the dishes until morning.

  I turn the water on hot and at full spray, busying myself with anything but looking back to where she sits alone, flipping a card around in her fingers.

  Of course it’s a diversion. It’s all a fucking diversion, the only way to prolong the inevitable, to avoid living a life that’s not mine.

  With the water on high and the steam in my face, I don’t notice her leave the couch until she’s standing beside me.

  She turns off the water and pulls my wet hands to hers, drying them with the towel on the counter.

  “I was out of line. I’m sorry. I just, I have a hard time watching other people make harmful decisions, physically harmful decisions to a body…and a mind…that’s perfectly healthy.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “I’ve had a few slipups here and there, but you accuse me of something I don’t have—choice.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says again. “It’s me, and you didn’t deserve that. I have no right unloading my baggage on you. I’m not looking to scare you off…yet.” The corners of her mouth attempt to turn up, but the smile never really comes. She reaches into her back pocket and takes out a card, placing it in my now dry palm.

  WILD.

  “One question?” I ask, already knowing what it will be.

  She nods.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  “Please.”

  So I do.

  Deflect.

  Chapter Twelve

  Maggie

  I wake to the sound of running water. My eyes fight to adjust to the darkness, the lack of visual confirmation adding to my disorientation.

  My phone. I need my phone.

  On instinct I check the unfamiliar bedside table next to me, and it’s there—plugged in and charged. The time reads eleven-thirty-two, the day still Saturday, and as my eyes find their way in the darkness, I recognize the space because I’ve been here before—Griffin’s room.

  I remember the WILD card and the kiss and then…blank.

  Griffin emerges from the bathroom, towel drying his hair and shirtless while sporting a pair of flannel pants. For a second I forget my confusion and admire the view while he doesn’t notice me looking.

  “You’re up,” he says, his face still obscured by the towel, and I gasp at being found out. “I thought you were gone for the night.”

  He drops the towel to show his face, an affectionate grin accompanying a weariness in his eyes, though I’m pretty sure he didn’t do anything too taxing today.

  “When did I…fall asleep?” I bank on the normalcy of one falling asleep without remembering when or how. It happens to the best of us when we’re exhausted, though normal I am not. “It wasn’t when we were…”

  I don’t want to finish the question because if the answer is yes, then I’m the worst.

  His radiant smile brightens his eyes, lit only by the escaping light from the bathroom doorway. “No. It wasn’t when we did a terrible job of cleaning the dishes, or an even worse job of kicking the Uno deck to the floor once we got back to the couch. It was…”

  “I fell asleep on your chest!” I interrupt with delight, the memory starting fuzzy, but the edges quickly solidify. I remember our kiss beginning in the kitchen, soft and unsure after the shitty things I said to him. Then the couch, his continued kisses, soft and gentle, telling me what I said hadn’t ruined the evening.

  Then total and utter exhaustion. I forgot, but it wasn’t permanent. Somehow with Griffin, memories return.

  He sits on the edge of the bed next to me. “I hope it’s okay. I walked you in here so you’d be more comfortable. You didn’t want me to take you home.”r />
  I sit up, suddenly aware of what the time means.

  “I missed the last bus.”

  He brushes my hair, wild from sleep, out of my face and behind my ear.

  “I can take you home whenever you need,” he says, and I shake my head. The thought of him in my apartment, of him seeing who I really am—that’s when whatever this is will be over. Because he has no idea what he’s really getting himself into with me, and the longer I can keep him from seeing, the longer we can pretend that none of it matters. That nothing outside of what we let each other see exists.

  “Or, you could stay. It’s late. You’re wiped out.”

  He grabs a book from the nightstand, A Storm of Swords, book three in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. He wasn’t kidding.

  “I have some reading to do, so your snoring won’t bother me.”

  “I don’t snore!” I slap him lightly on his stomach, and a flash of heat runs through me. Independent of thought, my hand walks up his torso to the healing wound on his chest. For a second I go blank but then brush it off as sense memory kicks in. My hands have been here before, and their recollection picks up the slack of my own.

  I press my eyes closed, giving myself a beat to collect my thoughts, trying not to read into this momentary lapse.

  “Your fence attack is healing.”

  He smiles, placing his palm over my hand so it lies flat against his skin.

  “Skin-deep shit heals quickly.”

  I know, I want to tell him. But I say nothing, letting the thought linger for only a second before I push it away, before my eyelids grow heavy with sleep again.

  “I’ll take the first morning bus,” I tell him through a yawn, and he climbs over to the other side of the bed, book in hand, and I realize I must be on his side of the bed.

  “We can switch,” I say, propping myself up on my elbow to face him.

  He reaches over me to the nightstand again. “Don’t worry. Just need these.”

  And there he sits, no shirt, flannel pants hugging his hips, and wire-framed reading glasses perched on his nose.

  Suddenly I’m not so sleepy.

  I look down to the floor and find my bag, retrieving my camera.

  “Can I?” My face grows hot, and I can’t finish the question. Because I don’t take pictures for any reason other than necessity, to help me focus. But this. It’s not simply that he’s fun to look at. It’s the intimacy of the moment, a piece of him that’s more than skin deep. I don’t want to forget this.

  He opens the book and starts reading, or feigns reading. Either way, I take his silence, his hint of a grin, as permission.

  Click.

  As soon as the photo appears, I pull it free and watch his figure develop, first as a blur of rainbow colors, then the outline of him crystalizing into focus, bit by bit, until he’s there, fully formed and complete.

  More than skin deep. That’s what you are.

  He rests his forearms on his knees and watches me watching him in photo form. When it’s too much, when I can’t look away, I set the picture gingerly on the nightstand and crawl over the inches between us, resting my head on his chest.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He strokes my hair. “For what?”

  “For tonight. The pizza. The games. All of it.” I let my lips brush his skin. “For a non-date. It’s one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time.”

  My eyes are heavy again as my breaths move in time with the rise and fall of his chest.

  “Come home with me tomorrow,” he says, his voice hoarse and low. “Don’t answer me now. Sleep on it. It’s only Sunday brunch. We do it every week. But I think…” He says nothing else for several seconds, and I wait, not letting sleep in until he finishes. “I think I’d like it if you were there with me.”

  He slides down so I lie flat, his body my pillow, one hand stroking my hair, the other propping his book open against his knees. When he dips his head to kiss mine, that’s when I surrender, letting sleep—and thoughts of Griffin—take me.

  No headache plagues me this time, no excuse to run. When I wake in the morning, I know where I am and who I’m with, and I don’t want to leave. We’ve barely changed positions since last night. I lie in the nook of his arm, my face inches from his.

  He’s still asleep, so I watch him, waiting, wondering if his offer still stands, if what he asked of me last night was because of the moment or because it’s what he wanted. I haven’t believed in something more with anyone for so long, waiting for the right time, until I could handle it—until someone else could handle me.

  His eyes flutter open and meet mine, an adorable sleepy grin lighting up his features.

  He angles his face so our lips align, and I gasp and cover my mouth.

  “Not quite the reaction I was hoping for,” he says, his voice raspy with the day’s first words.

  “Morning breath,” I say, the words muffled in my hand.

  His fingers wrap around my wrist, freeing my face from its protective barrier.

  “Then we’ll cancel each other out,” he insists, and while I know he’s full of shit, I don’t argue. Because I want him close. I want his mouth on mine. I want too much, so I’ll settle for whatever I can get, even pre-Colgate kisses from a guy who wants no complications.

  He laughs at my feeble attempt at resistance, and without hesitation, he kisses me. The moment our lips touch, I forget any objections I had because I’m an idiot for putting this off for even a second.

  He smells of soap from his shower last night and something else inherently him—apples. I remember his shampoo, remember in my haze of a waning migraine last week the scent of my own hair, how it reminded me of him.

  His lips trail the line of my jaw to my neck, and down. Somewhere in the middle of the night I must have removed my bra and jeans because only my T-shirt and boy shorts remain.

  Propped on one arm, Griffin’s hand glides to the hem of my shirt, and then it slips beneath.

  A breathy sigh escapes my lips, and he groans lightly against my neck.

  While his hand finds its way to my breasts, mine walks up his flannel-covered leg, to the drawstring of his pants.

  “Wait,” he says, his voice full of need. “Before anything happens, I need to say what I should have said last night.”

  We pause, his hand still under my shirt, mine ready, so ready, to help him lose the flannel.

  “Okay,” I say, trying to hide the rawness of my need.

  “Whatever last night was called, you need to know I feel the same, that it was my best night in…let’s just say in a long time.”

  I think of the implications of this, of the guy who drove to his parents with a bruise under his eye and a phone number on his hand. Maybe that guy was the act, the one who was pretending, and this one, he’s the real deal.

  “And I meant what I said last night, whether this morning’s activities go any further or not. Come home with me, only for a couple hours. If it’s a disaster, we’ll get out of there and, I don’t know, do other things.”

  He tries to hold back a grin, but it breaks free. Who the hell can say no to that? Still, I take a little pleasure in teasing him.

  “Other things like…see a movie? Ooh, or go bowling? How about painting pottery? I hear that’s a fun thing.”

  He wraps a lock of my hair round his index finger. “If you want to paint pottery, Pippi, we’ll paint pottery.”

  A shiver of delight runs through me at the sight of his playful grin, the teasing of his voice when he uses his nickname for me. I slide my leg over his, straddling him and feeling him beneath me, ready and wanting. And I want him, too. In so many ways.

  I lift my T-shirt over my head. I am without the cloak of night or the distraction of the shower. Just me, bare but for my underwear and Griffin’s eyes, watching.

  “You know what I want?” he asks.

  I try to sit still, so still, because the anticipation of his touch is almost too much to handle. “What do you
want?”

  “To kiss every one of your freckles.”

  I draw in a breath. “That will take a very long time.”

  He places a hand behind me and maneuvers me to my back, now straddling me.

  “I’m a patient guy,” he says, and he kisses the tip of my nose. “There’s one.” His lips find my shoulder. “Two.” The next one on my neck. “Three.”

  “Yes,” I say, sounding as composed as I can when I’m minutes from oblivion. “I’ll come home with you today.”

  His face is the picture of happiness, a smile all the way to his eyes.

  “There must be hundreds of freckles on and around your lips,” he says.

  “Then you better get to work.” I pull him to me, and he obliges.

  His mouth finds mine again, and we abandon any pretense that we don’t need this. His hand fumbles in the nightstand drawer and produces a condom. He slides my underwear to my ankles, and I kick free. His hand drifts between my legs, and I shake my head. I want to be filled up with him in a way that scares the shit out of me, but I crave it anyway. The flannel pants are history, and in seconds he’s inside of me. For once everything is clear and focused, and I know without any doubt that I’m falling.

  I let the hunger take over, let it obliterate the emotion, and I kiss him, taste him, devour him with my senses, my chest pressed to his and our bodies entwined.

  “Maggie.” His voice is ragged but with a twinge of emotion. “Maggie…I…”

  I kiss him again before he has a chance to finish, rocking my hips to his, bringing him deeper, bringing us closer, every thrust and every kiss keeping him from saying more.

  When we reach the edge, and he collapses next to me in exhaustion, I think the words back to him.

  Griffin…I…

  I don’t finish the thought, and he won’t finish the phrase.

  Ground rule number three, and this is one that only exists in my head: Never let emotions get in the way of what’s best.

  We lie in silence, wrapped up in his tangled sheet, in each other. But with every second, I slip further away from ground rule number three. Whatever we call this, dating or not, every second I’m with him I want more seconds…minutes…hours…days. I want, but wanting isn’t what’s best, for either of us.