I scratch my chin, feeling like the biggest dumbass ever. “The zipper. It’s broken.”
She spins away and goes to the mirror, and I follow because, obviously, I can’t stay away from her. “Oh no. What the hell am I going to do? I can’t walk out of here like this.”
She’s looking into the mirror over her shoulder, tuggingand pulling and making the whole thing worse as the zipper part separates from the material. I step closer and skim my hands around her waist, grabbing her hands and stilling them behind her. “Mags, it’s okay.”
She stops fighting, and her shoulders sag. Her forehead hits my chest, her warm exhale skittering across my skin.
“What did we do, Jax?” The tiny, miserable voice sounds an awful lot like my own internalwhat the fuck.
I wish I could answer her and tell her it was the best night of my life. Instead, I say, “Whatever we did, we did it together.”
Releasing her hands to hold her by the hips, I walk backward, pulling her into my lap when the backs of my legs hit the bed. I rack my brain for something to take away the panicked expression on her face. “Look, we’ve grown close over the years. We go chasing down adventure every month. We’ve even had a few instances where we’ve fallen asleep watching a movie together.”
It’s a half-assed justification, but I cling to it.
Her eyes grow even wider, locking on to mine, and her entire body tenses. “Alice.”
“She’s gonna kill me.” She’s always warning me about my random hookups. My perfect little sister, who’s never fucked up a thing in her life, who constantly reminds me to be a better man. If she gets wind of this, she’ll probably be mad at Maggie, for sure. Especially since she had a front-row seat to the fallout of Harmony and knows firsthand how bad things got between me and my sister. How Harmony played us both, how Alice took her side, but also how I pushed them both away and cut Alice out of my life for a while. How I walked away from everything.
Maggie’s hands cup my cheeks. “She can’t know, Jax.”
“So, what are we gonna do? Pretend it didn’t happen?” Idon’t know why, but that option doesn’t sit well with me. Maggie isn’t Harmony. This isn’t the past repeating itself. But the thought doesn’t make me feel any better, nor erase the fact that, apparently, I had sex with my little sister’s best friend.
Although now that I put a label to it, I’d consider Maggie one of my best friends too.
“Well, neither of us remember it… at least I don’t. Do you?”
Regrettably, she’s got a point. My male pride takes a hit. No guy ever wants to know his performance was forgettable.
“And if you get this job, you’ll be leaving. Also, Alice would kill us both.”
She’s right, but I don’t have to like it. “But she knows we hang out and go hiking and stuff. She’s never said anything to me about having a problem with it.”
Her eyes close, and the color drains from her face. “I’m too hungover for this conversation right now.”
Same, but also, now I need to know. “Has she said something to you?”
She shakes her head.
Okay, then. Relief settles in my gut, heady and sweet. “Okay, so we’re going to finish getting dressed. And when we leave this room, we put the drunk night behind us.” Except, what if there’s a souvenir? My heart stutters in my chest. I don’t wanna ask, but I know I need to.
“But, Maggie… I didn’t have condoms. Did you?”
She huffs a laugh—one I can’t tell if it’s sarcastic or something else. “I don’t carry condoms, Jackson. Why would I ever need them? But don’t worry your pretty head. I’m on the pill for cycle reasons. Unless you gave me some STD, we should be fine.”
“I’mclear,” I mumble. Christ, my emotions are all over the place. I definitely don’t like the idea of her carrying condoms, nor why she might want to. And yet, at the same time, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I can’t remember if we had sex and am kicking my own ass for it, because having her in my lap feels exactly right.
I take advantage of her broken zipper and slide my hand up her back to grip her by the neck. Something about the action triggers a memory for me.
Her reaction is instant. She stills and stares at me. Yeah. It’s coming back to her too.
She swallows, then licks her lips, and I give up fighting an erection.
We have to get out of this room, or I’m going to toss her back on this bed, and there will be no question about if we fucked or not.
“We need to get out of here. You wear my jacket. Once we leave this room, what happens at the Mansion, stays at the Mansion. Nothing else changes between us.”
She gives a single jerk of her head before sliding off my lap and shrugging on my coat. A nude-colored undergarment drops into her handbag before I’ve even moved. Deflated at the eagerness in which she’s moving, I follow suit and finish dressing.
