Stoic. Calm. Collected.
“Yeah, is that, like, two weeks?” Mateo asks. “Three?”
“Boys,” Annalise warns from across the table.
“What?” Maverick shrugs, eating another bite of his food. I haven’t even gotten to taste mine yet. The questions are being thrown at me at lightning speed. The panic is rushing into my veins before I can suck in a few breaths. “Aren’t you curious about who you’re letting stay in your house, Mom?”
Panic is taking over any ounce of calm that I thought I had. There’s too many questions at once, and it’s too overwhelming. My chest feels tight as my knee starts to bounce, and I’m white-knuckling my fork that still has my bite of food on it.
But then I feel someone’s hand on my knee, and it stills. My head turns slowly to look down at Maeve, and she’s fuming. Her nostrils flare as she glares across the table at her brothers.
Holy crap.
“Do you have something else you’d like to get off your chest, Mav?” she asks calmly, despite her angry exterior. I’ve never seen her angry before.
They both stare at each other silently, and there’s something going on there, but I’m not quite sure what it is. Maverick takes a deep breath, acting nonchalant as he shakes his head and turns his attention back to his plate.
“Nope, nothing.”
Maeve nods slowly, except she keeps nodding, pressing her tongue to her cheek before she squeezes my knee.
“You’re wondering where Landon is…” she guesses. “Right? That’s why you’re both acting like children? Yourbroisn’t here?”
The silence is deafening, but not for me. The panic and the awkwardness disappear because I’mproudof her. She’s standing up for me, but by facing this, which no one appears to know about already, head-on… She’s standing up for herself, too.
“Well, it looks like he had us all fooled then.”
Her hand leaves my knee, but not before she turns to meet my gaze, giving me a tiny smile as she goes back to eating. I follow suit, keeping my eyes down as I finally dig into my own food.
The rest of dinner passes normally, or at least, I think it does. Everyone falls into step with normal conversations around me as I eat, but my mind is far away. It’s like I can still feel her hand squeezing my knee, or just above it. I can’t help but think about what it would feel like if it had trailed up further. Is this what happens when you’ve never been with anyone before? You foam from the mouth like a sixteen-year-old boy who just hit puberty? Now is not the time for that, not here, not with her family. Jesus.
I’m fighting a hard-on the entire time, through the rest of dinner, as everyone cleans up, and as we head upstairs after. I’m thinking of every awful thing I can possibly think of, and that somehow makes me feel even worse. Thank God for Annalise recommending that everyone go to bed early so we can all be refreshed for tomorrow morning.
I want to kiss Maeve again so bad.
It’s all I can think about.
Ineedto kiss her again.
God, why can’t I be that guy? We’ve already kissed. We’vealreadykissed. My hands shake as I think about it, like my body is trying to prepare itself to do it again. She’s the one I want to kiss, I mean, she helped me practice. Would it be so hard to do it again? Do what she showed me? I could do that. Icando that.
She trails behind me as I walk into my temporary room instead of heading to hers, quiet as a mouse as she closes the door behind us.
“I’m sorry about them.” Maeve sighs. “They’re just trying to be…intimidating? God, they’re so annoying sometimes.”
“It’s okay,” I reassure her.
She grimaces, and her nose scrunches in this cute way that has my mind spiraling even more. “Is it?”
“They care about you,” I say, trying to mask the wobble in it from my nerves threatening to consume me whole. “It’s nice to see that. I’m…not used to it.”
Her arms fall to her sides as her entire forehead scrunches into a deep frown. Just as I’m about to ask her if she’s alright, she takes a few quick steps toward me, wrapping her arms around my waist in a tight hug. Very hesitantly, I envelop my arms around her shoulders, pulling her in tighter because… Well, why not?
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I pull back just slightly, peering down at her. “Don’t be sorry.”
“I’m happy you’re here,” she says. “Thank you for driving me all the way to California.”
