Behind them, Pete hollered something unintelligible from the bull. The crowd roared. Izzy yelled, “Stay on, cowboy,” and Danica was crying with laughter.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Maggie said, frustrated as she tried to piece apart all that Gwen had just confessed. She blinked hard, trying to focus. The neon lights didn’t help — they smeared Gwen’s face into something unreal, like a portrait half-wiped away. “You want to be alone with me? Why?”
Her voice cracked on the last word. Perfect. Exactly the kind of raw, pathetic note she didn’t want to give Gwen. And maybe she was too drunk to follow the conversation, maybe she’d invented the whole thing — except Gwen was stillholding her wrist, still looking at her like Maggie was both impossible and essential.
Gwen didn’t flinch. She leaned closer, her breath warm against Maggie’s temple. “Because I miss you,” she said, low. Almost drowned out by the whooping from Pete’s bull ride. “Because I don’t know how to be around you when everyone else is there, and I want to spend time with you without an audience.”
Gwen’s hand slid down, past Maggie’s wrist, and laced firmly with her fingers. Not tentative, not asking. Claiming.
“Come on,” she said, and the steel in her tone left no room for argument. “We’re going.”
Maggie’s stomach lurched. “What — no. No, I’m not—” She tried to pull back, but Gwen was already tugging her through the press of bodies, weaving toward the door like she’d mapped the exit in advance.
The air outside hit Maggie like a slap — dry desert night, cooler than the sweaty chaos inside, but her skin still buzzed, hot. “I didn’t agree to this,” she said, stumbling a little in her boots as Gwen kept hold.
“You will.” Gwen didn’t even glance back, just tightened her grip when Maggie resisted.
Maggie huffed in frustration and… something else lower in her belly that she would not be admitting to. She should’ve ripped her hand free, made a scene, stomped right back in and climbed on the damn bar again if only out of spite. But her feet kept moving, matching Gwen’s stride. Her pulse thudded in her throat, in her palm where Gwen’s fingers pressed against hers.
Half a block from the bar, the noise dimmed enough for Maggie to hear her own ragged breathing. “This is kidnapping,” she muttered. “Highly illegal.”
That earned her the tiniest curve of Gwen’s mouth, quick as lightning.
Maggie swallowed down the sound clawing its way upher chest, half laugh, half sob. “You think you can just, what, drag me out like this, and I’ll, what? Just listen? Just?—”
“Yes,” Gwen said, cutting her off. Simple. Certain.
Maggie hated how much her body obeyed that certainty, even as her brain screamed at her to turn back.
The Uber ride and the elevator up to the room was silent, but not calm. Maggie could feel her pulse in her ears, in her fingers still tingling from Gwen’s grip. She stared at the glowing floor numbers like maybe they’d tell her everything would be all right.
By the time they reached the room Gwen had apparently “borrowed” from Lillianfor the night, Gwen had shifted into full crisis-management mode. Door shut. Lights on. Shoes off. And then, maddeningly practical, she steered Maggie straight into the bathroom.
“Shower,” Gwen said, flipping on the water like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Maggie snorted, half-hysterical. “Oh, sure. Just a casual shower at two a.m. Totally normal.”
Gwen was already adjusting the temperature gauge, testing it with her wrist — herwrist, like Maggie was a toddler she didn’t want to scald. The familiarity of it made Maggie’s throat tighten.
“Come on,” Gwen said softly. “You’ll feel better.”
Before Maggie could muster another protest, Gwen was undressing her from behind, unzipping her top and sliding it down Maggie’s arms, then unzipping her skirt and holding onto Maggie’s hip as she stepped out. Her hands were so warm on Maggie’s skin, and her touch wasn’t sexual, but caring. Comforting. The touch Maggie had felt one thousand times in crowds and parties and city sidewalks. A guiding hand of the person she trusted most in the world.
“I can undress myself,” Maggie snapped, but she still leaned forward to hold onto the wall, her eyes closing as Gwen slipped her underwear down her legs. Then, withoutceremony, Gwen led Maggie over the shower ledge and under the spray.
When the water hit, it was a shock. Too cold at first, then easing into warmth, running over her face, soaking her hair. Maggie pressed her palms to the tile, eyes shut tight.
Behind her, Gwen’s voice: “I’ll be right back.”
The door clicked shut, and suddenly it was just her and the water.
Maggie let her head fall forward, forehead against cool ceramic. Her stomach twisted. Every nerve in her body was still sparking from the night, from Gwen dragging her here, from Gwen’s hands slowly and carefully undressing her, from that ridiculous, impossible confession —I miss you.
She should feel lighter, rinsed of it. Instead she felt like she might drown standing up. She hated that her first instinct was to want Gwen back in the room. Hated how much of her was still tethered, knotted, raw. Her chest clenched, messy and overwhelming. Wanting too much. Always too much.
She whispered, just to hear it over the water: “What the hell are we doing?”
And of course, no answer came.
