Gwen felt the bottom drop out. “I just need ten minutes,” she said quickly, already hating how it sounded like a script she’d performed a hundred times before. Reassure. Compartmentalize. Slot Maggie into the waiting room of her priorities.
Maggie pushed up onto one elbow, her expression flattening. The dawn light caught the crease in her forehead, the set of her mouth. “Unbelievable. We just—” She broke off, shaking her head.
Gwen’s chest tightened. She reached for the word that had always soothed, the one that came before apology, before explanation. “Baby?—”
“No. You don’t get to ‘baby’ me.”
It landed like a slap. Gwen flinched, pulse rattling in her throat. She searched Maggie’s face, desperate. “But last night… what was last night if not…” She swallowed hard, hearing how pathetic it sounded, but she pressed on anyway. “I kind of thought last night meant we were back together. Or at least this morning.”
Maggie’s laugh was sharp, brittle, a blade disguised as humor. “Last night was… fun. A bit of nostalgia. Let’s just call itwhat it was.”
The words carved into her. Gwen’s phone slipped in her hand, the screen dimming as her grip went slack. “Mags?—”
“It didn’t mean anything,” Maggie said.
Gwen’s vision blurred. She wanted to argue, to call the bluff, to pour out every unsaid thing she’d been holding down for months. To tell Maggie that nothing about last night had been casual, that it had cracked her wide open. But her throat locked up. All she managed was a nod — thin, brittle, cowardly. And the second it left her, she hated herself for it.
Maggie swung her legs out of bed, pulling on her clothes with jerky, furious motions. “You should take that call, Gwen. Wouldn’t want me to get in the way of your calendar.”
Panic flared. Gwen sat up, reaching instinctively for her. “Mags, wait?—”
But Maggie was already walking into the bathroom, her voice echoing sharp against the tile. “Don’t.”
Gwen’s chest burned. “It’s not—” she started, but the words came out too small, swallowed by the room.
Maggie stumbled back out, tugging her shorts into place, muttering, “Should’ve known better than to think I came first, even for a morning. You know what? Maybe last night, and this morning, maybe it was a mistake. Clearly nothing has changed for you, so nothing can change for us.”
Each word was a gut punch, one after another. Gwen couldn’t move fast enough to stop her, couldn’t form a response before Maggie was at the door, yanking it open.
A whirl of wild hair. Leftover anger. The muted click of the door.
And then silence.
Gwen sat frozen on the edge of the bed, phone buzzing again in her hand, its glow cutting across the sheets where Maggie had just been.
The champagne bubbles were gone. Just like that.
CHAPTER 21
Maggie
Maggie stompedbarefoot down the hall, her hair still damp, Gwen’s scent clinging stubbornly to her skin like evidence. She hated that she wanted to scrub it off and bottle it at the same time.
She took a moment to compose herself. She felt all of her old defenses rising. Last night had been a lot of things, but this morning had been only one. This morning had been the slow realization that she still unequivocally loved Gwen, the chemistry of two people still desperately tied to one another.A mistake. Nothing more than nostalgia. The words tasted like ash. She’d seen the flicker in Gwen’s eyes, the hurt she’d landed. It should have satisfied her, should have built the wall back up, but instead it hollowed her out.
By the time she keyed into the suite, she had her face set in a mask — nonchalant, casual, nothing-to-see-here. But the second the door swung open, she knew something was off.
Not morning-after hangover giggles. Not even the sluggish silence of too much tequila. The energy inside was taut, electric, like the air right before a summer storm.
At the dining table, Izzy and Kiera sat close — too close — hands tangled under the table, both looking like they’d swallowed a secret and were about to burst.
Pete and Danica were hunched together on the couch, a laptop balanced precariously between them. Danica’s perfect bun had collapsed sideways, and Pete’s jaw was tight enough to cut glass. Was Danica… crying?
Maggie blinked, hurrying to Danica. “What’s wrong?”
Four sets of eyes swung her way at once.
Danica sniffled. “Our venue. It’s gone. Double-booked. They gave the date to another couple.”
