Her face is a mask of hesitation and doubt and my defenses start to rise again, but I beat them down. I don’t know why…it’s just sex. If she wants to walk out the door now then I can always just have sex with someone else. I’m no Chris Hemsworth, but I’ve never had a problem attracting women. Why does my gut—and my heart—want me to talk through this so badly?
“Did you watch our games last season?”
“I went to a couple games,” she says, confused.
“Did you know I had a concussion? Kept me off the ice for twelve days?” I ask and she slowly nods.
“Yeah, I heard about it,” Maggie replies. “Why are you changing the subject?”
“I’m not,” I snap and then sigh. “I had been seeing Alisha for about a month when it happened. We weren’t overly serious, but we weren’t just bed buddies. It was something. I thought. She made it seem like it was too, but I had a lot going on when I was recovering. The barn caught fire. I had really bad headaches, double vision, and vertigo would come and go. They kept sending me for MRIs and wouldn’t let me on the ice. I had trouble sleeping, and all I wanted was to be on the damn ice again, feeling normal.”
“Makes sense,” Maggie says without hesitation.
“I thought so too.” I pause. “But Alisha took it personally. She said I was no fun anymore and kept pouting when I wouldn’t go to parties or take her out.”
“She told you that?”
“No.” I shake my head. I really hate talking about it. “Hank told me that was what she said when she tried to get him to fool around with her.”
I watch Maggie’s mouth drop open in a soundless gasp. “She tried to sleep with Hank?”
“Yeah. She ran into him at a party when I was home with one of my concussion headaches,” I explain.
“So you stood her up?”
“No. I stopped talking to her after he told me. I needed time to think,” I say and lean against the railing staring down at her. “I knew I was going to break up with her, but I was trying to gather in my anger and humiliation so I could do it like an adult. She made the reservation at the restaurant, and I decided I would go and talk to her afterward. But I was dreading it, and confided in a teammate. The guy you called hot earlier tonight, Mike Danvers. And then he got this sick look on his face and told me she hit on him too…and he slept with her, because she said we’d broken up already. That’s when I said fuck being an adult, stood her up and just decided to act like I’d never met her.”
Maggie stares up at me through her thick lashes, her expression swirling with emotions as she tries to process everything I just said. I push off the railing and stand straight, shoulders back, owning my behavior and coming to terms with it at the same time. “Not my finest moment. But I did it and I can’t change it. So anyway, I’ll walk you back to the movie now.”
I make my way down the rest of the stairs and as I reach for the front door, her phone rings from the back pocket of her jeans. She pulls it out and, after glancing at the screen, she puts it to her ear. “Hey Daisy. Yeah, no I’m fine. I ran into some friends from my business class and we went to get food. I just wasn’t intoGoon. I’ll see you at home later.”
She hangs up. She takes a small step toward me and tips her head up so our eyes lock. She looks gorgeous tonight, her hair loose and wavy like I like it. The sweater, the color of a thunder cloud, makes the pink that’s always tinting her cheeks more pronounced. “Now you can’t take me back to the movie.”
“Okay… Do you want me to walk you home?” I ask, but she shakes her head.
“I owe you an apology, Tater Tot,” Maggie replies with a small, guilty smile.
“For the small penis lie?” I ask and flash her a smirk.
She lets out a breathy laugh but it dies quickly and she bites her bottom lip like she’s trying to figure out what she wants to tell me but can’t. Finally she says, “I don’t know if hearing your side of the story makes me feel better or worse. I was having a very hard time hating you and screwing you at the same time. If you’d just ghosted that girl for no reason, I felt like I couldn’t sleep with you anymore.”
“Because I would be a bad person,” I say.
She nods and sighs lightly. “But the problem is I’m supposed to be able to hate you and sleep with you. That’s been the plan since the beginning. So if I can’t do both…”
“So you should probably stop doing one or the other,” I say, but inside I feel crushing disappointment.
“You’re right.” Maggie nods and a chunk of her copper hair falls forward, clinging to her cheek.
I reach up and brush her hair back slowly, letting my fingers skim her cheek, because I think this might be the last time I get to do that. “So, I’ll walk you home?”
She blinks, takes a deep breath. “Eventually.”
And then she slides her arms around my neck and kisses me, her tongue pushing past my lips with passion and eagerness that makes me want to sigh with relief. I grab her around the waist and roughly pull her against me. When she breaks the kiss she moves her lips to my ear. “Take me upstairs.”
“So you’re picking screwing over hating?”
“I am,” she replies.
