WEST
Coach had said I didn’t have to be at practice this week. Although, if I wanted to, I could still play in the game. He knew they needed me, and he also knew my dad would have wanted me to play. So, I’d play.
I had missed all the other practices, but I wasn’t going to miss this one. My grandmother was at my house by now, so I knew my mother wasn’t alone. It gave me some freedom, but it also was keeping me from my house. I didn’t want that woman there. She’d never visited, not once my entire life. We always had to go to her home. She rarely spoke to my father or acknowledged him.
I felt nothing for her.
But my mother loved her.
No one questioned me when I walked into the locker room to get my practice gear on. Some nodded, a few slapped me on the back, but no one said a thing. This was what I needed. If I couldn’t have Maggie with me all the time, then this was the only other way to keep my mind free of shit.
As I tied my cleats, I stood up to see Brady walking over to me. He wanted answers, and I wasn’t going to give them to him. What I’d told him this morning was his answer.
“How long has she been talking to you?” he asked in a hushed voice.
I grabbed my helmet and started walking to the door. “A while,” I replied.
“How long’s ‘a while’? Since the hospital . . . or before?”
“Before.”
Brady fell into step beside me. “That’s why you grew attached so fast, isn’t it? She’s been helping you deal with things. She’s been there.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t know the answer. Maybe that was why I’d grown attached to her so quickly. Grief changed you. Made you react differently. But I didn’t want to say that I wouldn’t have wanted Maggie had she not spoken to me.
But would I have?
“You understand probably better than anyone what she’s gone through. If she’s told you stuff, it’s more than she’s told anyone else.”
He was right. She had, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“She needs to talk to other people,” Brady added.
He wasn’t going to let up about this. I had to shut this down. Until Maggie was ready to talk, I wasn’t going to let anyone make her.
I stopped walking and looked at him. “She isn’t ready. It’s how she deals. Let her deal with things the way she needs to. I won’t let anyone push her. Not even you,” I told him. Then I walked off toward the field and left him standing there.
It was almost midnight when Maggie slid her window open for me to come inside. I had practice until late then gone to the bluff and sat up there for a few hours. When Momma had called about me coming home to eat, I did. For her. Then my grandmother had asked me about college, and I had left without answering her. She hadn’t been there for us before, and she had no right to interfere with my life now.
I called Momma and told her to go to sleep. Told her I’d be home soon, that I was at Brady’s. That was the truth. I was at Brady’s. I just wasn’t here for Brady. I think she probably knew that, but she didn’t ask.
Maggie stood in the middle of her room in a pair of baggy sweatpants tied at the waist and a tank top. Her long hair was in a messy knot on top of her head, and she couldn’t have looked more beautiful. I’d missed her this afternoon. I always missed her when she wasn’t with me.
That scared me if I thought about it too much. I didn’t want to miss her like this. I could lose her.
No.
I wasn’t going to lose Maggie. I wouldn’t let that happen. I would make her want to stay with me. I’d be whatever she needed me to be.
“Hey,” she said softly.
I grinned. “Hey.”
Closing the distance between us, I reached for her and held her close to me. “Missed you,” I whispered before pressing a kiss to her lips. She had great lips.
She laughed against my kiss. I loved that sound. She didn’t laugh often. But when she did, it was like magic. “What’s so funny?” I asked, unable to keep the incredibly pleased smile from hearing her laughter off my face.
“You just saw me a few hours ago,” she said.
I shook my head. “No, I saw you nine hours ago. That is not a few. It’s a fucking long time.”
Maggie pressed her lips together, and her eyes danced with laughter. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her face was washed clean. I loved that she had known I was coming over and didn’t fix up. She was just her, and she was comfortable being just her.
“You really should be sleeping. You have the game tomorrow night,” she said as she placed a hand on my chest.
“I am gonna sleep. Here with you. I’ll set my alarm to get up at five, and I’ll go home. But tonight I want to hold you.”
Her eyes sparked with pleasure. That made me think about things. Things I shouldn’t be thinking about. Not in her house. Not where Boone was so close to us.
I glanced over at her bed and could see she had already been in it tonight. I hadn’t texted her I was coming over until about an hour ago. I wondered if she’d been asleep then. Seeing her covers messy and knowing I was going to have her cuddled up against me all night made everything that felt hollow fade away. Maggie made me feel like a caveman. I liked having her with me.
Maggie slipped her hand into mine, and I had that familiar feeling of peace that had gotten me through this last month. Four weeks. Tomorrow it would have been exactly one month since I kissed her at the field party. She’d come into my life when I thought I was going to lose myself. When I wasn’t sure I had the strength to make it. And she’d shown me I could. She had reminded me that I wasn’t the only person on earth to lose a parent.
Maggie pulled the covers back on my side then crawled over to her side to straighten her sheets. Seeing her like this, being here with her like this, made me want things. Things that should be for me and me only. For example, I never wanted another guy to see her dressed like that on this bed. Just me. I didn’t want her to ever slip her hand in another guy’s hand. Ever. Just mine.
“You have to get in in order to go to sleep,” Maggie whispered, a playful smile on her lips.
She had become my lifeline. I wanted to be hers. I wanted her to feel this way about me, too.
I climbed into the bed and lay on my back with one arm behind my head and the other one held out for Maggie, inviting her to come lay her head on my chest. She didn’t need instruction. She knew exactly what I wanted. When her head was right where I liked it, I slipped my hands into her silky hair and untied her bun. She didn’t protest.
We lay there quietly for a few minutes while I played with her hair and stared at the ceiling fan. My head was a mix of emotions. She’d entered my life when I’d needed her most. I’d never expected this. Or her. But now that I had her, I wasn’t sure how I’d made it this long without her.
