I look up at him, and his face is so full of pain it’s heart-breaking.
He doesn’t want to feel like this. I don’t want him to feel like this.
What the hell am I doing to him?
He runs both of his hands through his hair, looks up at the ceiling, and squeezes his eyes shut. He stands like this for a while, then exhales and drops his hands to his hips, lowering his eyes to the floor.
He feels so guilty he can’t even look at me.
Without making eye contact, he lifts an arm and grabs my wrist, then pulls me toward him. He crushes me to his chest, wraps one arm around my back, and curves his other hand against the back of my head. My arms are folded up and tucked between us while his cheek rests against the top of my head. He sighs heavily.
I don’t pull away from him in order to text him a flaw, because I don’t think he’s in need of one right now. The way he’s holding me is different, unlike all the times in the past few weeks when we’ve had to separate ourselves in order to breathe.
He’s holding me now as if I’m a part of him—a wounded extension of his heart—and he’s realizing just how much that extension needs to be severed.
We stand like this for several minutes, and I begin to get lost in the way he’s wrapped himself around me. The way he’s holding me gives me a glimpse of what things could be like between us. I try to push those two little words into the back of my head, the two words that always inch their way forward when we’re together.
Maybe someday.
The sound of keys hitting a counter behind me jerks me to attention. I pull back, and Ridge does the same as soon as he feels my body flinch against his. He looks over my shoulder and toward the kitchen, so I spin around. Warren has just walked through the front door. His back is toward us, and he’s slipping off his shoes.
“I’m only going to say this once, and I need you to listen,” Warren says. He still isn’t facing us, but I’m the only one in the apartment who can hear him, so I know he’s directing his comment to me. “He will never leave her, Sydney.”
He walks to his bedroom without once looking over his shoulder, leaving Ridge to believe he never even saw us. The door to Warren’s bedroom closes, and I turn back to face Ridge. His eyes are still on Warren’s door. When they flick back to mine, they’re full of so many things I know he wishes he could say.
But he doesn’t. He just turns and walks into his room, closing the door behind him.
I remain completely motionless as two huge tears spill from my eyes, scarring their way down my cheeks in a trail of shame.
Ridge
Brennan: Gotta love rain. Looks like I’ll be there early. I’m coming alone, though. The guys can’t make it.
Me: See you when you get here. Oh, and before you leave tomorrow, make sure you get all your shit out of Sydney’s room.
Brennan: Will she be there? Do I finally get to meet the girl who was brought to this earth for us?
Me: Yeah, she’ll be here.
Brennan: I can’t believe I’ve never asked this, but is she hot?
Oh, no.
Me: Don’t even think about it. She’s been through too much shit to be added to your list of concubines.
Brennan: Territorial, are we?
I toss my phone onto the bed and don’t even bother with a reply. If I make her too off-limits to him, it’ll just make him try that much harder with her.
When she made the joke last night about screwing him, she was just trying to add humor to the seriousness of the situation, but the way her text made me feel terrified me.
It wasn’t the fact that she texted about hooking up with someone. What terrified me was my knee-jerk reaction. I wanted to throw my phone against the wall and smash it into a million pieces, then throw her against the wall and show her all the ways I could ensure that she never thinks about another man again.
I didn’t like feeling that way. I probably should encourage Brennan. Maybe it would be better for my relationship with Maggie if Sydney actually started dating someone else.
Whoa.
The wave of jealousy that just rolled over me felt more like a tsunami.
I walk out of my bedroom and head to the kitchen to help Sydney get things together for dinner before everyone gets here. I pause when I see her bent over, rummaging through the contents of the refrigerator. She’s wearing the blue dress again.
I hate it when Warren is right. My eyes slowly scroll from the dress, down her tanned legs, and back up again. I exhale and contemplate asking her to go change. I’m not sure I can deal with this tonight. Especially when Maggie gets here.
Sydney straightens up, pulls away from the refrigerator, and turns toward the counter. I notice she’s talking, but she isn’t talking to me. She pulls a bowl out of the refrigerator, and her mouth is still moving, so naturally, my eyes scan the rest of the apartment to see who it is she’s talking to.
And that’s when both halves of my heart—which were somehow still connected by a small, invisible fiber—snap apart and separate completely.
Maggie is standing in front of the bathroom door, eyeing me hard. I can’t read her expression, because it’s not one I’ve ever been exposed to before. The half of my heart that belongs to her immediately begins to panic.
Look innocent, Ridge. Look innocent. All you did was look at her.
I smile. “There’s my girl,” I sign as I walk to her. The fact that I’m somehow able to hide my guilt seems to ease her concern. She smiles back and wraps her arms around my neck when I reach her. I slip my arms around her waist and kiss her for the first time in two weeks.
God, I’ve missed her. She feels so good. So familiar.
She smells good, she tastes good, she is good. I’ve missed her so damn much. I kiss her cheek and her chin and her forehead, and I love that I’m so relieved to have her here. For the past few days, I began to fear that I wouldn’t have this reaction the next time I saw her.
“I have to go really bad. Long drive.” She winces and points to the door behind her, and I give her another quick kiss. Once she’s inside the bathroom, I slowly turn back around to gauge Sydney’s reaction.
I’ve been as upfront and honest with Sydney as I can possibly be about my feelings for Maggie, but I know it’s not easy for her to see me with Maggie. There’s just no way around it. Do I compromise my relationship with Maggie to spare Sydney’s feelings? Or do I compromise Sydney’s feelings to spare my relationship with Maggie? Unfortunately, there’s no middle ground. No right choice. My actions are becoming split directly down the middle, just like my heart.
I face her, and our eyes meet briefly. She refocuses her attention down to the cake in front of her and inserts candles. When she finishes, she smiles and looks back up at me. She sees the concern in my expression, so she pats her chest and makes the “okay” sign with her hand.
She’s reassuring me that she’s fine. I practically have to pry myself away from her every night, and then I maul my girlfriend right in front of her—and she’s reassuring me?
Her patience and understanding with this whole screwed-up situation should make me happy, but they have the opposite effect. They disappoint me, because they make me like her that much more.
I can’t win for losing.
• • •
Oddly enough, Maggie and Sydney seem to be having fun together in the kitchen, prepping ingredients for a pot of chili. I couldn’t hang, so I retreated to my room and claimed I had a lot of work to catch up on. As good as Sydney is with this, I’m not as skilled. It was awkward for me every time Maggie would kiss me or sit on my lap or trail her fingers seductively up my chest. Which, come to think of it, was a bit odd. She’s never really all that touchy-feely when we’re hanging out, so she’s either feeling a tad bit territorial, or she and Sydney have already been hitting the Pine-Sol.
Maggie comes into the bedroom just as I’m shutting the laptop. She kneels down on the edge of the bed, leans forward, and inches her way toward me. She’s look
ing up at me with a flirtatious smile, so I set the laptop aside and smile back at her.
She crawls her way up my body until she’s face-to-face with me, and then she sits back on her heels, straddling me. She cocks an eyebrow and tilts her head. “You were checking out her ass.”
Shit.
I was hoping that moment had come and gone.
I laugh and cup my hands around Maggie’s backside and scoot her a little closer. I let go and bring my hands back around in front of her and answer her. “I walked out of my room to a rear end pointed toward my bedroom door. I’m a guy. Guys notice things like that, unfortunately.” I kiss her mouth, then pull back.
She’s not smiling. “She’s really nice,” Maggie signs. “And pretty. And funny. And talented. And . . .”
The insecurity in her words makes me feel like a jerk, so I grab her hands and still them. “She’s not you,” I tell her. “No one can ever be you, Maggie. Ever.”
She smiles halfheartedly and places her palms on the sides of my face and slowly runs them down to my neck. She leans forward and presses her mouth to mine with so much force I can feel the fear rolling off of her.
Fear that I put there.
I grab her face and kiss her with everything I have, doing all I can to erase her worries. The last thing this girl needs is something else to stress her out.
When she breaks apart from me, her features are still full of every single negative emotion I’ve spent the past five years helping her drown out.
“Ridge?” She pauses, then drops her eyes while she blows out a long, controlled breath. The nervousness in her demeanor twists around my heart and squeezes it. She brings her eyes carefully back to mine. “Did you tell her about me? Does she know?” Her eyes search mine for an answer to the question she should never even feel the need to ask.
Does she not know me by now?
“No. God, no, Maggie. Why would I do that? That’s always been your story to tell, not mine. I would never do that.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and she tries to blink them away. I let my head fall back against the headboard. This girl still has no idea how far I’ll go for her.
I lift my head away from the headboard and look her hard in the eyes. “To the ends of the earth, Maggie,” I sign, repeating our phrase to her.
She forces a sad smile. “And back.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sydney
Someone is removing my clothes. Who in the hell is removing my clothes?
I begin slapping away the hand that’s pulling my shorts down past my knees. I try to remember where I am, why I’m here, and how I got here.
Party.
Cake.
Pine-Sol.
Spilling Pine-Sol on my dress.
Changing.
Drinking more Pine-Sol.
Lots of Pine-Sol.
Watching Ridge love Maggie.
God, he loves her so much. I saw it in the way he watches her from across the room. I saw it in the way he touches her. In the way he communicates with her.
I can still smell the alcohol. I can still taste it as I slide my tongue over my lips.
I danced . . .
I drank more Pine-Sol . . .
Oh! The drinking game. I invented my own solitary drinking game, where every time I saw how much Ridge loved Maggie, I downed a shot. Unfortunately, that made for a hell of a lot of shots.
Who in the hell is pulling off my shorts?
I try to open my eyes, but I can’t tell if it’s working. They feel open, but it’s still dark inside my head.
Oh, my God. I’m drunk, and someone is undressing me.
I’m about to be raped!
I start kicking at the hands that are yanking the shorts from my feet.
“Sydney!” a girl yells. “Stop!” She’s laughing. I focus for a few seconds and can tell the voice belongs to Maggie.
“Maggie?”
She comes closer, and a soft hand brushes back my hair as the bed dips down next to me. I squeeze my eyes shut, then force them wide open several times, until I finally begin to adjust to the dark. She puts her hands on my shirt and attempts to unbutton it.
Why in the hell is she still taking off my clothes?
Oh, my God! Maggie wants to rape me!
I slap at her hand, and she grips my wrist. “Sydney!” She laughs. “You’re covered in puke. I’m trying to help you.”
Puke? Covered in it?
That explains the massive headache. But . . . it doesn’t explain why I’m laughing. Why am I laughing? Am I still drunk? “What time is it?” I ask her.
“I don’t know. Tonight, I think. Like, midnight?”
“That’s it?”
She nods, then starts laughing with me. “You threw up on Brennan.”
Brennan? I met Brennan?
It looks as if her eyes are trying hard to focus on my face. “Can I tell you a secret?” she says.
I nod. “Okay, but I probably won’t remember it, because I think I’m still drunk.”
She smiles and leans forward. She’s so pretty. Maggie is really, really pretty. “I can’t stand Bridgette,” she says quietly.
I laugh.
Maggie starts laughing again, too, and tries to pull my shirt off, but she’s laughing too hard and keeps having to pause for deep breaths.
“Are you drunk, too?” I ask her.
She inhales again, attempting to pause her laughter, and then she exhales. “So drunk. I thought I took your shirt off already, but your shirt keeps coming back on, and I don’t know how many shirts you have, but”—she lifts the edge of my shirt sleeve, which is still on my arm, and looks at it in confusion—“oh, my God, I really thought I took it off already, and here it is again.”
I lift myself up on the bed, then help her pull my shirt off. “Why am I already in bed if it’s only midnight?”
She shrugs. “I have no idea what you just said.”
She’s funny. I reach to the nightstand and turn on the lamp. Maggie scoots off the bed and lowers herself to the floor. She lies flat on her stomach with a sigh and begins moving her arms, making snow angels against the carpet.
“I don’t want to go to bed yet,” I tell her.
She flips over onto her back and looks up at me. “Then don’t. I told Ridge to let you stay up and play because we were having so much fun, but you threw up in Brennan’s lap, so he made you go to bed.” She sits up. “Let’s go play some more. I want more cake.” She pushes up on her hands and stands, then reaches for my hands and pulls me off the bed.
I look down at myself. “But you took off my clothes,” I say, pouting.
She looks at my bra and underwear. “Where’d you get that bra? It’s so cute.”
“JCPenney.”
“Oh. Ridge likes the kind that clasp in the front, but yours is really cute. I want one.”
“You should get one,” I say, smiling. “We could be bra twins.”
She pulls me toward the door. “Let’s go see if Ridge likes it. I want him to buy me one.”
I smile. I hope he likes it. “Okay.”
Maggie opens the door to my room and pulls me behind her into the living room. “Ridge!” she yells. I laugh, because I don’t know why she’s yelling for him. He can’t hear her.
“Hey, Warren,” I say, grinning when I see him on the couch. “Happy Birthday.” Bridgette is seated next to him, glaring at me. She’s looking me up and down, probably jealous because my bra really is cute.
Warren shakes his head and laughs. “That’s only the fiftieth time you’ve said that tonight, although it’s a little more fitting now that you’re practically in your birthday suit.”
Ridge is sitting on the other side of Bridgette. He’s shaking his head like Warren. “Maggie wants to know if you like my bra,” I say to Ridge. I pull on Maggie’s hand so she’ll turn around and sign to him.
“It’s a very nice bra,” Ridge says, staring at it with a cocked eyebrow.