Maybe Someday

Chapter Fifteen

Sydney

Me: What’s taking you so long? Are you

writing a damn book?

I don’t know if my rubbing his shoulders is

putting him to sleep, but he’s been staring at his

phone for five solid minutes.

Ridge: Sorry. Lost in thought.

Me: I can see that. So, Sounds of Cedar?

Ridge: It’s kind of a long story. Let me

grab my laptop.

I open up our Facebook messages on my

phone. When he returns, he leans against a

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counter several feet away from me. I’m aware of

the fact that he’s put space between us, and it

makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable, because

I know I shouldn’t have been rubbing his

shoulders. It’s too much, considering what’s

happened between us in the past, but I feel as if

it’s my fault his shoulders hurt in the first place.

He doesn’t really complain about what playing

on the floor is doing to him, but I can tell it hurts sometimes. Especially after nights like last night,

when we wrote for three hours straight. I asked

him to start playing on the floor to help with the

fact that things seem to be more difficult when

he’s on the bed. If I didn’t still have such a huge

crush on his guitar playing, it might not be as big

a problem.

But I do still have a definite crush on his guitar

playing. And I would say I have a definite crush

on him, but crush doesn’t even begin to define it.

I’m not even going to try to define how I feel

about him, because I refuse to let my thoughts go

there. Not now and not ever.

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Ridge: We had all been playing together

for fun for about six months before we got

our first real gig at a local restaurant.

They needed us to give them the name of

our band so they could put us on the

schedule. We had never really considered

ourselves an actual band before that,

since it was all in fun, but that night, we

agreed that maybe for local things like the

restaurant, it would be good to have a

name. We all took turns throwing out sug-

gestions, but we couldn’t seem to agree

on anything. At one point, Brennan sug-

gested we call ourselves Freak Frogs. I

laughed. I told him it sounded like a punk

band, that we needed a title with more of

an acoustic sound. He got upset and said I

shouldn’t really be allowed to comment on

how music or titles sound, since, well, yay

for lame deaf jokes from sixteen-year-old

little brothers.

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Anyway, Warren didn’t like how cocky

Brennan was back then, so he said I

should choose the name and everyone

had to agree on it. Brennan got pissed

and walked off, said he didn’t want to be

in the band anyway. I knew he was just

having a Brennan tantrum. He didn’t have

them often, but when he did have them, I

understood. I mean, the kid had virtually

no parents, and he was raising himself, so

I thought he was pretty damn mature

despite the sporadic tantrums. I told the

guys I wanted to think on it for a while. I

tried to come up with names that I

thought would mean something to every-

one, but mostly to Brennan. I thought

back on what got me into listening to mu-

sic in the first place.

Brennan was around two years old, and I

was five. I’ve already shared to you all the

qualities my parents possessed, so I won’t

go back into that. But in addition to all

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their addictions, they also liked to party.

They would send us to our rooms at night

once all their friends began to arrive. I no-

ticed that Brennan was always wearing

the same diapers when he woke up that

he wore to bed. They never checked on

him. Never fed him at night or changed

him or even checked to see if he was

breathing. This is probably something that

had been occurring since he was an in-

fant, but I didn’t really notice until I star-

ted school, because I think I was just too

young. We weren’t allowed to leave our

rooms at night. I don’t remember why I

was too scared to leave my room, but I’m

sure I’d been punished for it before, or it

wouldn’t have bothered me. I would wait

until the parties were over and my par-

ents went to bed before I could leave my

room and go check on Brennan. The prob-

lem with this was that I couldn’t hear, so I

never knew when the music would stop,

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and I never knew if they had gone to their

bedroom, because I wasn’t allowed to

open my door. Instead of risking being

caught, I would just press my ear to the

floor and feel the vibrations of the music.

Every night, I would lie there for no telling

how long, just waiting for the music to

stop. I began to recognize the songs

based on how they felt through the floor,

and I learned how to predict which songs

were coming next, since they played the

same albums night after night. I even

began to learn how to tap along with the

rhythm. After the music would finally

stop, I would keep my ear pressed to the

floor and wait for my parents’ footsteps to

indicate that they had gone to their bed-

room. Once I knew the coast was clear, I

would go to Brennan’s room and bring

him back to bed with me. That way, when

he woke up crying, I could help him.

Which brings me back to the point of this

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story, how I came up with the band name.

I learned how to differentiate chords and

sounds through all the nights my body

and my ears were pressed against the ce-

dar floor. Hence Sounds of Cedar.

Inhale, exhale.

Beat, beat, pause.

Contract, expand.

I don’t even realize how on edge I am until I

see the white in my knuckles as I grip my phone.

We both remain still for several moments while I

attempt to get the image of the five-year-old

Ridge out of my head.

It’s gut-wrenching.

Me: I guess that explains how you can dif-

ferentiate vibrations so well. And I guess

Brennan agreed once you told him the

name, because how could he not appreci-

ate that?

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Ridge: Brennan doesn’t know that story.

Once again, you’re the first person I’ve

ever shared it with.

I lift my eyes back to his and inhale, but for the

life of me, I can’t remember how to exhale. He’s

a good three feet away, but I feel as if every

single part of me that his eyes fall on is being dir-

ectly touched by him. For the first time in a

while, the fear etches its way back into my heart.

Fear that one of these moments will be one

neither of us can resist.

He sets his laptop on the counter and folds his

arms across his chest. Before his eyes meet mine,

his gaze falls on my legs, and then he slowly

works his eyes up the entire length of my body.

His eyes are narrow and focused. The way he’s

looking at me makes me want to lunge for the

freezer and crawl inside.

His eyes are fixed on my mouth, and he quietly

swallows, then reaches beside him and picks up

his phone.

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Ridge: Hurry, Syd. I need a serious flaw,

and I need it now.

I force a smile, although my insides are

screaming for me not to text him back a flaw. It’s

as if my fingers are fighting with themselves as

they fly over the screen in front of me.

Me: Sometimes when I’m frustrated with

you, I wait until you look away, and then I

yell mean things at you.

He laughs, then looks back up at me. “Thank

you,” he silently mouths.

It’s the first time he’s ever mouthed words,

and if he weren’t walking away from me right

now, I’d be begging for him to do it again.

Heart 1.

Sydney 0.

? ? ?

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It’s after midnight, but we finally finish adding

icing to the fifth and final cake. He cleans the last of the ingredients off the counter while I secure

the Saran wrap around the cake pan and slide it

next to the other four pans.

Ridge: Do I finally get to meet the raging

alcoholic side of you tomorrow night?

Me: I’m thinking you just might.

He grins and flips off the kitchen light. I walk

to the living room to power off the TV. Warren

and Bridgette should come home sometime in the

next hour, so I leave the lamp on in the living

room.

Ridge: Will it be weird for you?

Me: Being drunk? Nope. I’m pretty good

at it.

Ridge: No. I mean Maggie.

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I look up at him where he’s standing in front of

his bedroom door, watching his phone, not mak-

ing eye contact with me. He looks nervous that

he even asked the question.

Me: Don’t worry about me, Ridge.

Ridge: Can’t help it. I feel like I’ve put you

in an awkward situation.

Me: You haven’t. I mean, don’t get me

wrong, it would help if you weren’t so at-

tractive, but I’m hoping Brennan looks a

lot like you. That way, when you’re shack-

ing up with Maggie tomorrow night, I can

have drunk, wild fun with your little

brother.

I hit send, then immediately gasp. What the

hell was I thinking? That wasn’t funny. It was

supposed to be funny, but it’s after midnight, and I’m never funny after midnight.

Shit.

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Ridge is still looking down at the screen on his

phone. His jaw twitches, and he shakes his head

slightly, then looks up at me as if I’ve just shot

him through the heart. He drops his arm and runs

his free hand through his hair, then turns to walk

to his room.

I. Suck.

I rush to him and put my hand on his shoulder,

urging him to turn back around. He rolls his

shoulder to brush my hand off but pauses, only

partially turning to face me with a guarded ex-

pression. I step around to his front so he’s forced

to look at me.

“I was kidding,” I say, slowly and very seri-

ously. “I’m sorry.”

His face is still tense and hard and even a little

disappointed, but he lifts his phone and begins

texting again.

Ridge: And therein lies the problem,

Sydney. You should be able to screw who-

ever you want to screw, and I shouldn’t

give a shit.

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I suck in a breath. At first, it pisses me off, but

then I focus in on the one word that reveals the

entire truth behind his statement.

Shouldn’t.

He didn’t say, “I don’t give a shit.” He said, “I

shouldn’t give a shit.”

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

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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

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the same as soon as he feels my body flinch

against his. He looks over my shoulder and to-

ward 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 bed-

room 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.

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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

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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 kit-

chen to help Sydney get things together for din-

ner 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 re-

frigerator, 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

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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.

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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 re-

action 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 com-

promise 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 dir-

ectly down the middle, just like my heart.

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I face her, and our eyes meet briefly. She refo-

cuses 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 con-

cern 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 practic-

ally 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 in-

gredients for a pot of chili. I couldn’t hang, so I

retreated to my room and claimed I had a lot of

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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 ter-

ritorial, or she and Sydney have already been hit-

ting 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 to-

ward me. She’s looking up at me with a flirta-

tious 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.

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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

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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.

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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.”

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