“It’s never seemed like you had a problem saying what you needed to.” I moved into the room and paused at the desk.
Maggie had never pulled her words when she’d been firing them at me or anyone else. Whenever she’d had occasion to go at me, it had always had something to do with Matt. She’d always accused me of doing things to hurt him or lead him on, like I spent my whole existence plotting ways to bring Matt Adams to his knees. What I’d never told her was that I felt the same, but the other way around. It seemed like Matt was coursing his life from one hurting-me moment to the next leading-me-on moment.
“I didn’t say half of what I wanted to say to you back then. But I’m about to say it all now, no matter what you or Matt think about it.”
“He doesn’t want you here because he doesn’t want you to say what you came here to tell me, right?” I dropped into the same desk chair Matt had set me in to fix me up. It didn’t feel the same without him crouching in front of me though.
“You don’t have a clue what I’m here to tell you. Neither does he.” Maggie’s voice was muffled from the hair tie she’d stuck into her mouth as she remade her ponytail.
I had a guess. One I’d been going back and forth between, but what had to be the only possibility after everything. “Matt. You’re here to tell me that he doesn’t want me. Not like, beyond this week.”
I swallowed, my gaze diverting out the dark windows. Matt might have harbored some feelings for me, some deep-seated desires, but he’d fulfilled them all that night he’d taken me into his bed. Whatever fascination he’d had with me had been realized, and while his friendship would be there for me whenever I needed it, there was nothing hiding behind that designation. Nothing that ran deeper.
“He doesn’t like me, does he?” I asked.
Maggie made a face like my words were insulting her. “He doesn’t like you?”
My eyes connected with hers for a brief moment. “Not in the way you know I’m talking about.”
She shook her head, blinking a few times like she was waking up. “Hi, welcome to planet Earth,” she said in a mock cheery voice, waving in my direction. “The place where brains and sound-thinking make the planet go round.”
My eyes lifted. “What? I know he has feelings for me, just not the same kind or to the same degree as mine.”
“Okay, back up. That, right there.” Maggie’s finger stabbed in my direction. “That’s what I want to delve deeper into. Your feelings for him. We’ll get to his feelings for you in a minute. First, spill. Your guts. Your feelings. Your heart. I want it, right here, scattered on the floor in front of me for my viewing pleasure.” Maggie motioned at the floor with a grand flourish, waiting.
I didn’t know what to say. Where to start, or how to even start. How did a person sum up a lifetime of emotions in a handful of words? How could I define it to someone else when I had yet to explain it to myself?
“Come on. What’s going through that pretty little head of yours? Right this very moment.” Maggie scooted forward on the bed, circling her hand like she was trying to encourage me on.
“A lot,” was the only way to answer that question.
“I bet. Thought you were marrying one brother only to find out you married the other, who you’re starting to finally realize you love too.” She paused, giving me a chance to challenge her. I didn’t. She smiled. “The upside to this whole cluster of fuck is that either way, you’ll wind up Mrs. Cora Adams.”
I threw my head back over the headrest, grumbling, “I’m so confused. I’ve been confused about how I felt about them for years, but now. . .” I came up short, searching for the right word. I wasn’t sure there was a right word in the human language for what I was feeling.
“That’s not confusion you’re warring with when it comes to Matt.” Maggie’s voice was the gentlest I’d ever heard it as she leaned toward me. “It’s knowing how you feel, but believing you shouldn’t feel that way. That’s different. Being afraid to admit the truth isn’t the same as not knowing it.”
My breath came out all at once. “I know.”
“So you like him?” she asked, adding, “In the way you know I’m talking about?”
My eyes met hers. I nodded.
Her hand compacted into a fist as she drove her elbow back like she was celebrating. “Do you love him?”
I hadn’t expected her to ask that. I hadn’t been bracing for that word. It was a big one, possibly the biggest one on the planet.
“Hey, I spilled my guts.” I waved at the floor between us. “Now it’s time to get to the part about how he feels about me.” I wasn’t saying anything else until she gave something up. I guessed she knew, or had some idea, how Matt felt about me. They’d spent god only knows how many hours at that beach bar talking about whatever they had been. She knew if Matt wanted more from me or if he’d taken all he wanted.
A minute went by, the slowest minute of my life.
Then her eyes found mine. “You know how he feels about you.” Her head tipped. “Deep down, somewhere inside, you’ve always known.”
“But—”
“You know,” she interrupted, her words slow and strong. “Don’t fool me. Don’t fool yourself. You know. Your heart knows. It just hasn’t gotten around to convincing the rest of you.”
Everything started to close in around me until life seemed impossibly clear because I could see everything making it up. It wasn’t the big picture I’d been waiting for; it was the microscopic details. It wasn’t thinking about the past two decades I’d known Matt; it was remembering every day, all of the moments that had made up those nearly twenty years.
“Why didn’t he . . . ?” I started, failing to finish my thought. “He never said anything. Never gave me any indication that he might —”
“Feel the same way as you?”
My hands wrung in my lap. “Yeah. I wasn’t pretending with Jacob. I did care for him. I do care for him. Just with Matt . . . he was a gamble.”
“You were with Jacob. Matt thought that’s what you wanted.” She stood up from the bed and wandered into the bathroom. When she came out, she was carrying a few tissues. I didn’t know I’d started crying until she placed them in my lap. “He put what he wanted aside so you could have what you wanted. Or what you seemed to want.”
“Yeah?” I dabbed at my face, wondering if there was any end to the mess I’d made in these brothers’ lives. I was starting to doubt if there was.
“If you find me someone who’s willing to play second-string for years, being the friend while his brother takes all the credit, then swoops in to save the day when I’ve never needed a hero more, I will auction off all of my non-essential internal organs to the highest bidder.”