“Easy. Firefly.”
“Good one. I would have guessed Game of Thrones.”
“Reading the books first. Are you a watcher before a reader?”
“I don’t have the attention span for long books anymore.” She fidgets with the cards after she says this.
“Anymore?” I ask and wish I hadn’t. Because to know the answer means to dig deeper into who this girl is, and to know her—to really know her—would mean something, and what if I’m not capable of giving back?
She gives her head another shake, and a teasing smile takes over whatever it is she didn’t mean to admit with that last remark. “It’s not your turn to ask me a question yet. That was a freebee.”
I cross my arms. “I see how it is. Okay. Two questions left, and I promise you I’ll pick a WILD card.”
“Why do you deflect? I’m not buying the whole judgment thing.”
Well, I guess we’re going there.
“With my family?”
Her shoulders rise and fall. “In general, I guess. That’s a deflection, right?” She nods toward the empty beer bottle on the coffee table and then up at the breakfast bar, empty bottles from the week lined up to take to the recycling bin. My gut wrenches.
“I’m not a drunk, Maggie.”
“But it’s a good diversion, right? And what you looked like last week when we met…your eye? What happens when you go home to Griffin Cartwright…I mean Carrington…shit!”
“Caldwell?” I ask, trying to get her to smile, to get whatever is going off the rails back on, but she keeps going.
“Yes, Griffin. Yes. What happens when you go home to Griffin Caldwell Reed Senior looking like that?”
Her green eyes burn, and this whole line of questioning—I don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s like she’s trying to make me angry. And it’s fucking working.
“Jesus, Maggie. You act like there’s an easy answer to shit you know nothing about. I think it’s time to deflect.”
Maybe it’s an overreaction, but this isn’t what I signed up for. Intimacy leads to judgment, and Maggie just proved that. I get enough of that at home. That’s what I was trying to make clear. But she’s just like everyone else, and she doesn’t even know me yet. So I drop the card on the couch and head to the kitchen. Looks like I won’t be leaving the dishes until morning.
I turn the water on hot and at full spray, busying myself with anything but looking back to where she sits alone, flipping a card around in her fingers.
Of course it’s a diversion. It’s all a fucking diversion, the only way to prolong the inevitable, to avoid living a life that’s not mine.
With the water on high and the steam in my face, I don’t notice her leave the couch until she’s standing beside me.
She turns off the water and pulls my wet hands to hers, drying them with the towel on the counter.
“I was out of line. I’m sorry. I just, I have a hard time watching other people make harmful decisions, physically harmful decisions to a body…and a mind…that’s perfectly healthy.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “I’ve had a few slipups here and there, but you accuse me of something I don’t have—choice.”
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “It’s me, and you didn’t deserve that. I have no right unloading my baggage on you. I’m not looking to scare you off…yet.” The corners of her mouth attempt to turn up, but the smile never really comes. She reaches into her back pocket and takes out a card, placing it in my now dry palm.
WILD.
“One question?” I ask, already knowing what it will be.
She nods.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Please.”
So I do.
Deflect.
Chapter Twelve
Maggie
I wake to the sound of running water. My eyes fight to adjust to the darkness, the lack of visual confirmation adding to my disorientation.
My phone. I need my phone.
On instinct I check the unfamiliar bedside table next to me, and it’s there—plugged in and charged. The time reads eleven-thirty-two, the day still Saturday, and as my eyes find their way in the darkness, I recognize the space because I’ve been here before—Griffin’s room.
I remember the WILD card and the kiss and then…blank.
Griffin emerges from the bathroom, towel drying his hair and shirtless while sporting a pair of flannel pants. For a second I forget my confusion and admire the view while he doesn’t notice me looking.
“You’re up,” he says, his face still obscured by the towel, and I gasp at being found out. “I thought you were gone for the night.”
He drops the towel to show his face, an affectionate grin accompanying a weariness in his eyes, though I’m pretty sure he didn’t do anything too taxing today.
“When did I…fall asleep?” I bank on the normalcy of one falling asleep without remembering when or how. It happens to the best of us when we’re exhausted, though normal I am not. “It wasn’t when we were…”