Geoducks Are for Lovers (28 page)

I love you, Maggie.

That’s what happened. How does she tell him she’s overwhelmed, and her head is too full, and her heart is scared?

Walking around to the other side of the island, she puts some distance between them, while drinking her coffee buys her a minute.

“So?” he asks.

Exhaling a deep breath, she meets his eyes.

“You did hear me last night, Fakey Fakesleeper. I can see it in your eyes. You have that scared rabbit look you get.”

Caught. She nods. 

“I did. I woke up this morning and thought maybe it was a dream, maybe I misheard you.”

“Okay, Ms. Fakesleeper, don’t add liar to your name. I thought you were still awake. That’s why I said it. I shouldn’t have said it last night.”

“It was nice you said it. Don’t take it back.” Shifting on the stool, she stares into her coffee cup. 

“Oh, I’m not taking it back. There are no do overs, Maggie. I meant it. I. Mean. It. Past and present tense. Then and now. I’m not talking about last night and this morning. I mean the first night we slept together.”

“You didn’t tell me you loved me back then. I would remember.”

“I did say it. Only I was scared to say it when you were awake, and made absolutely sure you were asleep. I guess I hoped it somehow sunk in subconsciously, so when you woke you’d know I loved you. Bad plan.”

This confession surprises her. She never heard his words that night.
Would things have been different if she had?

“So?”

“What do you mean ‘so’? You drop the bomb that you confessed your love to me then. You tell me you love me last night, and repeated it this morning. All this love is a lot to process. Two days ago, I still believed you were in a relationship.” Her heart races.

“So?”

“So?”

“So now my feelings are out in the open, are you going to return the favor? What’s going on in that mind of yours this morning?”

“I can’t. I don’t know. I just…” her words fade away as she acknowledges Gil loves her and he isn’t playing it cool. All his cards are on the table, so she asks, “Do you want us to be a couple or date or whatever?”

“Maybe. It seems a little silly to date someone who you’ve known and loved for years, but sure we can date. I’ll call you up and ask you out for three days later. Dinner, entertainment, kisses at your door.” Gil jumps up on the counter next to the stove. Swinging his legs, his bare feet bump against the lower cabinets. She’s staring at his chest again and she can tell he is barely hiding his smug amusement. His swinging legs and the grin behind his twitching lips give him away.

“We don’t even live in the same place. You are going to drive all the way up here for ‘dinner and entertainment’?”

“I’d very much be willing to drive up here to take you out. I’m serious. Take a chance on me.”

Blood rushes in her ears. Love? Dating? Gil? All of this is not part of her plan—her quiet life and ‘Maggie on the Island’ plan. Her defend and protect instincts kick in as she tries to process his happy declarations and teasing. 

“What do you want me to say? We haven't seen or spoken to each other in how many years? Five? It's not exactly like we've kept in close touch. This all seems a little out of nowhere and convenient to tell me the morning after we sleep together. Honestly, what do you want from me?” Maggie begins pacing around the kitchen, her anxiety bubbling.

“I want you to be open to the possibility. Of us. Of us being together. It isn't out of the blue for me. This is something I thought about for decades. Decades. I fucked up by not telling you ages ago. I get it. I think us all coming together here, now, isn't a coincidence. We wasted years. Decades. God, how can it be decades? I don't want to waste more time.”

“I can't process this now. I can't.”

“Don't shut down, don't shut me out again. Please.” From his perch on the counter, he grabs her hand to stop her pacing.

She stares at Gil. His eyes are pleading and what appears to be genuine emotion is all over his face.
Is it love? Lust? Guilt? Hope?

Quinn with his perfect timing walks into the kitchen wearing an ancient Inflammable Flannel band T-shirt and boxers. Maggie pulls her hand from Gil’s and walks over to the window. Gil groans and hits the back of his head against the cupboard a few times. Quinn moves between them to the coffee maker, shaking his ass for Gil. “You can look at the pretty, but you can't touch this.”

“Did you quote M C Hammer? Before noon? In the 21
^st
century?” Gil asks.

“Yep,” Quinn says, filling two cups with the last of the coffee in the carafe.

“Hey, you finish the coffee, you make more. House rules,” Maggie tells him.

“Fine, fine.” Quinn grabs the bag and begins feeding the beans into the coffee grinder on the machine. When he goes to the sink to rinse out the carafe and fill it with water, he looks at Maggie, and then glances between Gil and Maggie a few times.

“Oh wait. Did I interrupt something between you two?”

“No!” they both say at the same time.

“Jinx.” Quinn eyes them with suspicion.

“Hey, what are you two doing up this early anyway? Maggie never gets up early on the weekends and it’s barely past 8:30.” He notices her wet hair. “Up and showered. Wait a second, wait a sweet second...” He looks at Gil. “…did you two finally consummate?” 

Maggie blushes.
Damnit. Who blushes this much?

“Why, Maid Marrion, I do believe you are blushing.” Quinn teases.

“Shut up.” Maggie can't look at either of them, but hears Quinn humming as he pours the water into the coffee machine. If they were eight, she would swear he was humming “sitting in a tree.”

Maggie senses Gil jump off the counter and move toward her. She pretends she's looking out the window, but all she's really doing is trying to peer his reflection in the glass.

Her shoulders tense. Worried he is going to touch her. Afraid he won't. She’s completely confused about what she wants and what she is too scared to admit.

She catches Quinn’s eye and he gives her a questioning look. 

He clears his throat dramatically, and mumbling something about seeing a man about a geoduck, he heads back upstairs.

Once Quinn makes his exit, Gil closes the distance between them, trapping her against the counter. She can smell everything that is good and Gil. 

“Please.”

“Please what?” she asks.

“Please don't let this all be nothing once we leave the beach. Please say we have a chance to make this more.”

She closes her eyes, breathing in Gil, soap, and freshly brewing coffee. What is she afraid of? She has a job she can do anywhere, she doesn’t have anything tying her down. Can she do this? Can she risk passing up a second chance? 

She remains quiet and still, avoiding giving an answer she isn’t ready to give.

Behind her, she hears Gil sigh and walk outside. Her own sigh echoes his. 

What is wrong with her? 

Maggie does the only thing that makes sense right now. She runs upstairs, puts on her running gear, whistles for Biscuit, and runs out the door.

Twenty-six

Maggie’s calves burn as she sprints up the hill, pushing herself past her normal pace. Her breathing becomes ragged, and her head starts to spin. Turning up the volume on her iPod, angry music blasts in her earbuds.

Running on little sleep and only coffee is not the smartest idea she’s had.
Neither is sleeping with Gil.
Her body aches in places that have nothing to do with running and her mind flashes back to his hands skimming down her back and hitching her leg over his hip. She remembers the way his scruff dragged along her skin, sending shivers down her spine. 

Stop!

She tries to clear her thoughts and focus on her breathing. Sleeping with Gil isn’t the issue. He isn’t a real thing. He’s nostalgic because of the upcoming reunion. There is no way he has loved her since college.
Who says things like that? He married Judith, didn’t he?

Maggie nods. 

How dare he put everything on her. Her anger begins to simmer. She didn’t run away to France. Her year abroad was a done deal before they even lived together for the summer. She doesn’t run away from confrontation.

Except now. 

She’s literally running away from Gil and her house to avoid him. The irony isn’t lost on Maggie and she begins to laugh. Biscuit gives her an odd look. 

“Listen mister, don’t judge me. I’m not losing my mind.”

Realizing she is talking to the dog, Maggie adds, “Talking to you doesn’t prove I’m a nutter.” She sticks her tongue out at the dog. Biscuit looks away in what she interprets as doubt. “Okay, you’re right. I am a nutter.”

She accepts she can’t literally run away right now. A house full of friends who are probably wondering where she’s gone. 

Turning for home, Maggie slows her pace, thinking about her ability to avoid what she doesn’t want to face and what she’s going to do about Gil.
Does she pretend nothing happened again
? That’s not possible since Quinn sussed them out this morning. He’s probably filled in the others already. 

Avoid Gil?
Maybe she’ll play it cool and act like last night wasn’t a big deal. Selah would do that. Sleeping, or fucking someone, isn’t a big deal. Right. Right, not a big deal. Sex is sex. Love is an entirely different beast. She’s experienced sex without love. This, whatever this is, is not that. Gil’s words echo in her head. 

But what to do about Gil’s morning declarations? What about his actions and words all weekend? Selah and Quinn both seem to think she and Gil are meant to be.
Are they?
Even Jo seems to be on their team.
Is there a team?
 

Have they wasted two decades over a silly miscommunication and comedy of errors?
 

It’s too early in the day for all these deep thoughts. Maybe she can keep running. 

After another grueling mile, the adrenaline from her flight leaves her. This isn’t college. She can’t collect her clothes, run home, and hide before her trip. This is her house and her life. Gil will be leaving in a few hours. He’s the one leaving this time—leaving her behind. 

All the fight goes out of Maggie. She’s not the same girl she was twenty years ago. She isn’t going to run. She’ll face Gil, and talk this out like adults. Nodding her head, she turns toward home.

* * *

When Maggie approaches the cabin from the road, she sees Quinn sitting on the front steps. 

“Walk with me, Ms. Marrion.” After walking down the drive way to meet her, he turns left up the beach road.

“Ms. Marrion? Last name only? Am I in trouble?” She feels like she’s about to get scolded by her father. 

“Should you be in trouble? You ran out of the house like a banshee this morning.”

“I went for my normal morning run,” she lies.

“Bullshit. You were running away from Gil, like you did twenty years ago. No flight to France this time to save you. What are you going to do?”

“My first plan was to keep running. It didn’t work out so well—I got tired.”

Quinn links his arm with hers as they walk down the road to where the lagoon dyke separates the two halves of the beach. 

“Why do you always want to run away from Gil?”

Maggie shakes her head. “I don’t know. I just knew I had to get away before I made a bigger mess of things. Like I did in college. Did you know he was in love with me back then? Did everyone?”

“Unlike you, Magpie, we weren’t blind. Or choosing to be blind. I think deep down you knew Gil loved you. And it freaked you out. Maybe you were too young to get yourself tied down. Maybe you were a chicken shit.”

She scrunches up her face. “Probably both. I didn’t want to rock the boat. We’d all gotten close. I didn’t want to lose what we all had together.”

“But Ben and Jo had gotten together, and they managed not to rock the boat. Why couldn’t you have done the same with Gil?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t have the best track record with guys up until that point. No one stuck around for long or I lost interest. Gil was too important to lose.”

“But you did lose him. You put him in a box and kept him there. He waited for you and you broke his heart, Maggie.”

“He told me as much this weekend, but I didn’t believe him.”

“My point exactly. You don’t believe what you see with your own eyes.” 

“I assumed he regretted what happened. I thought I threw myself at him at my study abroad going away party. I believed my feelings were all one sided.”

“He was hurt. There was pining. He became a mopey bastard for a while. Of course, we all suspected something had happened between you two before you left, but he wasn’t talking and you were in France.”

“I was blind. How could I have missed all that?”

“You have a habit of rewriting the narrative to fit what goes on inside your head.”

“This is true. I think that’s why I married Julien. In my head, everything was perfectly romantic. The reality wasn’t nearly as rosy.”