Hold Me Close (12 page)

She stepped in front of him. “I’d like to see you again. For dinner, or drinks, or . . .” Her eyebrows lifted suggestively.

“Thanks. That’s a great offer, but I’m kind of seeing someone.”

“Shoot. Figures. I guess I’ll see you down at the bar some night. I’ll buy you a drink when you get off.”

“Thanks.” He moved around her to leave.

“Wait,” she called. “Your cookies.” She handed him the plate he’d left behind.

“Thanks again.” He went across the hall to his apartment. He looked at the cookies and debated tossing them directly in the trash, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe he’d take them to work. Those guys would eat anything.

He crawled into bed and replayed his entire conversation with Maggie. He’d never in his life treated sex like a negotiation, but that’s what tonight had felt like. An important conversation because Maggie would push things, and that scared him.

Maybe he should’ve taken Janet up on her offer for drinks or something. She could’ve taken the edge off everything he was feeling. But it wouldn’t have been right coming from Maggie’s apartment where they’d discussed having sex. He reminded himself he wasn’t dating Maggie. He was a means to an end.

Unless he could convince her otherwise.

Lying in bed, he used his phone to log on to the rape survivor forums he hadn’t visited in years. If anyone could offer advice, it would be those who had walked in his and Maggie’s shoes. Plenty of women survived rape and led full lives with sex. Before posting, he scrolled through existing questions and comments, hoping for the answers he needed.

Maggie had no shot of sleeping. Her emotions had wrung her out. She’d put on a good show for Shane with flirty jokes, but he knew her well enough to know how deep parts of that conversation hit her. But his parting words continued to echo in her head.

Every time she closed her eyes, the mystery man from her dream popped up. This time, not only did he have Shane’s face but also his voice. There was no escaping it. After a long time of tossing and turning, she gave up. She went to her living room, turned on some quiet jazz, and went to work on her photography portfolio.

She’d decided to create a couple of different portfolios that could be used depending on the type of job she was going after. Some photos overlapped the two, but she kept her more artistic ones separate from the portraits. If someone wanted her to shoot their wedding, they would want to see portraits, not a random picture of a strawberry.

As she scrolled through more of her photos—she had no idea she had taken so many—they brought back memories of her trips. Time spent with her cousins, new friends she’d made on a bus tour, gimmicky places she thought were cute. As she continued to organize them into folders, she meticulously backed them up to the cloud.

Of course, she had no idea what the cloud was exactly, but after her cousin lost everything on her computer when her brother spilled a cup of tea on it, Maggie learned to back up everything. She would be crushed if she lost all these pictures.

She found an image of a sunset. Simple, nothing fancy. She hadn’t Photoshopped any part of it, but it was spectacular. It had been her first full night away from home in London. She’d taken the picture with her phone and sent it to Shane.

He’d responded with a text:
It’s beautiful, like you. I miss you already.

She couldn’t remember if she’d answered his text, but she remembered how lonely and lost she’d felt in that moment. The sunset was beautiful, but she hadn’t felt beautiful in a long time. The ache in her chest had blossomed because of her loneliness, but she also realized that even back at home, surrounded by people who loved her, she’d been lonely.

She’d wanted to believe that trying new things away from Chicago would fix that. It hadn’t. She spent more than a year away from her family and friends, and she still wasn’t sure if she’d accomplished anything.

But now, she was finally moving forward. Moira was helping her figure out a career. And one way or another, with Shane’s help, she would come up with a plan for her love life.

It should’ve made her feel better, but the mass of confusion still threatened to swallow her.

She shoved it down and focused on the task at hand. She needed a job that would offer her more than tips and compliments from drunks.

Shane got off work, checked the schedule at the bar to see when Maggie had to work, then went upstairs to make a plan. The idea of sleeping with a woman had never stressed him out so much. At least not since he’d lost his virginity. He couldn’t just knock on her door with a bottle of wine and expect to get laid.

Technically, he wouldn’t even need the wine, but he still wanted to make it perfect. He debated taking her out to dinner versus ordering in. He looked around his apartment, walls unpainted, floors covered in dust. Not exactly a romantic atmosphere, especially since he still had no furniture other than a bed.

As he turned his attention to choosing a restaurant, a frantic knock sounded at his door.

“Shane, it’s me.”

He opened the door to a slightly freaked out Maggie. “What’s up?”

“Please tell me you have your computer hooked up here.”

“I have it, but it might not be charged.” He hadn’t needed it since she came home. He went to his bedroom and pulled it from his dresser drawer along with the charger.

“What are these?” she called from the kitchen. “Peanut butter cookies? You hate peanut butter.”

He barely came through his bedroom door, and she snatched the computer from him. “Our neighbor across the hall, Janet, made them for me.”

Maggie snickered. “Funny, she didn’t make me cookies.”

He ignored the comment because the last person he wanted to think about at the moment was Janet.

Setting the laptop on the counter, she said, “Thank you so much. Mine just crashed. I need to make sure all of my backups saved.”

While she powered it up, Shane ran the cord to the outlet.

“Please, please, please,” she mumbled.

The page opened to his e-mail in-box, which was a little embarrassing since the only e-mails he had were either from her or spam. Thankfully, she was so focused on clicking away on the keys that she didn’t take note.

A new page popped up, and the look on her face intensified. She tapped the track pad, opening more things. Some of her pictures appeared.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“What?”

He pointed at the screen. “Get your pictures on my computer.”

“I opened my files from the cloud. It looks like everything is there except for the last project I was working on. At least it’s only about an hour or so lost.” She exited out of everything and closed the laptop. “Thanks.”

“You can use it if you need to.”

“I can’t take your computer. I’ll figure something out.”

“Take it. I’m not using it.”

“If you don’t use it, why do you have it?”

“Honestly?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“I bought it when you left so we could Skype.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “You dropped hundreds of dollars on a computer so you could
talk
to me?”

“Yep.”

She smacked his arm. “Are you nuts? We could’ve just talked on the phone. Or texted.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Not the same. I like to see your face.” He rolled up the power cord, stacked it on the laptop, and handed it to her.

She stared with her mouth hanging open.

“When you left, I didn’t have a smartphone, so I bought this. For the limited stuff I do online, I use my phone now. If I need a computer, I go home and use my parents’.” He shoved the computer at her.

She finally took it. “I’ll use it for now. Until I buy a new one.” Stepping closer, she rose and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

“How about dinner?”

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Let’s order in.” He pointed at the door. “In your apartment since you have furniture and all.” He followed her out the door and to her apartment, trying to find a balance between hanging out with his friend and making this a date. He figured the sooner they made the attempt to have sex, the better off they’d be and things would be settled between them.

If it played out the way he wanted, they would be a couple. They made sense together.

She unlocked her door and he went in. After locking up behind them, she set the computer on her counter and grabbed the phone. “Where do you want to order from?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Want me to call downstairs?”

“It’s fine. I’m not picky.”

While she called in their order, he settled on the couch and found a romantic comedy for them to watch. Like most guys, he found them sappy and a little silly, but they always made Maggie laugh, and she sounded like she had a rough day.

She plopped next to him. “Food will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

“So what did you do today?”

“I worked on my portfolios some more.”

“What portfolios?”

She bit the corner of her mouth. “Promise not to laugh or tease me.”

“Never.”

She swatted his leg. “I talked with Moira about a career. Although she could help me get some writing gigs, I think I want to take a stab at being a photographer.” She paused, and when she opened her mouth again, words flooded out. “I don’t have any formal training, but I enjoy it. A lot. So I’m creating a portfolio to see if I can get a job. Maybe at least an internship somewhere so I can learn. I might take a class or two. I don’t know. But this is the first thing I’ve been excited about in I don’t know how long. It’s just so much, it’s a little overwhelming. And . . .”

He smiled, thinking she’d stopped because she finally needed a breath, but then she didn’t continue. “And what?”

“What if I flake on this too?”

“What if you do? It’s one more thing you know isn’t right for you.”

“But I feel like such a loser. All my friends have settled into careers. Even if they don’t love their jobs, they have real careers. I’ve stagnated. It’s like I never moved past being twenty-one.”

“None of that matters. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do a job you love, that you’re passionate about. Do you think I want to work for my dad forever? We do what we have to do until things fall into place.” He took her hand and held it. “You’re doing fine, Maggie. Stop doubting yourself.”

“Easy for you to say.” She leaned back into the couch and he scooted closer.

He continued to hold her hand on her lap and she rested her head on his shoulder as the opening credits rolled on the movie.

“You’re too nice to me. You hate these movies.”

“Next time, I’ll pick and there’ll be blood and gore.” He watched the first scene of the movie and then stood. “I’ll go down and grab the food.”

They ate their dinner and watched the movie, with Maggie curled up close to him. They laughed and joked about the characters, and when closing credits came across the screen, he leaned over.

Maggie didn’t say anything, but her eyes widened. This was it, the moment he’d wanted for a long time. His fingers wrapped around the back of her neck and her pulse throbbed against his palm. Only her rapid heartbeat let him know she wanted this, because the rest of her was stock-still. Her eyes told him she wasn’t afraid.

“Relax,” he whispered against her lips.

And she did. She closed her eyes and her lips softened. He brushed against them, her breath quickening. He tried to follow his own advice, but there was no turning back now. This was no friendly kiss meant to comfort. This one conveyed his lust. He’d wanted this for so long, he almost couldn’t control himself.

She was everything he imagined. Soft and warm, gentle and open.

His heart crashed against his ribs and his blood thundered through his system, urging for more. But this was Maggie, his friend and soon-to-be-lover. She deserved better, so he kept the kiss soft and slow, as slow as he could bear.