He bends to retrieve his glasses then cracks his neck. “I tried to warn you both. I told you that you’d lose her. I told her you had secrets. What more could I do?”
His gaze darts down the hallway and then lands back on mine. He doesn’t look upset that Maggie’s going to have her heart broken. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
He shrugs. “Kind of. You have to do the right thing now.”
“And what’s that?” I sputter the words through my clenched jaw.
“You have to let her go. You have nothing to offer her now. You’re someone else’s baby daddy.”
Baby daddy. My chest constricts, and my heart aches. “You don’t give either of us enough credit.”
He crosses his arms and leans back against the wall. “That’s what you want for Maggie? To be on the sidelines while some other woman gives birth to your baby? Now who’s the selfish one?”
Maggie will want to stay by my side. She’ll want to help me because that’s who she is. “She’ll want to stay together.”
“Maybe. But you want her skipping Olympia for you? She’ll never leave while you’re here playing house with another woman. She’s already told me she took New York to be with you. You want that on your conscience? How many dreams of hers will you shatter?”
“She wouldn’t skip out on Olympia.”
His eyes widen, and he shrugs. “She stopped working on the paper and accepted New York. She’s staying for you. Breaks my heart. I tried to talk her out of it.” He stands straight, moving closer. “I’d make a clean break. Tell her that you have to work things out with Amber for the sake of the kid, and that she should go to Olympia. Don’t force her into a life where she’s not the center of your world.”
She wants to be the center of someone’s world. Ben had said those same words not too long ago during our conversation in the laundry room. Would I be able to make Maggie the center of a world that includes a little baby and its mother? Could Winston be right?
“It won’t be easy,” he says. “I broke her heart already. Now you’re going to shatter it again. But don’t worry. She knows she can come back to me anytime—”
Without thinking, I jump up and charge him, pushing him back up against the wall. I cock back my arm to punch him in the jaw to get him to shut up. I don’t punch him though. Instead, I slap him. Right across the face. Hard.
“Damn,” he says, rubbing his palm on his cheek.
My hand shakes from the contact, but I want to put it through the wall. “You’re an asshole, Winston. I’ve wanted to kick the shit out of you since the first day I met you.”
When he smirks and says, “Same,” I hate him. I hate myself. But more than that, I hate what I have to do to Maggie.
Chapter 22
Dave
I leave Winston massaging his cheek in the lounge and exit Sheridan as fast as I can. Outside, I pace the parking lot until I see Maggie approaching with a cup of coffee. She’s smiling. I take a mental picture of her hair falling over her shoulders, her face lit up under the lights of the parking lot, and the way her jeans hug her hips as she bounds toward me. In a flash, she’s in my arms.
“Hey, you! I didn’t think I’d see you until later.”
I don’t hear her words as I squeeze her, my nose in her strawberry hair, wanting to never let her go, to freeze this moment forever.
At my silence, she pulls back. “What’s wrong?” My expression must be priceless. Maggie’s face drops. “Are you okay?”
I can’t make words happen. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. Winston is right, the skinny little turd. She deserves better than me. Better than anything I could give her. She always did deserve better than me.
More importantly, she needs to go to Olympia and do her internship. I can’t believe she’d give that up for me…for us. The thought makes my broken heart ache.
Maybe Winston’s wrong. Maybe he’s lying about everything. I gulp. My throat’s so dry that it hurts. “Did…did you finish your paper?”
I want her to say, “Yes! Didn’t I tell you?” or “I got the waitlist spot!” Instead, she shakes her head and my shoulders sag. “No. Maybe I’m not destined for Olympia. My mother said the paper was garbage and…I don’t know. I like being around here. I accepted New York.”
I know her paper isn’t garbage. She’s too smart for that. Either her mother was being hard on her or Winston is telling the truth. “Please tell me you aren’t giving up on Olympia because of me.”
She squints at me as a car rolls by and pulls into a spot. “Why are you saying that? Don’t look at me like that. And if I decided to stay, David, it’s on me, not you.”
Her answer doesn’t make me feel better.
She holds my hand and walks me to the door to Sheridan. I don’t know how I’ll get through the next minute. I’ve never been so happy as I’ve been with Maggie in my arms, her soft shoulders, that hair, and those cherry lips. I’ve never felt so connected with a woman, ever. We love each other. We said it. That means we’re supposed to be together. I’m not supposed to hurt her. Even though she claims she’s not staying in New York this summer for me, I’m not sure I believe her. I hate that she’s willing to make sacrifices for me when I’m about to be such an asshole.
When I stop her before we enter, I read the concern on her sweet face. The way her eyes open wider and the corners tip down. How her excited grin goes neutral. I hate myself. I hate that I have to do this.
Do it, Dave fucking Novak. Say the words.
I look around the lot. The afternoon sun provides a backdrop for our dumpster where it all began. I force myself to look at her. “I…I can’t.”
She scrunches her nose. “Can’t? Can’t…what?”
Obviously she can’t read my mind. I’m going to have to say more words. Hard words that will break us up.
I shake my head and groan out the word. “Us.”
Maggie tilts her head, as a breeze blows her hair away from her face. “What are you talking about? What’s gotten into you?” She feels my head. “Do you have a fever?”
I take her hand off my forehead and hold it. “I found out something today. Something that changes everything. For both of us.”
She yanks her hand away. She’s starting to understand.
The air thickens, and I look around the parking lot, for something, anything, that will show me that this is a terrible dream that I’m about to wake up from. “Um… Amber… my neighbor….”
Maggie puts her hands on her hips, waiting. “What about her?”
I can’t breathe, but I have to get this out. “She…she’s going to have….”
Maggie raises her eyebrows.
“A baby.” I spit out the words. They feel like lead rolling off my tongue.
She straightens, and her jaws drops. “Are you serious? When did that happen? I hadn’t heard anything.”
I stand in silence until Maggie finishes her thought and realizes why I’m bringing this up. It’s not random gossip. I use the moment to study her every feature. To breathe her in. To share her air.
Until finally, she gets it. She puts her hand to her mouth and gasps. “You?”
My eyes tear, and my heart cracks open. I haven’t cried since sixth grade, but seeing the look on her face, thinking how I’ll never be with her again, I fucking cry.
Then I babble.
“She’s due in June. She didn’t want to tell me. Suzi thought I needed to know. She hasn’t been in school, so I haven’t seen her. I swear, it was one time. One time. That first week.” The wetness on my cheeks feels like fire burning down my face. I use my shoulder to wipe my tears and concentrate on finding air.
“Oh, Dave.” Disappointment soaks her words. She puts her hands over her eyes. “Oh no.”
“I’m so sorry—”
She throws down her hands and looks at me, her blue eyes shiny with tears. “Maybe it’s not yours?”
“The timing works. I wasn’t careful. That first week…” I gasp for breath.
“Are you okay?”
I let out an awkward laugh. “Me? You’re asking about me?”
She shrugs. “You didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Of course not. It was a stupid mistake.” The minute I say the words, I feel guilty. How can I call a baby a stupid mistake? I hate myself even more.
She grabs my hands. “Let’s go inside. We’ll talk this through, together. You and me, right?” As Winston predicted, her concern is for me. This isn’t how someone as bright and vibrant as Maggie should live her life.
With everything in me, I want to yell, “Yes!” But I can’t do that to her. She wants to be the center of someone’s world. I close my eyes. I wish I’d open them and this would all be a bad dream. Maggie would be lying next to me in my bed upstairs, with her tank top and her so-called sleeping ponytail. But when I open my eyes, I’m back outside Sheridan Hall.
“I see what you’re thinking, but please don’t do this.” Her voice crackles as another tear falls. “You don’t have to do this.”
My hands shake. I have no idea where my resolve comes from. All I hear is Winston’s voice in my head. “I have to.”
“Why? Do you have feelings for Amber?”
Of course I don’t. My feelings are only for Maggie. Since September, she owns all of my feelings. But I need this to stick. I need Maggie to forget me and move on with her life. “I….”
“It’s a simple question. Do you?” I hear the worry in her voice. That twitch in her cadence that’s a mixture of desperation and love. I told her I loved her.
I can’t lie and tell her I have feelings for Amber. So I say, “I guess I have to try to work it out, now that she’s going to be the…” I stop short mid-sentence.
She finishes it for me. “The mother of your child.”
She’s not angry—at least she doesn’t seem so. She lowers her eyes down to the floor and then back up again. Another tear falls. She points from me to her and back again. “But… us… remember? You and me?”
A wave of sadness consumes me when she says “us” like it’s the last time the word will ever be ours. Another tear slides down my cheek. I hold my hand over my heart and feel it crack into pieces in my chest. Is this how love is supposed to feel? I’d gladly keep the pain to stop her from having to go through it again.
“I…can’t do ‘us’ anymore. I can’t give you the romance novels. There’s no happily ever after, Maggie.”
She shakes her head and reaches for my hands. Her eyes dart to mine, and she takes a step forward. “You’re not thinking clearly. Don’t break up with me. Not over this. Let’s go inside…talk.” I hear the way her words shake, see the way her lip quivers.
I drop her hands, pushing away her faith in us. Maggie’s the only girl I’ve ever wanted with my entire heart, and I’m pushing her away. But I remember Winston’s words. You have to do the right thing. For once in my life, I’m doing just that—the right thing, not the easy thing. For this one time, I’m motivated to be unselfish and giving. I have to let her go, give her life back to her. As much as I want to keep her and trust her words of hope, I can’t do that to her. I can’t dim her star. I won’t make our love story a subplot to Amber, me, and a baby. “I’m clear. I want to break up. I’m so sorry.”
For a long minute, Maggie stares at me, her hand over her mouth, and her blue eyes looking even bluer as they water. I think she’s waiting for me to take it all back.
I press my lips together to stop myself from begging her forgiveness and falling into her arms.
Finally, she shakes her head. Then she takes a step back and turns, heading for the door.
I stand there, staring at her, wiping the tears rolling down my cheek. I pray she’ll turn around and come back. If she does, I’ll tell her I was wrong. That we can be together.
But she doesn’t. She disappears into Sheridan, and I stare up at the stars. She’ll find someone else, someone better than me, who deserves her and knows what they’re doing in a real relationship. Someone who won’t knock up his neighbor in a drunken one-night stand. All that crap about us being destined was just that—crap. Crap from a romance novel that I hoped could come true.
What was I thinking? Maggie doesn’t belong with me. It was only a dream. She was my dream. I was stupid to believe we could be real.
Chapter 23
Maggie
I close the door to Sheridan and lean my head against it. Listening, I try to feel him through the door, wondering if he’s still out there or if he’s walking away. Of course he’s walking away. They all do. And now, the end wasn’t about what Pooja or anyone said about Dave and his reputation. It’s not that he wanted one night and out. His mistakes from earlier in the year have come back to haunt him—in the form of a baby.
A baby.
I try to picture Dave holding a baby. Dave was barely emotionally together enough to accept being a boyfriend, never mind a daddy. He has no money, no car. Heck, he has no pants. His entire existence consists of a guitar, a long, hot body, and about fifty pairs of cargo shorts. And a big, giant heart that he’d shared with me.
He doesn’t want my help. I would help. Wouldn’t I? Would I be able to deal with him sharing a baby with another woman?
A baby.
It takes two to tango, as they say, but how could he have been so dumb? How could he have come here and fucked around the first week of school? Even worse, how could he hook up without a condom? Are people that stupid? How could I love someone who made such a devastating mistake?
I think back to my first time with Winston. Alone in the woods while the campers slept, he set up a little one-man tent and lit the gas lantern. Slowly and deliberately, we calculated the entire scene, the entire night. We were sixteen and virgins. We knew enough to use a condom. Dave was eighteen and not, and….
My head starts pounding, and I grasp my dresser. My mother was right. She finally trusted me to make my own decisions, and now here I am. She knew it. She knew it wouldn’t last with Dave because it never lasts with anyone. Even though I’m willing to stay with him during this, even though I hoped it could work anyway, he doesn’t want me. Not really. He doesn’t want me in the same way I want him, for the long haul.
Meg texts me that it’s dollar beer night at The Study and asks if Dave’s playing. We’re thought of as a couple already.
Tears fill my eyes, and I think about Frank, Juliet, and this enormous event she’s been planning since we all came back to Sheridan a few months after the shooting. They’ll all hear about Dave and Amber within the day, I’m sure, and they’ll want to be there for me, like they were with Winston.
I can’t let that happen. I have to disappear. They won’t leave me alone if I don’t, and the focus now should be on Frank, not me. I can’t do this to them again, just because I’m a stupid, stupid, boy-crazy girl.
I text Meg.
I need a huge favor. Can you help me?
In a second, my phone chimes with her ringtone. I answer.
“What’s up?” Megan asks. Music, laughter, and fun bellow from the background.
I grab my empty backpack and shove clothes into it from my dresser drawer. “Do you think I can hang out at your Miami house for a few days?”
“Miami? Now? What about the gala? What about your paper and finals?”
Shit. The paper. Even though I accepted New York just in case, I have to finish the paper and try for Olympia. I can’t deal with that now. “I’ll do it from there… I just…” I try to act cool and suave about wanting to leave town, but I can’t make the words come out.
She yells over the noise. “Mags? What’s wrong?”
“I… Dave…” My voice shakes, and I can’t get my volume loud enough.
“What? I can’t hear you. Give me a second.”
I wait. She must go outside, because next time I hear her voice, the background is quiet. “Hi. Sorry about that. What’s going on?”
“I need to get out of here. Secretly. Please? Just a few days
?”
“Why? What happened?”
“I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”
“But—”
“Please. Please don’t ask. Would your dad mind if I use your house? I can’t go home and deal with my mother. I can’t stay here. I… need a few days away. I’ll tell you more when you bring me the keys. Please?”
Meg sighs on the other side of the conversation. “I’ll call my dad. Hang tight.”
* * *
A couple of hours later, Big Joe Smith’s car service is driving me to JFK. Not only did Mr. Smith offer me the house, he bought me a first-class ticket on the last flight out that night. Meg rides to the airport with me, and I tell her about Dave, asking her to keep it under wraps. I know she’d be tactful, but if Juliet or the guys got a whiff of what was going on, they’d go nuts. I don’t want them kicking Dave’s ass on my behalf when he’s trying to do the right thing.
Even if the right thing breaks my heart.
Dave
After smashing the heart of the girl I love, I ride my bike to the quad and sit against the tree where I first saw her. I call Amber, who breaks down crying. I tell her I need to see her and that I’m leaving immediately. I’ll stay in a hotel and call her in the morning. Tuck doesn’t bother me about taking the car.
Turns out, Amber Lanford is a native of New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University. Traffic up the interstate is crap, and I don’t find a hotel until close to midnight. Middle-aged couples in Yale-themed gear crowd the lobby for something going on at the school. Maybe graduation? I’m told that I’m lucky there’s a vacancy.
I use my father’s credit card to check in then carry my backpack and my guitar case up to my room. I’m not sure why I brought the guitar. I guess because I’m so used to carrying it everywhere I go, like a security blanket.
I grip it tighter. I won’t be able to go on tour this summer. Hell, I probably won’t make the charity gala on Saturday. Tuck said to do what I need to do, but I wonder if Tommy, Bryce, and Chip will feel the same way. I’m letting everyone down.
She Wants It All: Sheridan Hall Series, Book Three Page 22