One Night in Boston

by Allie Boniface

  Jack tried to meet Armand’s piggy-eyed gaze, tried to listen to him chatter on about mergers. But his eyes kept going back to the place where he’d seen her. “Listen, let me catch up with you later on,” Jack said. “Buy you a drink, take Gina for a spin around the dance floor.” He tipped his head and moved away, leaving the guy to spew whiskey breath behind him.

  For a brief moment he couldn’t find her, and all he saw was black. Where is she? Tell me I didn’t imagine it. Tell me she didn’t leave. Tell me—

  The crowd by the door moved a little, and a flash of emerald satin nearly blinded him. Mags. Wow. After all these years.

  A few more steps and he was there, standing beside her. He breathed in the scent that made him a little dizzy and wondered how he could have forgotten the color of her hair. “Maggie Doyle.” Her name, rich on his tongue, were the only words he could manage. Still they sounded like they belonged to someone else because he hadn’t said them anywhere except inside his head for nearly a decade.

  Her mouth fell open, as if she hadn’t expected him to say anything, hadn’t expected it to be him at all. He knew how she felt.

  “This is a surprise.” That’s it, casual and easy. He fought the emotions tumbling inside him.

  She said nothing. After a long moment, she actually began to back away, and Jack thought she might run from the room. The young woman standing beside her stared. Her gaze moved from Jack to Maggie and back again. “You two know each other?”

  He took advantage of the moment to regain his composure. “Hi. Jack Major. Maggie and I went to college together.” Pause. “A long time ago.”

  “Neve Weatherby.” The woman smiled and nudged Maggie. She shook the hand Jack offered her.

  Maggie, however, continued to gape at him until Jack thought maybe he’d left some marinara sauce on his chin or forgotten to shave. He felt himself redden.

  “What—how—” Her cheeks flamed. A look he couldn’t read crossed her face. “What the hell are you doing here?” She raised her hands to her hair, and for a moment he wondered if she’d wind all those curls up on top of her head, the way she used to when emotions got the better of her.

  “I—it’s a big charity event,” he said, confused. Wasn’t that why she stood here too? “You work in the city, you pretty much get an invitation.” He paused again. “I could ask you the same thing. Didn’t even know you lived in Boston.”

  “I don’t.” She wiped her hands on the skirt of her dress and cleared her throat.

  Silence fell between them, heavy and awkward.

  “So you were just in the neighborhood and decided to stop by?” He tried a joke.

  She dropped a glance at her watch. “I guess you could say that.”

  Jack hunched up his shoulders. Who the hell was this woman? Not the lover who used to curl up naked next to him and count stars through his dormitory window. Not the coed who used to dare him to climb out on the library balcony, or race the cops, or make snow angels in Central Park after a storm. That Maggie had life and light; she walked the razor-thin edge between should and shouldn’t and teased him with a grin he could never resist. Now she stood before him looking like all the rest of them. Missing something. Frightened of something. God, he wanted to grab hold of her, shake her, embrace her, drive that empty look from her eyes.

  “Listen, can I get you a drink? We could grab a seat, catch up for a few minutes.”

  An eternity passed before she answered. “Jack, I’m sorry. I—I came here to see someone else. I can’t socialize. I’m not—I don’t have time. It‘s good to see you, but...” Her gaze roved over his face, beyond his shoulder, searching the room.

  “Maggie, wait.”

  She didn’t even register that she’d heard him. With a hand on her friend’s elbow, she turned, and he guessed she would have left until a sweep of blonde moved between them. Jack took a step back as he recognized the face. Eden Fife. Jesus, I should have guessed. She wrapped her arm around Maggie’s waist and shot him a glance that read as half-surprise, half-warning.

  “Jack Major! How long has it been?” Leaning over, she kissed the air next to his cheek. “I might have imagined you’d be on the guest list.”

  “Nice to see you again, Eden.” Feels like a damn college reunion. And not in a good way. Uncomfortable, he stuffed both hands into his pockets. Behind them, the band settled into place and struck up a lively rendition of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”

  Eden pulled Maggie aside, leaned in, and whispered something. They both cut a glance his way, and Jack was reminded of the two of them back in school. Doubles, Eden and Maggie, twins from another time, the way they shared secrets, threw parties until dawn, studied together, ate together, broke hearts together.

  Maggie Doyle. He couldn’t believe it. After Vegas, he’d lost track of her, though it hadn’t been for lack of trying. He’d always imagined that she’d moved somewhere far away, across the country or maybe to the other side of the globe.

  First he gave her time. Silence. Space. Then he tried to call her after he went away to England and he thought enough weeks had passed. But she never returned his messages. He tried email. Cards. Didn’t hear a thing. After awhile, he gave up and moved on, burying the relationship and telling himself it was better in the past. Only problem was, it had a nasty habit of not wanting to stay there. The last few hours had shown him that, plain as day. Jack thought of Paige and winced, guilty.

  “So you and Maggie went to NYU?” Neve asked.

  He nodded. “I was two years ahead of her, but it’s not that big a school. You get to know most people after awhile.”

  Neve gave him a curious smile. “What was she like, back then?”

  A corner of his mouth curved up. The question stirred all kinds of memories. Maggie dancing half-naked under a full moon. Maggie trying in vain to resist his advances as they studied together for finals. Maggie daring him to fly to Las Vegas on a moment’s notice to celebrate his upcoming graduation. Maggie weeping and telling him that the best thing for them both was to forget it ever happened.

  Jack pulled at his tie and wondered how to answer. “Pretty crazy, to tell you the truth. One of a kind. So you two are friends?”

  “We work together,” Neve explained. “I work for her, actually. She owns—”

  Maggie was back before she had a chance to finish. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to leave you two alone.”

  Neve blushed. “We were just talking about—”

  “The past,” Jack interjected as the band shifted into a slow ballad. Couples fused together as the lights dimmed. From the corner of his eye, he could see waiters serving salads to the far tables. Suddenly, a sense of urgency swirled about him, a need to hold onto the moment before dinner and Paige and the rest of the night took Maggie away from him. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know where she’d ended up. He wanted to know how she’d done for herself after all this time. He wanted.

  “Dance with me,” he said. He hardly heard the words come out of his mouth, didn’t know they had until Maggie’s jaw snapped shut. “Just once. For old time’s sake.”

  In slow motion she shook her head. “Oh. Jack, I just…I can’t. I’m sorry. Like I said, I’m only here to see someone. For business.” She cocked her head. A tentative smile passed across her face and fell away, as if the very thought of touching him again pained her down deep. “And to be honest, I’m not sure I can do that again.”

  “Do what?”

  She motioned to the space between them. “Us. You and me. Even if it is only a dance.” She paused. “You know what I mean.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but before he could plead his case, she backed away. The crowd surrounded her and in another second, Maggie was gone.

  Jack stood in the middle of the dance floor, unsure of what had just happened. He scowled, angry with himself for asking, angrier with her for refusing. Disappearing in that green dress was the only woman who’d ever had the power to make him feel like he was slipping down a h
ill at breakneck speed, like he was skating on ice that might crack at any second. He didn’t like that feeling, that loss of control. He’d never felt it before meeting Maggie, and he sure as hell hadn’t looked for it after leaving her. He preferred ease, comfort, predictability: all the things he had with Paige.

  So why he went after Maggie in that moment, why he set into place the events that tumbled together that night, he could never really explain. He only knew he didn’t have a choice.

  “Wait.” Jack pushed through the crowd, catching her as she and Neve walked into a smaller room off the main one. He reached for her arm and wrapped his fingers around smooth, freckled skin. Something unexpected tingled in his wrist.

  “Jack, please.” This time, fire jumped in Maggie’s eyes, and she pulled away from him.

  He took a step back, palms raised. “Sorry. Geez. I just wondered…you still didn’t tell me what you’re doing here. If you‘re not living in Boston, I mean.”

  “I did too. I’m looking for someone.”

  “A guy?”

  She smiled for the first time and put her hands on her hips. Against his will, Jack noticed the swell of them and remembered the way his own hands used to fit there.

  “Why do you want to know? Jealous?”

  “Maybe.” Suddenly he was. “Can’t we just talk?”

  “About what?” She glanced at the guests still streaming through the doors behind them. “About your life now? Mine?” She laughed a little. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

  “I just—”

  “Ah, Jack,” she said, her voice softer this time. “It’s too late to play catch-up. Too late to pretend we can be friends.”

  “Why?”

  She waited. Swallowed. Ran a hand over her brow and closed her eyes for a long moment. “I’m not sure I have the energy.”

  “But—”

  Eden appeared out of the crowd again, this time with a stocky, dimpled guy in tow. She ignored Jack. “Listen, Mags, Jarod here talked to Dillon a few days ago and says he was definitely planning on coming. But now the whole east side of the city’s lost power—”

  “Meaning what?” Maggie’s voice climbed an octave.

  Eden patted her friend on the shoulder. “Meaning he might be running late, that’s all. Don’t freak out. He’ll show.”

  Jack frowned. Dillon. Who the hell was that? The guy Mags was there to find? Not her date, that was for certain, or else he’d be standing beside her. Then who? Jack didn’t know what else to say, and the longer he stood there, the more like an idiot he felt.

  “Mags, it’s good to see you again,” he said, interrupting the women’s conversation. “If you change your mind about that dance, I’ll be inside.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  On impulse, he drew closer, bending until his lips brushed her ear. “You look terrific,” he whispered.

  “Um…thanks.” She laid one hand on the lapel of his jacket, for a moment only. But it was long enough that for the next hour, all Jack could feel was the imprint of Maggie’s fingertips on his heart.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  This time Jack did let her walk away. Yet as she vanished into the crowd, with Eden and Neve beside her, something twisted inside him, a sort of yearning mixed with anger, regret, and something else he couldn’t quite identify.

  Just when he’d gotten his life where he wanted it, just when his future as CEO and devoted husband seemed clear, the redhead from Jack’s past, the ache from another life, showed up again. He hadn’t planned for this. The mixed-up thoughts in his head he couldn’t deal with. The longing below his navel he couldn’t control. All he wanted to do was talk to Maggie. All she wanted to do was get away from him.

  What the hell was he going to do now?

  9:00 p.m.

  Maggie stood in the middle of the dance floor and fought for stillness she couldn’t find. This isn’t happening to me. It can’t be. Her fingers fluttered against her skirt. How big is this world, where I look for Dillon in one place and find Jack there instead? She ignored the music and the couples moving around her. That cold feeling passed along her arms again, the chill that had set upon her in front of Spectacular ‘Scapes. This time she couldn’t ignore it.

  You moved to Hart’s Falls because of Jack.

  That’s not true, she argued back.

  Wasn’t it? Hadn’t some part of her been waiting for this moment, since the day she looked at the map and traced the highway from Rhode Island to Boston? Hadn’t she imagined him lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, fifty miles away? Didn’t part of her want to be close to him after everything that happened?

  “No.” Of course not. That was silly. That didn’t make sense. “No.”

  She didn’t realize she’d spoken the word aloud until Neve waved a hand in front of her face. “No, what? Maggie? Are you in there?”

  Of all the people she had to run into tonight, it had to be him. Him. She looked for a place to sit down before she fell over.

  Jack Major: dark-haired, sexy without speaking a word, kind in the right ways, rough around all the best edges. The man who’d made her realize that falling in love was like jumping off a cliff. The man who made her crazy. The man who made her want to fly. The man who promised to love her forever, right before she broke up with him because the secret inside her was bigger than the two of them and all their love put together. This man had just been standing two feet away from her, smiling down with that sensual smile and thinking she was going to dance with him as if nothing had ever happened.

  She wanted to scream.

  Jack and Maggie. Maggie and Jack. It had been the two of them, inseparable, as soon as they met on NYU’s campus. Parties, hand in hand. Classes, side by side. Coffee in a local diner or a stroll down Times Square. It never mattered where they went or what they did, as long as they were together. Eden dated five or six fraternity brothers in the same two-year span. And Stefan? Maggie wondered what had happened to Jack’s closest friend from school, a laid-back guy with heavy-lidded eyes and a slow, sexy smile. He’d never settled down either. Most of their friends had dated around, falling in and out of love the way college students do.

  But we were different, Maggie thought, and sadness thudded against her heart. We knew too soon. Fell too hard. And I didn’t know how to deal with the consequences.

  “Are you okay?” Kind, sweet Neve hovered close beside her.

  Maggie ran her fingers, damp with perspiration, through her hair. “I’m fine.” But she took her friend by the wrist and steered her in the direction of the Ladies’ Room. “I need some air.”

  “That was him, wasn’t it?” Neve asked after they pushed their way inside.

  Maggie stared at her hands as she washed them furiously. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

  “That was the guy from college. From Vegas. The one you and Eden were talking about earlier.” Neve adjusted her dress and waited as Maggie dried every last drop of water from her hands. Twice.

  A group of women walked in, giggling. Their eyelids drooped from the mascara caked onto their lashes.

  “So I told him to get lost,” one said as she applied a thick coat of lipstick and peered into the mirror. “I told him it would take more than some flowers to make up for what he did…”

  Maggie pretended to inspect her own makeup as the women cooed and rearranged their faces.

  “Did you see what Stella is wearing?” another said. “I wouldn’t be caught dead…”

  After a few long minutes, the women exited.

  Maggie sank onto an ottoman and kicked off her shoes. “Yes. That was him.”

  “Wow.” Neve plopped down opposite her. “He’s really good-looking.”

  Maggie rubbed her instep. “I know.” Why hasn’t he changed? Why didn’t he get fat, or gray, or paunchy around the jowls? Why does he still look so damn perfect? She stared at her own reflection in the wall of mirrors beside them and wondered what Jack had seen there. The girl of twenty? The
woman of thirty? The lines around her eyes, or the question marks inside them?

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “I have no idea. He’s probably a very rich businessman. That was always his plan, anyway.”

  “Really? He doesn’t seem like a snob. Like some of them, I mean.”

  Maggie shook her head. “No, he doesn’t.” Jack never had been like that, despite his last name and the reputation attached to it. When she’d known him, he had just been a regular guy. He was nice to everyone, the sort of person who worked really hard and dreamed big dreams and didn‘t care about the money his family came from. He’d always wanted to make it on his own. He refused a scholarship to his father’s alma mater. He turned down an entry-level position in a family friend’s business and chose to study abroad instead.

  I want to do my own thing, make my own decisions, he said one night, as he traced circles on her bare stomach. I don’t ever want people to say I made it because of my father. Or his money. Or my goddamned last name.

  Maggie wondered if Jack had finally sold out, though. What else would he be doing in a place like this?

  “So? How do you feel about him? Do you still—”

  “No. Of course not.” Maggie answered before Neve finished the question, in part because hearing it out loud might make it harder to lie. “We’re different people now. God, it was ten years ago. Things change.”

  But it hadn’t felt that way when she’d seen him. In fact, part of her wondered if they’d somehow fallen back through time, rewound the heartache and arrived back at the moment when every minute they spent together was magic. Because in just a few minutes of talking with Jack, something had stirred inside her. A tingle at the base of her spine had worked its way up to her throat and down to the soles of her feet until she’d felt like she was on fire, the way she used to. The way just smiling at Jack across a room, knowing he belonged to her in a million little ways, had lit her up. How is it possible that those things don’t die away? How can it be so easy to feel that way again?