One Night in Boston

by Allie Boniface

  Maggie shook it off. She couldn’t afford to indulge a thought like that, not tonight.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. She reached down and pulled her shoes back on. “I’m not here to spend time with Jack.” A red spot, sore and puffy, had already begun to bloom at the base of one heel. Great. Blisters. Just what I need, pain inside and out.

  “Come on. We’re not going to find my stepbrother in the women’s room, that’s for sure.” Just find Dillon, she reminded herself as they made their way out. Stay away from Jack at all costs, and find Dillon. Then get the hell out of here.

  “There you are!” Eden glided across the room. Her hair fell across her brow in sheets of gold. “Are you okay?”

  Maggie wondered how to answer that. Okay. It was the most mundane word in the English language, as far as she was concerned. It meant nothing at all, but when you used it to answer a question, everyone accepted it. No one looked beneath it. No one asked what you really thought or felt.

  “I guess.”

  Eden draped an arm around Maggie’s neck. “I didn’t know Jack would be here. Really. Don’t let him upset you. It’s not worth it.”

  Easy for you to say. Maggie leaned into the weight of her friend’s arm for support. “Dillon isn’t here yet, is he?”

  “I don’t think so.” Eden paused. “Mags, how much money do you need?”

  She started. “What do you mean? I don’t need — I’m not asking—”

  “Stop it.” Eden unwrapped herself. “Listen, it’s not a big deal. I asked Neve what the hell the rush was about, you coming up here tonight to find your brother.”

  Stepbrother, Maggie corrected silently.

  “She told me your business was in trouble. Why didn’t you just say so? There are plenty of people I can borrow money from.”

  “Forget it.” But even as Maggie spoke, part of her wanted to give in and say yes. Could Eden really help her? Could she really borrow that kind of money? How tempting, to know that circling the ballroom right now were people rich enough to write that check without blinking an eye. Fifteen thousand, four hundred and eighty dollars. That kind of cash—it probably meant nothing to them. They wouldn’t miss it no matter how long it took Maggie to repay. Still, she hesitated. She didn’t want to owe her best friend. She didn’t want money or the slippery details of debt to come between them. It was easier to talk money with someone you didn’t have a relationship with.

  “It’s not that simple,” she said. “I need it by tomorrow.”

  Eden shrugged. “Not a problem.”

  “You can get your hands on fifteen thousand dollars in the next twelve hours?”

  “That much?” Eden’s eyes widened, and she paused for a second. “Maybe. Kurt at the firm owes me a favor. Let me ask.” She was gone before Maggie could protest any further.

  “Really, maybe she can help,” Neve said, her tone apologetic. “That way you won’t have to spend the rest of the night worrying about finding Dillon. Or not finding him. Or figuring out how to ask him…” She looked at her toes. “I’m sorry I told Eden about the foreclosure. I just wanted to help.”

  “Oh, hell, it’s okay,” Maggie said. Okay. Covers everything, right? “Maybe she can get the money. I should just be grateful for that.”

  Neve swished her skirt from side to side. “Then we could stay a little bit longer. Dance, maybe.”

  She looks like a girl at the prom, Maggie thought. The clock on the wall read almost 9:30 but what Maggie really wanted to do was drive home and sink into her mattress, not paste a smile on her face and dance the night away. Another hour or two, she told herself. Neve came up here with you. Let her have her music and her ball and her big night with Boston’s high society. I’m sure she’ll be ready to leave by midnight. Maggie found a vacant spot near the wall and told herself to deal with it.

  “Excuse me.” One of the men at the table nearest them leaned over to Neve. He looked close to seventy, Maggie guessed.

  “Would you do me the honor of a dance?” He patted the arm of the elderly woman sitting beside him. “My wife is feeling under the weather this evening.”

  Maggie thought Neve might fall over with pleasure. “I’d love to!” She glanced at Maggie. “You’re okay here? I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  “Of course.” Maggie smiled as her friend took the man’s wrinkled hand and followed him onto the dance floor. Leaning back, she watched the dancing couples spin by, counting how many women she saw in black, how many in gloves and how many bare-handed, how many with fake eyelashes and how many with fake cleavage. I wonder how much a boob job goes for these days. Even better—I wonder how much money people here have spent on plastic surgery. Total. She tried to do the math in her head, men versus women, and tried to imagine the most common knife job for each.

  Breast implants? Definitely.

  Botox and collagen injections? Absolutely.

  Nose jobs, eye lifts, liposuction? Probably a few.

  And the men just dye their hair and suck in their stomachs, she thought, biting back laughter.

  “We need to talk.” Jack appeared from nowhere, sliding his way behind the tables to where she stood.

  Maggie’s eyes closed for a second. Oh, Jack, don’t do this me. “No, we don’t.” She tried to back away from him, but the wall gave her about an inch of wiggle room. “I told you—I can’t—just leave me alone, please.”

  “No.” He set his chin in that stubborn way she remembered. “You never returned any of my calls. Why?”

  I was trying to heal, you idiot. I was trying to get over you. Exasperated, she crossed her arms over her chest. “You want to talk about this? Now? Why? It’s been ten damn years.”

  “Exactly.” He stood his ground and waited.

  Maggie rolled her eyes. Unbelievable. “Okay, fine. Why didn’t I call you? You were in England. Remember? And I was in New York. What were we going to do, have a conversation at two in the morning?”

  “That’s just an excuse.” His voice was measured and controlled though underneath she thought she sensed rising anger. “I wouldn’t have cared what time it was, or—”

  “Jack, it was over.” She let out a long breath. Why does it still hurt to think about this? To talk about it? “I didn’t return your calls because I didn’t have anything to say.”

  “Over?” His eyebrows hit the ceiling. “Over? No, it wasn’t. Not for me. Not then.” Jack’s eyes blazed as his mouth came close to hers, until she thought the words slipping from his lips might burn her neck. “And I don’t think it was over for you, either. You know what I think?”

  Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.

  “I think you didn’t call me because you were too scared to admit that you still had feelings.”

  Dammit, don’t look back and think you know what I was going through.

  “You don’t—you have no idea—” he continued when she didn’t answer. Raking both hands through his hair, he turned his back for a minute, and Maggie thought he might walk away from her once and for all.

  “What were you planning on saying?” Maggie asked. “‘Let’s get back together?’ ‘Let’s give it another try?’”

  Jack turned and stared at her, eyes dark.

  “That decision—it was the right one.” She worked to keep her voice steady. “It wouldn’t have worked out any other way.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. Come on. Think back. You had everything ahead of you.” Maggie dropped her chin. “You didn’t need someone back in the States.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it. I asked you to come to England with me. I wanted—”

  “I know what you wanted.” She had to stop him. She couldn’t relive the conversation all over again. “But there were things about me you didn’t know back then.” There. She’d said it. “Things you still don’t know.”

  He shook his head, and impatience filled his eyes. “‘Things’? Like what?”

  “I…I can’t explain. It just
wouldn’t have worked out between us. We were too young, anyway.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Maggie wound her skirt between her fingers, exhausted. “Well, I was. End of story.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Dance with me.”

  “What? You’re crazy. No.”

  Jack took her hand. “Listen, forget about Vegas, okay? You’re right. It’s over.” He shrugged. “But here we are, and it’s been a long time, so…why the hell not? One dance between old friends doesn’t have to mean anything. Or make up for anything.” He pulled at his collar and looked uncomfortable.

  “Oh, hell,” Maggie said. “Fine. One dance. Then will you leave me alone?”

  “I promise.”

  It was a mistake from the start, and she knew it.

  In slow motion she watched as his hand wrapped around hers, as if following a memory that hadn’t died but just slumbered for a long, long time. The music swelled, and they slipped into a space on the hardwood. Mingling into the other couples, they found a rhythm, their rhythm, after a moment or two. I didn’t forget how we fit together, Maggie marveled. I didn’t forget how all our edges match up in the right places. And neither did he. Warning bells went off inside her head, but she ignored them. She’d meant what she’d said—it was over, a long time ago—but it was so easy to slip back into Jack’s embrace, even after all these years. So easy to like the way her chest met his. So easy to remember the way his fingers closed around hers and felt like they belonged there always.

  Damn. She lowered her gaze and tried to remind herself what she was doing at the ball in the first place. Dillon, remember? The money. The foreclosure. She counted to ten. She scanned the room, hoping and not hoping to see her stepbrother cross the threshold. But against her will, she leaned into Jack’s embrace and let him carry her to the music. Suddenly, she wondered what moment in the night would be harder: having to leave his arms when she saw her stepbrother, or having to stay there and risk falling back into a place she’d left years ago.

  Her hand shifted on his shoulder. Say something, she thought. Make conversation. Don’t turn to mush like a girl at a high school dance.

  “So what kind of business did you end up in?”

  Jack pulled back slightly, and Maggie found space to breathe. “Well, I came back to the States…” He cleared his throat. “…after Oxford. Got accepted to the MBA program at Boston University and, after that, found a job working for a new company here in town.” He passed over the details without much embellishment. “You?”

  “I opened my own business.”

  His brows rose. “Good for you, Mags.”

  “Well, not so good these days,” she confessed. “I’m in up to my ears in debt.”

  He frowned. “Sorry to hear that. Anything I can do to help?”

  She held her breath. No. Double no. I didn’t care about his money back then. I sure as hell don’t want it now. Jack is the one person I can never, ever, be indebted to.

  “No. But thanks for the offer.”

  “So where are you living? Around Boston?”

  “Small town in Rhode Island.”

  “Nice area.”

  “I know.” She wondered how much longer she could make small talk.

  Jack drew her closer again. His hand tightened around her back, and waves of desire pulsed along Maggie’s spine. Oh, God. I’m in trouble.

  She tried to think of bills she needed to pay or designs she needed to work on. She tried to remember the number of the Bay Bank, the colors of the lilies in her backyard, the price of gas at the pumps. Anything to keep her mind off the fact that being this close to Jack was throwing her into emotional chaos. The song, an endless rendition of “Stairway to Heaven,” carried them around and around, and with every sweep, his strong chest met hers. With every chorus, his chin brushed her forehead and his hand tightened around her own. Maggie tried to remember how to breathe normally and failed. She closed her eyes and willed herself to hold on until the song ended. Then she could leave. She could put some distance between them. She could escape, because apparently her emotions were about to betray her. She could—

  The song ended. Finally.

  “Thank you.” Before Maggie could stop him, Jack had brushed a kiss against her cheek, sliding his mouth down next to hers before pulling away. Ten thousand fireworks went off inside her skull.

  She stepped away like she’d been stung.

  “Ah, Mags.” He shrugged in defeat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. It’s just…” He waved a hand at her, indicating the dress, the hair, her face. “You look terrific. And it’s so damn good to see you again.”

  He ran one hand over his hair, messing it up. “Can we take a walk?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Jack pointed to the arboretum beyond the bar. “Just to talk. Please.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure what to say. This didn’t feel like a good idea. Still, maybe he was right. Maybe getting things out in the open, once and for all, would remove the heavy band from her heart. Maybe she could forget Vegas and everything she’d lost there. Then she could move on. With a wave to Neve, who looked like she was having the time of her life, Maggie followed Jack across the room and through a small door near the restrooms she hadn’t noticed before.

  “Wow.” Inside, a hush met them. Maggie looked around at the glass walls and ceiling. Tall trees arched above them. A variety of small trees and plants grew around them. All were thick with leaves and smelled like the heavy scent of summer. Outside, the rain continued to fall, a still, silent background. On the opposite side of the glass, the ball-goers danced, oblivious. She wandered around the space, not speaking. Jack sat on a bench and cracked his knuckles, the way he used to, she thought, when he was nervous. Or upset.

  After a few minutes, she stopped pacing and sat beside him. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

  He chuckled. “That’s an understatement.”

  Maggie began to wind her hair into a knot.

  “Don’t.” Jack raised a hand to pull her fingers away. “I thought you might have cut it short. You threatened to, you know.”

  “We threatened a lot of things back then.”

  “We were kids.”

  “You make it sound like it was a hundred years ago.”

  “It feels like it was.”

  Is that regret in his voice? she wondered. Sadness? A resignation to the march of time?

  Mere inches separated them, and the fabric of her dress brushed the one hand he pressed to the bench. “I wish things could have turned out differently,” he said, shifting and moving closer to her. “You have no idea how much I missed you after I got to London.”

  Maggie nodded. She looked at her toes, the floor, the collection of flowers by the door. After a long minute, she dared herself to meet his gaze again, to fall into the memories that lay there and return the desire Jack wasn’t bothering to hide. The lights from the ballroom cast shadows inside the arboretum; the music, muted, floated inside.

  “Mags, I…” He stopped. Raised one hand to her face. Ran his thumb across her bottom lip. And kissed her again.

  Noses bumped. Breaths quickened. She pulled away. “I don’t think…”

  But the draw of memory was too strong.

  Jack placed both hands on Maggie’s cheeks, and she gave herself up to him. Their tongues twisted in pleasure, seeking, finding their way, filling hungry spaces between them. She gasped, feeling as if he’d slipped inside her and turned her inside out. One hand made its way from her cheek to her throat, down one bare shoulder and then lower, where it rested on a breast that ached for his touch. Maggie’s toes curled inside her shoes. Nipples rose under the memory of his caresses. She let her hands roam across his face, through his hair, plucking at his lapel and pulling him closer.

  Ten years of lost passion spilled from them both. A whimper escaped her lips as Jack moved his mouth to her earlobe and down one side of her neck. He whispered something into the hollow of her throat, buryi
ng his face in her hair. For a crazy moment, she wanted to tear off her dress, peel away his tuxedo, feel his bare skin against hers and remember the way they’d moved together a hundred times. A monumental ache consumed her.

  And if the door behind them hadn’t opened just then, Maggie was sure she would have lost herself in Jack’s embrace for the rest of the night.

  10:00 p.m.

  A throat cleared. Jack jerked away. His mouth left the smooth skin of Maggie’s neck and his hands fell from where they lay buried in her hair. His mind whirled and the throbbing in his groin prevented him from forming any kind of coherent thought. Shit, he felt like he was sixteen again, caught in his girlfriend’s basement with one hand up her shirt and her mother standing on the stairs. He smoothed one palm over his lapel, not daring to look at Maggie. Whoever it was, whoever stood in the doorway, he’d deal with. He’d think of something to say, or some excuse to make everything all right. He always did.

  Eden. Of course.

  Jack felt the flush rise on his cheeks. Their old college friend leaned just inside the doorway. A knowing expression darkened her smile. She glanced from Jack to Maggie and back again. “Well. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, apparently.” Eden glanced back through the glass. The rest of the partygoers still whirled to the music, fifty feet away and completely unaware.

  Jack felt Maggie inch away from him, trying to put space between them on the narrow concrete bench. He stole a glance her way, in time to watch her tuck her hair behind her ears in a nervous gesture he remembered from years past. He wondered if her heart had slowed at all. His sure hadn’t.

  “Eden, listen.” He wasn’t sure how much she’d seen. Or what she’d tell. He was damn sure she knew about his engagement to Paige, though. The whole city did. He dropped his head, at a loss for what to say. A stranger, he could lie to. A business acquaintance, he could convince to keep quiet. But Eden? Any fib he’d try to tell, she’d look right through him and laugh.

  Jack studied his palms. The bottom line was that he’d screwed up, big time. He wouldn’t blame Eden if she told Paige flat out that she’d caught him with another woman. Most of the women he knew in Boston stuck together that way. They revealed secrets. They told tales and dug in their nails for the hashing and rehashing. A sharp pain stabbed him just below the breastbone. Problem was, Maggie wasn’t just another woman. She was the one who’d gotten away. The one he’d never really recovered from. The one who sat beside him now, waiting for him to speak.