Page 38 of Playing for Keeps in Starr's Fall
As she’d woven her way through the sofas in the dark, moonlight slanting through the front window, she’d felt a sense of expectation coil through her. She’d opened the front door, turned to smile at him.
“Well…” she’d begun, and then laughed because she had no idea how to finish that sentence.
“Well,” Zach had repeated. He’d propped his shoulder against the doorframe as he’d narrowed his eyes at her, smiling wryly. “I can’t figure out if you’re trying to pretend we didn’t kiss, or if you’ve decided you’re good with it.”
“I can’t either,” Maggie had admitted, because really, what else could she have said? Her mind had been pinging all over the place, and yet she’d felt happy. Happier than she had in a long, long time.
Zach had cocked his head, his gaze sweeping slowly over. “If you had to say right now, which is it…?” he asked quietly, his gaze now steady on her, a hint of vulnerability in his eyes that had made her ache.
Still Maggie had hesitated. Could she really answer that honestly? Did she even know what she felt? The cautious thing would have been to say she wasn’t sure, and it was just a kiss and they should sleep on it… separately,obviously.
But then some reckless, defiant spark of desire had made her lift her chin. Meet his gaze directly and say with more firmness than she’d thought she’d felt, “I’m good with it.”
For a second Zach had looked startled, and Maggie had known he’d been expecting her to back away as she always did, get in a tizzy and start to stammer excuses. But she was tired of being that way. Of living a half-life because she’d forgotten how to live a full one, or if she was worthy of it after everything that had happened with her husband, her son. Even if the thought of anything happening between them still filled her with terror.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” Zach had murmured, and then he’d leaned in and kissed her again, just a brush of her lips, but it was still enough to set her whole body to tingling. He’d given her one last grin before heading out into the night.
Maggie had practically floated back to her bedroom. She’d thought briefly of calling Lynn and telling her what had happened, but she’d been afraid her sister would only offer warnings and disapproval, and so she hadn’t. The handful of friendships she’d left behind in Greenwich had fizzled since Matt’s death, and the few college friends she still kept in touch with weren’t so up to date with her life that they’d know who she was talking about. They didn’t even know she’d moved to Starr’s Fall. As for her new friends in the town… she definitely wasn’t ready to share that she’d kissed Mr. Extra Spicy.
It would have been easy to fall into the funk of feeling lonely, but for once Maggie held herself from it. This was a secret she could keep to herself for now, she thought, although who knew who might have seen them kissing in the doorway of the café like teenagers. The gossip might be around all of Starr’s Fall by breakfast, but for once she wasn’t going to let herself care. She just wanted to enjoy the moment… even if it didn’t lead anywhere.
“Mom.”
Startled, Maggie pushed her hair out of her face to see Ben standing in the doorway, his face white with anxiety, his lip bitten to shreds, his shoulders hunched, and his hands lost in his sleeves. She scrambled up to a seated position.
“Ben, what is it?”
“Something’s happened,” he said miserably. “I… I’ve been stupid.” He gulped. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Okay.” Maggie forced herself to sound calm even though her heart was pounding, and a dozen worst-case scenarios were flashing through her mind in lightning streaks of panic. What could have possibly happened between ten o’clock last night and eight-thirty this morning? “Let’s go into the kitchen and you can tell me what it is,” she said, and amazingly, she still sounded calm. She reached for her old cardigan and pulled it on, pushed her feet into her fleecy slippers. Ben sniffed, a telling sound, and followed her out to the kitchen.
On autopilot, Maggie filled the kettle and put it on top of the stove. She took a deep breath and turned around. “Tell me what happened, Ben.”
Ben shook his head, his gaze downcast, his voice coming out in ragged gulps. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just somad… and it was meant to be a joke…”
“What was?” Maggie did her best to keep her voice level, but it rose anyway, and she had to take another breath. “Ben, what was?” she asked again, more reasonably.
“It was… a meme. A stupid meme.”
“Ameme?” She needed to back up a few steps. “Can you please start from the beginning?”
The story came out in fits and starts, between gulps and sniffs, all of it news to Maggie. She’d had no idea he was still on the school chat at high school, something which boggled her mind because he’d been so miserable there. Then the geek meme that had gone out yesterday, while Zach had been here, and Ben’s riposte made later that afternoon, a meme with photos of the main architects of his bullying, with the wordbasicunderneath. But her brilliant son hadn’t just sent it on the group chat as the others had done; no, he’d somehow managed to hack the school system and send it as an urgent announcement to every student and staff member, while she, Zach, and Ben had all been eating pizza and enjoying each other’s company. And as of this morning the school was involved, and potentially the police due to the hacking, and it was a huge mess, much bigger than the original crime.
“Ben,why?” Maggie asked helplessly, knowing it was a pointless question and yet unable to keep herself from it.
“I just… I just wanted todosomething. They get away with so much?—”
“But that’s in the past,” Maggie cut across him, caught between a desperate sadness and an exasperation that could, if she let it, tip over into rage. How could Ben have been so foolish as to revisit all those old hurts, pick at them till they bled? “We came to Starr’s Fall for a new start?—”
“Iknow,” he moaned, grabbing and pulling at his hair. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m really sorry. Am I in big trouble? Will I go to jail? Someone said hacking the email system is, like, a major crime?—”
“No, you will not go to jail.” Although you did hear about people being imprisoned for something they’d posted on social media, Maggie reflected with an inward shudder. Still, she had spoken extensively with the principal and student counselor back when the bullying had been at its peak. They had been compassionate… to a point. She would have to call on the remnant of that compassion now, and hope that the most Ben was facing was a stern talking-to.
“I’ll call the principal this morning,” she said wearily. “After I’ve had coffee. But we’ve got to agree, Ben, that you are not going to go back there, not mentally, and not online, either. I want you off that group chat, and any other social media of the school. You wanted to leave, so leave. In every way.” She managed a small smile as she tousled his hair. “Okay?”
Ben nodded, sniffing. “Okay.”
“It’s going to be all right,” Maggie told him gently. “I promise.” The kettle began to shrill, and she took it off the stove to make coffee. “I’m just surprised you’d do something like this,” she remarked honestly. “You managed to avoid hitting back at them all year, and then onememe…”
