Page 55 of Inevitable Love
Her eyes search my face. I don’t want to think too much about the longing I see in the depths of hers, pleading with me to have some kind of reaction. Eventually, she breaks the connection, looking at the ground as she shakes her head.
“Unbelievable.” When she meets my gaze again, gone is the sadness and longing, replaced by an icy cold that is so far removed from the Maggie I know that it twists the knife even more.
“Screw you, Jackson. For making me fall for you. For not being the man I thought you were.”
Gravel crunches as she spins away, scraping across my heart like it’s just gouged those sexy shoes. How is it possible that mere hours ago, I was balls deep inside her, and now I’m watching her walk out of my life?
But it’s better this way. In time, she’ll see that it’s better this way.
Maggie
“Sorry I popped out for a few,” I tell the girl who’s been assigned to be my helper this evening. Keisha? Tasha? She’s a lovely girl, with the sweetest Southern twang and the nicest manners I’ve experienced in a while, and I hate that I can’t remember her name. But honestly, this whole evening has been such a whirlwind of events, I’m doing good to remember my own at this point. “Everything still going okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. Nothing other than people stopping by to see if any more treats have been left out. Once they leave this station, they head to the cash bar, though. So I’m guessing they aren’t too mad that we ran out.”
“Maggie!” Alice calls my name before I can answer. “There you are. Oh, and LaTisha, we’re ready to begin breaking down. You remember your team?”
LaTisha—I make a mental note to remember her name this time—nods and skitters away. “Sweet girl. Hard worker.” Alice nods in approval after her staffer.
“She’s been great. I’d love to have her come help me out in the shop sometime,” I say, trying to act like I haven’t just come back from sneaking out of the reunion to yell at her brother.
Like I conjured her perusal, Alice stops long enough to give me a once-over and a hard look. “Are you okay?”
I offer the fakest smile I can muster. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.” I have no idea if she knows if Jackson bailed already, but I don’t want to ruin her night if she doesn’t. But then again, if I were in her shoes, I’d want to know.
“Alice, Jackson left.”
She freezes at the news, but that’s the only reaction I get. Then her attention returns to the event room, and she scans the crowd, no doubt monitoring that all her little minions are completing their tasks. But she’s nodding too much, deflecting her emotions just like her emotionally stunted brother does. “We’re in the home stretch. Cash bar closes in a half hour, and then we have another half hour to finish breaking down and cleaning up. And then we celebrate.”
Damn Jackson for being such a selfish little shit. My plan is to nurse this Big Mad for as long as possible to avoid the inevitable heartbreak that’s waiting for me on the other side.
“So, um… about earlier…” Alice starts.
“Nope.” I shake my head. “Not gonna talk about it.” I can’t right now. Especially when I’m terrified ofboth her reaction to walking in on us, postcoital, and knowing he bailed without saying goodbye.
“I was just going to say that you and Jackson make a cute couple, and you look so happy when you’re together.”Oh god. She didn’t just go there. “I’ve been thinking about it all evening. Not the walking in on you part, but all the times you’ve been together and how happy you both seem to be.” Yep. The Big Mad has officially fizzled, and now my heart is cracking wide open, because he does make me happy. Or he did. “I guess I’m just scarred by the one who came before you. But really, I think you guys would be perfect together.”
LaTisha comes running up with a worried look on her face, and before I can get a word in, Alice is following her to a group of catering staff huddled in the corner, acting like they don’t know what to do.
I’m waiting in my car when Alice finally comes out. She sees me and stutter-steps for a beat before she joins me.
“I’ve been trying to call Jackson all night, but it’s going to voicemail. I wanted to check on him after that video.” She doesn’t give me time to answer before she shrugs and dives immediately into a rundown of the good and bad elements of the event, already making notes about what could’ve gone better. I listen and drive, letting her have her wind-down space.
But once we get home and we’ve had a chance to change out of party clothes, we meet on the couch for a glass of wine, and she asks what happened with her brother again. I can’t stall any longer.
“He left right after the memorial. I ducked out for a minute and sort of chased him back to his apartment. He was packing his bags into his Jeep like he was leaving tonight. Not tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Disappointment pulls her shoulders down andweighs on the corners of her mouth. It’s so hard to sit and watch the light in her eyes dim. I take her hand and give it a little squeeze. As much as Jackson hurt me with his disappearing act, seeing Alice’s heart break, too, is almost as bad.
“If it makes you feel any better, I gave him a piece of my mind.”
“Youdid?” I don’t like her emphasis on that word. Like the idea of me telling someone off is a foreign concept. “I should’ve known I’d missed my chance.”
Wait. I feel like we are having two different conversations.
“Missed your chance for what?”
She takes a slug of her wine and watches it swirl as she lowers the glass. “To introduce him to Stella, my girlfriend.”
