Page 49 of I Got You

Going into this, I knew I wanted to help, but I didn’t expect to like spending time with each of these kids.

Garrett’s nerdy side matches the one I keep hidden from the world. Most people just assume I’m a big dumb football player. Teddy and his mischievousness is a glimpse of happiness and joy I’ve not known. I’m getting to do all the things I would’ve never dreamed of as a boy, and the way Maggie allows it and encourages it makes me want to take part even more. Even Hank and I seem to understand each other’s quiet presence. And well, Liv, she had me wrapped around her little finger from day one.

It’s Maggie, and whatever is forming between us, that’s unnerving. After Hank’s game yesterday, it all suddenly started to feel real. First, I told that jackass she was my wife. I said it…out loud. I claimed her as mine, but she’s not. We’re contractually bound together…for now, and that’s it.

Then, when I realized how long she’d gone without an oil change, I was pissed. Then I was pissed that I was pissed. I DO NOT want to care about these things, but I found myself hunched under her hood, changing the oil because I couldn’t stand to think of her stranded on the side of the road.

It’s Maggie. She’s the one that worries me. Keeping my distance is more challenging by the day, and no part of me wants to acknowledge it or even be aware. I want to be a man walking in this unconsciously. I need amnesia, but only when it comes to Maggie.

I don’t want to remember how good she smells or what she looks like first thing in the morning, especially wrapped in a towel. I don’t want to hear her laugh or tease me with all that fire and sass. I want to forget what her blue eyes look like when I know something more is happening behind them that has to do with me.

I want to wake up and have all of these feelings go somewhere other than pressing down on me like I have any clue what I’m supposed to do with them other than run as fast as I can. And that’s not turning out so well with a bum knee.

I was fine, retreating and keeping my distance. I held fast until we sat around the fire, getting cozy with our pasts. When she’d told me about her time in New York and how she’d lost herself, I could hear the devastation and the pain she’d gone through. I know there’s more to that story, and maybe with time, she’ll tell me the rest.

But it was the moment in front of the fire when she held out her hand and declared she’d open a can of whoop-ass for me that I felt a force pull me under. I wanted to kiss her so badly, right then and there. Since our courthouse peck, I’ve only mildly wondered what it would be like to kiss her for real, but at that moment, the wonder became a need. I needed to kiss her and know exactly what a real, deep, desperate kiss with Maggie felt like.

This woman has a way of infiltrating all my closed-off places, takes all of my calm security, and agitates the hell out of it. It’s making it hard to be around her because I don’t know when or how she’ll chip away another piece of my walls that were built and fortified long ago. I’m like an iceberg. Maggie is the sun getting way too close, melting one layer at a time.

“Bye, Shane.” I hear my name, and I snap to. The front door clicks closed, and Maggie walks back in.

“Hey, beauty. Want to get dressed before Gwen gets here?” she asks Liv, who has yet to move since she climbed up.

Liv doesn’t move but burrows in further like she’s trying to hide. “No, Shaney is warm.” I want to smile because Maggie unknowingly said something similar when I tried to wake her this morning.

“Gwen will be here any minute,” Maggie says as the front door opens and closes again. “Speak of an Angel.”

The older woman strolls in, looking like the grandmother I never had. The other morning when I met Gwen for the first time, she moved right to me and hugged me like I imagined she would one of her own children. It was warm and tight and only slightly uncomfortable.

“Well, good morning.” She smiles brightly, moving to hug Maggie, and then turns to look at me. “Prince Charming.”

“I’ve never been accused of being charming,” I say, and she laughs.

“Well, sweetheart, let me be the first.” She winks. “I see you’ve captured a princess again this morning.”

I feel Liv peek out between my arms and giggle.

Gwen turns to Maggie. “Ok, love. What do you need today?”

“I have everything laid out for dinner. Would you mind getting it started this afternoon? I have to help the dance team, so I’ll be a little later today.”

“You got it. I thought Liv and I would make cookies too.”

“Yay,” Liv cheers. “Can we make Snickerdoodles?”

“Well, I suppose. Let’s get you dressed and let Shane get started on his day. We have lots of playing and reading to do today.” Liv hugs me tight for a long second, like a Maggie hug, as if she somehow knows I need it, and then I help her down.

The kitchen is suddenly quiet, and I hear Maggie let out a breath. “Ok. I’ve got to finish getting ready and grab my stuff. I’ll see you later when I meet the dance team.”

“Ok.” I watch her leave the kitchen, knowing I’ll see her later on the field where this whole thing began.

∞∞∞

Walking out on the field, a different kind of anticipation runs through me. Maggie didn’t tell me when she’d be here, but I want to see her. This woman is slowly dissolving my will to stay away from her, but after this morning, I kind of want to let her.

After working out and taking a shower, I went into the kitchen for my keys, and next to them, I found a small black velvet box and a note.

Sorry this is late, but I wanted to give you the option. For when the rest of the world falls away. Maggie

---