Sam
If I’d thought listening to Maggie take a shower in the next room had been hard on me—literally—the next two hours were the longest of my life.
We lay just an arm’s length apart as we watched some mindless movie starring Will Ferrell. Or, at least she did. I just pretended to watch it as my brain ran until there was nothing left in it but fumes.
Did she really mean that brother-sister thing?
And, if she did, then why had she been giving me looks I could only describe as hungry as the night had progressed?
Whatever the case, things were suddenly markedly different between us and I had no clue how to fix it.
Moreover, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to. Throwing my name in the ring could only complicate things. And eventually, Maggie was going to get over the anger and humiliation over what happened with Trevor and then she was going to find someone new. I honestly wasn’t sure I could stand by and watch it again. Watch some other guy sit around like a lump of shit while I made her smile and then watched as she went home with him.
I raked a frustrated hand through my hair and groaned.
The guys were always breaking my balls about her. About how I should just stop dicking around and make a move, but I wasn’t so sure.
“I mean, we could be brother and sister.”
“Fuck,” I snarled and launched myself off the bed.
* * * *
After what I’d dubbed in my head as “Awkward Movie Night,” I’d eventually fallen into a fitful sleep, resolving to clear the air between us ASAP, but as soon as the sun rose the next day, she was up and out, on her way to the spa. Which, I supposed, was for the best. What if I was reading into all this? So what if a couple friends and a stranger thought we should be together? If I made a move and she didn’t feel the same, talk about awkward.
I could lose her altogether.
Before, it had always been easier to resist her and look but not touch. She belonged to someone else… She claimed she was happy with someone else.
But lately, it had been tougher and tougher. And now?
Now I felt like a cat with a ball of yarn dangling over my face, close enough to touch but still just out of reach. The timing still wasn’t right, and even if it was, I had no idea if Maggie was capable of feeling about me the way I did about her.
And yet I couldn’t wipe her from my mind.
As I downed a quick breakfast and hit the slopes with Jeremy and Peter, my thoughts turned to that bastard Trevor. What an ass he had been for doing what he’d done to her. How, if I was with Maggie, I’d cherish her forever. And most of all? What she’d said about it.
That she didn’t miss him, wasn’t heartbroken over him.
So did that mean she was willing to entertain the idea of someone new? She hadn’t said any of the “time for rebirth and finding herself” things I’d expected. In fact, when it came to her love life, she hadn’t said much at all.
Conflicted as ever, I tore down to the bottom of the slope a little faster than I should have and skidded to a halt just in time to cover Peter and Jeremy with a fresh wave of powder.
They dusted themselves off, glaring at me, and then I nodded toward the lifts.
“Want to try someplace new?” I said. “I’d be down to hit a black diamond over on—”
“Hang on,” Peter said. “Now that we’re finally just all guys here, there’s something Jer and I have been wanting to talk to you about.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, wary as I yanked one glove off with my teeth. How did I already know I didn’t want to hear it?
“Yeah.” Jeremy nodded. “What’s the fucking deal with Maggie?”
I frowned. “What do you mean ‘what’s the deal?’ I told you guys I didn’t want her to be alone for New Year’s so I invited her. She said no and then her relationship hit the skids and I didn’t want her sitting home and wallowing. That’s the whole story.”
“Right, that’s what you told us,” Peter said with a short laugh as he tugged off his goggles and stared at me. “But we’ve been around the block a time or two and we’re not buying the shit you’re selling anymore.”
“I don’t get what you mean,” I said, playing dumb and wishing I had a stick to throw to distract them.
“Maggie,” Jeremy said. “You’ve been in love with her for years and Peter and I want to know what you plan to do about it now that she’s single.”
“What?” I faked misunderstanding because, seriously, them guessing at the depth of my feeling for Maggie was one thing. If they had confirmation?
I’d never get a moment’s rest from their badgering.
“Look, guys, I know you want this to be like some Kate Hudson rom-com so you can say you called it years ago, but she’s just my friend.”
“Which is why you keep checking your phone every five seconds to see if she’s looking for you?” Peter raised his eyebrows.
“She just got dumped. I don’t want to ditch her,” I argued. That was rational, wasn’t it? She was my guest; I had to make sure she was taken care of.
It was what anyone would have done.
“So you’re telling us that you’re not thrilled she’s single?” Jeremy pressed.
I pulled my cap tighter on my head, making sure to cover my ears. “I’m never happy to see my friends hurt. He cheated on her. It was a shitty thing to do.”
Peter and Jeremy exchanged a significant look and then blew out matching heavy sighs.
“What?” I demanded.
“Look, Sam, you’re our friend but we have to give it to you straight. You’re pussy whipped,” Jeremy said as Peter nodded beside him. “And that’s not easy to do when you’re not even getting the actual pussy. Now that Maggie is finally single, you need to find a way to hook up with her or get rid of her all together. You can’t be living your life waiting around for her to notice you. It’s pathetic.”
“Super sad,” Peter agreed, absently swiping the snow from his pants.
“I’m not fucking doing that,” I said. “She’s my friend, that’s all.”
Peter gave me a slow nod. “Right, so you won’t have a problem with the New Year’s plans we’re making, then?”
“Well, I want to—”
“Check with Maggie first,” they finished for me in stereo and Jeremy guffawed.
“You need to do some soul searching, bro. We’ll meet you on Daring Cliff, okay?” They trudged toward the ski lift before I got the chance to argue and I watched them, thinking over everything they’d said.
Were my feelings for Maggie really that obvious? Was I really so transparent?
I hoped not. If Maggie had even an inkling of the things I’d been thinking about in the shower this morning? If she knew the way I’d imagined her there with me, naked in my arms as I lathered the lavender hotel shower gel over her stiff nipples and watched the sudsy water roll over her tight, lean body...
My cock twitched again at the thought and I swallowed hard before following my friends to the ski lift.
Every word they’d said had been right. Ever since the first moment I’d met Maggie in college—two weeks after the start of her ill-fated relationship with Trevor—I knew she was the one for me.
I’d been sitting behind her in Spanish class and she was scrawling her name over and over on the folder of her notebook in a million different fonts. I’d thought she was an art major and I’d craned to get a better look.
“I can take a picture if it’s easier for you,” she’d said without turning around.
It took me a moment to even realize she’d been talking to me.
“What?” I’d asked.
“You’re a looky-lou.” This time she turned, treating me to the smell of her ocean breeze perfume.
“No, I was just...”
“Trying to cheat? I should warn you, I’m not a good person to cheat off of. I can only say my name.”
“Which is?”
“Me llamo Maggie,” she said in the thickest American accent she could muster.
I grinned. “Me llamo Sam.”
“So, Sam, you want to take a picture? It lasts longer.”
For weeks afterward she teased me about me watching her, but I was transfixed by her drawings. It wasn’t just her name, either. In the middle of lectures, I would find my gaze wandering down her notebook where she was sketching little songbirds in withered tree branches or cupcakes with a thousand sprinkles.
I could never understand what she got from me in return, but every day at the end of the lecture she would rip out her drawing and hand it to me.
“For you,” she’d say and I would tuck it in my own folder, sure that Spanish was the best class I’d ever fail in my life.
From there, everything flowed naturally. I asked her about her drawings, and then her life, and then—when we realized we were both flailing for our lives in class—we studied together, too. We just fit together. We always had.
Like we were fated to be.
I reached the ski lift and hopped on, still deep in my thoughts.
My friends could say what they wanted, but with Maggie this wasn’t just about sex. I wanted more from her than that.
I wanted everything. And if I was going to do this?
I was going to do it all the way.