Nolan spoke so fast I had to stop him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, holding my hands up. “You’re talking too fast. Take a breath, man, and start over.”
I was still trying to wrap my head around what he’d first said. Skipping the taking-a-breath part, Nolan went on a little slower but just as urgently. “Her mom lied about a whole lot of shit. Kept so much from her it has her completely confused, but she still hasn’t questioned her mom because she’s trying to gather more evidence of what she suspects. She told me all this yesterday. It’s why when I saw the engagement post today I immediately called her on it. How could she be getting engaged if she still doesn’t know for sure if you two are soul mates?”
That last part sucked the air out of me, but I refused to get my hopes up. Every time I did, that tiny voice of reason in the back of my head cleared its throat and reminded me about the physical proof that she wasn’t Madeline. Nolan reeled off, too fired up to let any of us get a word in. I listened silently along with my other stunned brothers as he went on.
He told us about how she basically waved off the engagement, saying her ex had given her a birthday gift, and she had no idea why he’d posted it to look like an engagement ring. But she assured him it wasn’t. “She was more into talking about the bigger issue on her mind. Even got emotional about it because she’s really starting to believe it.”
Instinct had me reaching for my phone, but I stopped short of calling her. I needed more than just a hunch. The fact that Maggie had gotten emotional about this was enough to make the idea a bit more credible. The two of us couldn’t be that screwed up, could we? And now Nolan standing here talking about this so anxiously, like maybe he believed it too, at least gave me hope that Maggie and I weren’t just losing our minds.
My other two brothers hadn’t said a word, but their silence spoke volumes. Their heads, too, were likely spinning, trying to make sense of this. But someone had to be reasonable here. This just wasn’t possible.
“She’s been through a lot, Nolan. This weekend took a lot from both of us—”
“She had a dream,” he said with conviction.
“Dreams,” I retorted right back. “More than one. She told me about them.”
“No.” He waved his finger at me adamantly. “She told me about those too. She didn’t understand those. This one’s different. She said she dreamed of the night you two met. The night she—Madeline—asked you to talk to me about not embarrassing her sister Maggie. She knew the whole thing about how she said your junk kept getting bigger. That wasn’t a dream, Nico. It was a fucking memory.”
Quino and Xavier laughed, and I was sure they remembered me telling them the story on more than one occasion and knew perfectly well she hadn’t been talking about my junk. But I was too concerned with something else now to clear that up.
“When’s the last time you talked to her?” I asked, bringing the phone to my ear after calling Maggie’s number.
“Over an hour ago.”
I hung up when my call went to voicemail and thought about texting her but had to think of what to say—ask.
“That post, Nico. The Facebook engagement she said she didn’t know anything about. I’ve been following it, and even her friends have commented. Just before I left to come here, someone asked if they’d set a date, and he keeps answering like this is absolutely happening.”
“They set a date?” I tried her number again then grabbed my wallet as Nolan explained that they hadn’t.
“He’s the only one responding to the comments. Not her, but he said he’d keep everyone updated. Who does that? Who posts something that huge if it’s not true.”
I frowned when Maggie didn’t answer again. “Fuck, she’s not answering.”
“I have her address,” Nolan said, scrolling through his phone. “A few weeks ago, I remembered I still had a couple of Maggie’s things I’d kept all this time. I offered to ship them to her, so she gave it to me.”
Staring at the phone screen he held out for me, I read the address in the text message from Maggie to him. “Denton?” I asked, racking my brain. “That’s almost two hours away.”
“Maybe if you haven’t heard from her by tomorrow—”
“I did something,” Nolan interrupted Xavier before he could finish.
We all stared at him in question. “Did what?’ I asked.
“I’ve been following the engagement post,” he began.
Speaking almost as fast as when he first burst into the shop, he explained about Maggie sounding annoyed by Ryan’s post. How according to her it was bullshit, and yet the guy continued to answer everyone’s questions as if it were absolutely true. So after she didn’t respond to Nolan’s texts and calls where he’d warned her he could get petty, he did.
He tapped at his screen as I waited anxiously to see what his dumb ass had done. The pain in my chest was almost unbearable when he turned the screen so I could see a photo of Maddie and me sitting on my bike, taken just weeks before she was killed. It was one of the last I’d posted on my social media before the accident. In it, she sat backwards so we were facing each other. She looked as beautiful as ever. We were staring at each other with the same almost disgustingly adoring gazes on our faces. I was still completely sucked in by the photo when he went on.
“I posted on my wall but tagged the douche,” he said as my eyes went wide. “And look at the caption.”
I glanced back at it. Xavier, who was leaning in to read it too, read it out loud. “Is this engagement with Ryan some kind of joke? Does he know you spent this past weekend with the guy you really belong to?”
Xavier chuckled as Quino leaned in and squeezed in between Xavier and me to check it out. “Oh fuck, Nolan. You better hope this insanity is true, or you just got her in deep shit.”
“She’s not with him anymore,” Nolan protested.
“Scroll down,” Xavier said. “I wanna see what he responded.”
“He didn’t. That’s a screenshot,” Nolan explained. “I just wanted him to see it. Only after too many of his friends and family members started commenting on it and getting all belligerent, I deleted it. But it was up for a while. I almost reposted it when the fucker sent me a private message calling me a punk ass.”
He had our attention now, and none of us were chuckling. Nolan shook his head. “Either he was drunk or can’t spell for shit. His message was all over the place like the ramblings of an enraged drunk. I’m telling you—”
“Text me that address,” I said, grabbing my keys, already headed to the door. “I’m not waiting until tomorrow to talk to her.”
I didn’t even bother telling them to stay put. I could already hear them scrambling to grab their shit and come after me, but they weren’t stopping me. At least they had the sense not to try. “The address, Nolan,” I barked as I jumped on my bike outside the shop, and Xavier and Quino worked fast to lock the shop up.
He was already racing toward his bike as he scrolled through his phone. In the next second, the envelope with the forwarded text popped up on my screen. I tapped it into the navigation app on my phone and squeezed it into my handlebar phone mount as my brothers articulated their loving words of wisdom and heeded warnings.
“Calm your ass.”
“Don’t drive like an idiot.”
“Remember we’re all following you,” Xavier cautioned, knowing full well this one would likely be the only warning I’d be taking seriously. “We’ll be right behind you. So whatever stupid maneuvers you make, we’ll be making them with you.”
Fuck me.
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, I’d for sure have to slow my shit down and be careful. No surprise, even with me exceeding the speed limit more than a few times, the almost two-hour ride felt like it took an eternity. Every moment that passed and we got closer to Denton, my heart felt that much closer to exploding.
Could this really be happening or was I setting myself up for a devastating disappointment? If this was all crazy talk, what the fuck was I going to do about my feelings for Maggie? Because there was no denying it now. I was definitely feeling more for her than just confusion and misguided longing. I exited the highway where the navigation said I should and knew I was just blocks away from her now. I was literally doing maternity breathing now.
My insides felt like I was about to jump out of a plane. I felt ready to lose my mind. It didn’t even matter if she was Madeline or Maggie now. I’d be a million times happier—a man who’d never complain for the rest of his life—if she was Madeline. But the closer I got, I knew, even if she really was just Maggie, my new struggle from this day forward would be staying away.
I turned the corner as the voice on the navigation app informed me that in one quarter of a mile I’d reach my destination. Halfway down the block, I could see two people standing just at the bottom of the doorstep of one of the homes. As I got closer, I could see it was a guy and a girl who appeared to be arguing.
As the app announced I’d reached my destination on my right, I saw it was Maggie with some dude holding onto her arm as she struggled to break free, and then Loretta walked out of the front door, wielding a bat and demanding he let Maggie go.
I rode right up the driveway and onto the lawn. I didn’t even remember turning off my bike or jumping off it. All I remembered was the startled look on the asshole’s face when I walked up and landed the most satisfying punch I’d ever dropped on anyone.
Next thing I knew, he was sprawled out cold on her lawn and I was surrounded by my brothers asking what happened. Apparently, they’d been about a block behind me and missed my grand entrance. So I explained it as simply as I could. “I clocked him.”
That’s when another dude arrived to help the guy up and apologized profusely for the drunk guy’s ass. It wasn’t until I heard Maggie tell the guy helping drunk ass out that he’d attacked her that I broke out of my trance of staring at her so I could lunge at drunk’s ass again.
My brothers were quick to jump in front of me while the guy dragged the drunk away. “Not worth it,” Quino said, holding on to the front of my shirt with one hand and my arm with the other.
With my two other brothers manning my other arm and forcing me back, there was no way I’d be getting even a step closer to the asshole. Still, the adrenaline pumping through my veins was a living thing, and I continued to fight to free myself . “He attacked you?” I asked Maggie.
Maggie shook her head and spoke quickly. “That’s Ryan and that’s his brother. She motioned to the guy I’d knocked out first then the guy who approached. “I’ll explain later.” She turned to Ryan’s brother again, handing him a small gift bag. “Make sure he gets this. I don’t want him to have any reason to come here ever again.”
She turned to me with the strangest twinkle in her eyes, despite her still anxious demeanor, and nodded. “Yes, my ex.”
Even hearing her call him that didn’t calm my still too pumped adrenaline. “The one who posted that you two are engaged?”
This time she nodded, but before my heart could crumble, she added, “We’re not.”
“His post said you said yes, Maggie. And you accepted his ring.”
She shook her head, but that twinkle in her eyes was clouded by her flooding eyes, and she did that thing I’d seen Madeline do on several occasions when she’d become overcome with emotion. Her sweet little brows pinched together as she squeaked out words I couldn’t even begin to understand. “I’m not Maggie.”
Already, I could barely breathe, but I couldn’t get ahead of myself here. I had to think straight. One of us had to. Inevitably, my eyes fell to her neck because as much as I’d give anything for this to be true, it just couldn’t be, and I shook my head. “Nolan told me it’s what you were thinking, but the birthmark—”
“I had the birthmark removed a few years ago, Nico,” she said as the emotion gave way and she cried into her hand before saying the next part. “Maggie died in the accident, not me.”