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One without Maggie Jameson?
No. That was this universe apparently. And that was the reason he was in no mood for still more shit.
Maggie. He’d wanted to call her last night. Make sure she’d gotten home okay. Apologized for?—
For what exactly?
For fucking her against the wall? She hadn’t seemed to mind that part. No, she just didn’t want to do it anymore.
Wanted to keep things simple.
He wanted that too. Simple.
But he lived in the real world where things rarely were. He climbed out of the Jeep and braced himself for whatever Gardner was about to tell him.
“Bad news?” he asked as Gardner nodded a greeting.
“That depends,” Gardner said.
“On what?”
“On whether or not you wanted the world to know that you’re sleeping with Maggie.”
“What. The. Fuck are you talking about?”
Gardner held out the tablet. It was displaying—well, he couldn’t tell if it was a tabloid paper or one of those goddamn Internet gossip sites, but that hardly mattered. What mattered were the three pictures front and center on the page. One of him and Maggie at the football game, caught in a moment when she’d been laughing up at him at something he’d said. Mutual delight plain to see on their faces. Fuck. He thought he’d been careful. Apparently not careful enough. Because above the football picture was another one of him leaving the building where Maggie lived—neatly time-stamped and captioned as nine A.M. on Saturday morning.
Worst of all was the third picture. Which someone must have taken just last night. It showed Maggie walking out of his building. Hair rumpled, lips swollen. She wore dark glasses but there was no denying that she looked like she’d just climbed out of somebody’s—his—bed.
He shifted his focus to the headline. “Has Saint Maggie Lost Her Halo?” He didn’t bother reading whatever inanity the reporter had come up with to go with that. The picture and the words were clear enough. Busted.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He felt the distinct need to hit something. Hard.
“Is Maggie here yet?” He’d told Gardner last night that Maggie was coming back.
“No. I tried her cell but she didn’t pick up.”
Because she was driving, hopefully, not because she’d read this news, turned around, and headed back to the city.
“When did this get published?”
“Only about half an hour ago. Our news search picked it up right away and it was sent through to me.”
“You should’ve called me.”
“I didn’t want you to crash your car.”
“Are Lucas and Mal here?”
This time, Gardner nodded.
“I assume they’ve seen this?”
“They get the news searches for the Saints too,” Gardner said. “They’re waiting in your office.”
Perfect. He glanced back at his Jeep.
“I don’t suppose you want to get my bat out of there and just whack me across the head a few times?”
