Fuck.
Maeve says something I don’t catch as there’s still considerable noise from chatter and movement around us, all echoing in the tall space.
“What did you say?” I ask into her ear.
She pulls back and lifts her head up to look at me.
“I said, I fucking missed you, which annoys me more than I can explain.”
I laugh softly at this. “I fucking missed you too which, yeah, annoys me too.”
“Well, at least we’re even,” she says, and much to my dismay she untangles herself from me completely.
“There’s an afterparty now,” she says looking around us briefly. “In a bar just down the street. I don’t have to go. I’ve already got lots of content that I can post later today or even tomorrow. But if you want to go…”
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to have my first few hours with Maeve in weeks to be in some busy bar where I have to do small talk with these painfully stylish and devastatingly beautiful people.
“You know, I don’t really want to go,” Maeve says before I can reply. “I’m still on Dublin time and I want to get this caked-on make-up off my face properly.”
“So back to your hotel?” I suggest.
“Yeah,” she says and pulls her phone out of her back pocket. “I’ll get us a taxi and then go grab all my stuff from backstage.”
“No, I’ll get the taxi.” I reach for her hand to stop her swiping and typing. “You go get your stuff.”
“Okay,” she says and tucks her phone away with the hand that’s not now linking with mine. She squeezes my fingers, looks down at where our palms touch, and then she lets go and walks away. I curl my fingers into a fist as if to keep hold of the heat she just took away from my skin.
Fuck.
I am so fucked.
*****
Maeve in a rehashed Santa blazer is hot. Maeve in her jeans and a T-shirt is smoking hot. But Maeve in a pair of red and white plaid pyjamas, the make-up gone from her face and her hair all messily gathered on top of her head, that’s like molten lava. And I know exactly what’s at the source of me feeling this way. It’s because she’s relaxed. It’s because she’s peeled off some of the layers that make her MaeBae. It’s because she’s no longer that woman who ran away from me down a hotel corridor because she didn’t want me to see her without make-up. She’s a woman who thinks nothing of me seeing her naked, but not in the literal sense. She likes me seeing her just as she is.
I’m pretty sure a therapist would have a field day with it, but I have always found making people feel safe and seen so fucking sexy. Or maybe it’s because that’s how I like to be too. I like to be safe and seen as well.
So, is that what this is about? Does Maeve make me feel safe and seen?
There’s no time to contemplate this at any great length because Maeve is hitting my knee with the room service menu.
“Answer me, Loncey, what do you want? Because I’m so fecking hungry I’m about to eat your left foot.”
“I wouldn’t do that. My right one is way tastier.” I wiggle my socked feet.
“Would you just tell me what you want to eat.” Maeve hits me again with the menu, this time around the back of my head.
We’re sitting side by side on the bed. Maeve told me to make myself comfortable while she showered and got changed, so I sat down on the side I slept on when she was in my bed, and I got out my phone and replied to some DMs and comments on my MyFans account.
“Just get me the chicken Caesar salad.”
“Don’t you want to look at the menu?” Maeve frowns at me. “That’s probably not even on there.”
“It will be on there.”
“How do you even—” She looks at the menu. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll order you a chicken Caesar salad.”
“Thank you, Maeve,” I say a little pretentiously.
