I chuckle and decide to be brave. I type it before I lose my nerve.
If it's big enough we could share?
I hit send and immediately want to throw the phone into the field. Too much. Way too much. I stare at the screen, my heart going stupidly fast, and the dots appear, and disappear, and appear again, and I can't breathe until —
Careful, Sloane. Keep talking like that and I won't be responsible for what happens.
I read it about four times. Heat goes through me and I'm grinning at my phone when another message lands.
Goodnight, Sloane. X
I put the phone down on the table, face up, and look at it. Tomorrow, dinner, after work. A shower and a change of clothes and no one else for miles.
I want this. I've thought of it enough times to be sure of that. But underneath the wanting there's a bundle of nerves. I've kissed Maggie twice, and both times my whole body knew exactly what it was doing. But the rest of it? I have no idea. Twenty-eight years of knowing my way around a man and I'm a complete beginner at this. What if I'm clumsy? What if I do it wrong? What if I want it so badly and then freeze the moment it's real?
I almost laugh at myself. Sloane Archer, who has done a great many things she shouldn't have with a great many people she shouldn't have done them with, nervous about spending a night with a woman. But it's different, and the difference is the whole point. The other times never mattered. This one does.
It feels surreal and I wish I could talk to someone. I have about five hundred contacts in my phone, but there's no one I can trust with the biggest, most thrilling thing that has ever happened to me.
I'd like to think I could trust Sita. We've been friends since high school, and she's the only one of them who's shown support through all of this. But could she really keep something this juicy to herself? She turns everything into a story; it's just how she is. And after these past weeks, I'm honestly not sure how close we still are.
Mom — God. My parents aren't backward about these things; they have the right opinions at the right dinner parties, gayfriends they're proud of, all of it. But it's one thing in theory and another thing when it's your daughter suddenly involved with a woman. An animal sanctuary owner in Duster of all places. My mother would need to sit down. And once she'd recovered from that, she'd question Maggie's prospects and quietly decide she was after the family money. Dad wouldn't say much at all, which is worse because I wouldn't know what he was thinking for weeks.
And the rest of them — Nicole, Mel, the whole glittering crowd — I don't even want to think about what they'd do.
There's no one I trust who could understand it, and the truth is it doesn't matter, because I can't tell any of them anyway. This has to stay between Maggie and me. It would cause far too much trouble if it got out — for both of us, especially while I'm still serving my hours.
The field is slowly going dark and somewhere out past the fence a dog barks. The motel's security light buzzes on behind me, throwing my shadow long across the grass. The moths find it within seconds and start their hopeless campaign against the bulb.
The cheese has gone soft and shiny in the heat but it's not like I could even stomach more than a few bites. Is this what a real full-on crush feels like? I read the messages again and obsess over them like I've never been touched in my life. I feel lit up from the inside, quite happy to sit here behind a shitty motel in a shitty town with mosquitoes attacking my legs. Before my sentence I'd have called this rock bottom, but tonight it feels a lot like the opposite.
I gather the crackers and the sweating cheese and the book I didn't read a single page of. I'm going to need a very cold shower.
46
MAGGIE
I'm making pesto because it's the one thing I can't ruin.
Basil from the bed by the back step, garlic, olive oil, parmesan, the lot of it in the blender. There's nothing to time, nothing to burn, nothing that can go wrong and tell Sloane I've lost my mind over her. I went in early and left Luis and Sloane to finish up outside. Really I just needed twenty minutes away from her.
I didn't want to be presumptuous about the towel comment, so I had a quick shower and put on my one good linen shirt and clean denim shorts. Nothing too fancy but I didn't want Luis to notice I'd dressed up and ask questions.
I'm toasting pine nuts in the dry pan to scatter over the top and there's a tomato salad already done and sitting under a cloth. The pasta will go in the water at the last minute. It was the simplest thing I could think of.
The pine nuts are starting to color, so I shake the pan. There's a knock on the doorframe and I nearly drop it.
"Just me." Luis sticks his head in, cap in his hand. "I'm heading off." He sniffs the air and looks at the pan. "Smells good. You're cooking."
"I'm tired. Thought I'd make something proper and have an early night with a book in bed."
"Right," he says. "Early night." He puts his cap on. "Enjoy your book, then. Night, Maggie."
"Night, Luis."
He goes and I listen to his truck start. Then the door opens and Sloane comes in.
She's got dirt up both forearms, hair coming loose. "Hey," she says. "Luis just left."
