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“Audrey is going to be looking for you.” Mac picked up the fallen tool. She didn’t know what it was for, just that it looked heavy and solid in his hand. “You’ll want to go inside before she finds you and tries to drag you in by your hair.”
“It’s fine,” Maggie said, although he was right. Audrey had a scheduled program of events, and until they’d finished their movies, pedicures, and face masks, she would not have time to talk to Mac, let alone put her whole being on the line.
“Fine,” Mac said. “Have you met Audrey?”
“She knows we’re—”
Maggie wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.She knows we’re dating? We’re lovers? We’re an item?Mac was a very private person. He’d shut down when Cal and Audrey had ribbed them in the kitchen after the best sex of her life. She’d avoided discussing their relationship with anyone else because she knew he wouldn’t like it. She defaulted to the last relationship definition he’d seemed comfortable with.
“She knows we’re friends,” Maggie said. “I didn’t tell her anything, but she won’t think it’s weird that I came to say hi to you.”
Mac’s face had gone pale under his dark beard. His eyes were a cold flash beneath furrowed brows. “You did more than say hi,” he said, and Maggie blushed. “And we aren’t friends.”
That was blatantly ridiculous. Poor, sweet, idiot. Of course they were friends. Possibly best friends. She loved Audrey, always would, but there were some things that she felt the most comfortable sharing with Mac. She trusted him to listen to her, to support her, to care about her. The fact that she was in love with him was a completely separate facet of their relationship. He didn’t have to love her back, not yet, but they were both friends.
“I think we need to talk about what happened the other day.” Maggie tried to catch Mac’s eyes. “I think I made a mistake getting carried away the way I did, and I owe you an apology.”
When his fingertips had been smoothing against her skin, she’d heard him say something about plans and waiting, and her libido had jumped the rails. He’d lit her up like a set of fireworks and Maggie had felt powerless against the pull of his hands and his mouth and his cock.
“Don’t fucking apologize.” Mac’s voice snapped like a whip and Maggie flinched. “Fuck, Maggie.”
Mac raked a hand through his hair and then reached for her. His fingers shook until he clenched them into a fist. Maggie slid her hand over his and squeezed.
“It’s okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice soothing and calm. “You’ve been working a lot. I saw the knives you dropped off at the store. You normally bring them when I’m there, so I know your schedule must be packed.”
“I’m fine.” Mac brought his arms up to wrap loosely around her waist, even as he continued to stare at a spot over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Maggie asked. “Friends support each other, so if there’s anything I can—”
“No thank you,” Mac said and dropped his hands, stepping away from her.
He still wouldn’t look at her, and the burn of unshed tears stung the backs of her eyes.
If he’d shoved his bare hand into her chest cavity and ripped her heart out in his bloodied fist like Mola Ram inThe Temple of Doom, it would have hurt less. Maggie bit back a sound she was certain would have been a sob and tried to blink the tears away, too. At the strangled sound, Mac’s eyes shot to hers, concern bleeding through them before they went blank again.
“What?” she asked, keeping her voice steady through sheer force of will.
“I’m not your friend, Maggie.” Mac’s voice cracked, and his gaze couldn’t stay on hers. “I don’t want to be. I never will be, and I never wanted to be. Got it?”
The tears she was holding on to were teetering on the edge. Mac’s eyes flitted back to her face as one broke free and slid over her cheek. Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie saw Mac clench his hands into white-knuckled fists. She wrapped her arms around her middle as a sort of armor. Another tear joined the first in tracking down her cheeks. Mac stepped closer to her. Maggie stepped back.
“I’m sorry. I wish I’d known how you felt before everything the other night. I wouldn’t have—I thought we liked each other. I thought we were—I don’t—” Maggie blinked back more rapidly forming tears. There was no more heat in her veins. Her blood was ice cold.
“I should have never touched you,” Mac said, eyes closed to avoid looking at her.
That was that, then. No need to stand around dripping tears onto his work boots. There was nothing to talk about, not that Maggie could breathe past the vice squeezing her ribs. Mac was looking at her now. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him over the roaring in her ears. She tried to focus on his mouth to read his lips, but her vision swooped in a dizzying swirl. Her heart beat inside her chest in an aching staccato. Her entire chest hurt with each thud. She tried to swallow, and it was like a mass had lodged in her throat.
Mac turned away from her as if he were shouting something to someone else. Maggie fought through the pain radiating from her heart. Was she dying? This felt like a heart attack.
Audrey’s blonde head appeared in her line of vision, her mouth moving too. Maggie tried to shut her eyes, anything to block out the panic. She felt a warm weight grip her wrist, and long fingers interlace with hers. Maggie lifted her head to look at her best friend.
“Five things you can see,” Audrey said, voice firm, crouched in front of her. When had Maggie ended up on the floor?
One, Audrey’s moss green eyes. Two, the dark spot on the concrete where one of her tears had fallen. Three, the red headphones, thrown over the top of a workbench. Four, the weathered wooden handle of a mallet that lay on the floor. Five, a crumpled yellow sticky note with Mac’s dark handwriting just visible.
“Good girl,” Audrey said. “Four you can feel.”
One, the sweat beading on her bare arms. Two, the scratch of the tag at the neckline of her shirt. Three, the warmth of Audrey’s fingers intertwined with hers. Four, the cool press of the floor against her bare legs.
