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“And you used that word? Friend? Dammit, Maggie!” Audrey groaned andthunkedher blonde head back against the couch several times.
Maggie frowned. Maybe if people would stop cutting her off, they’d know she was going to say friendsand. Friends and more. Friends and lovers. Friends and soulmates.
“We are friends, Audrey.” Maggie spoke slowly, enunciating each word.
“No you aren’t,” Audrey said back, just as slowly. Maggie opened her mouth to protest, but Audrey waved her hand through the air, stopping her. “You’re not friends, Maggie, because Mac is in love with you.”
Maggie felt like she’d been slapped in the face. She’d thought Mac cared about her, at least a little, but his performance today had really thrown a wrench into that assumption. Audrey had to be mistaken, too. If Mac loved her, why hadn’t he said anything? He’d had more than enough opportunities.
“No,” Maggie said. “He doesn’t.”
Audrey rolled her eyes, muttered something that sounded a lot like "fucking dumb ass," and excused herself to the kitchen. She returned with a bottle of butterscotch schnapps and two shot glasses. She also returned with Cal.
“I needed reinforcements,” Audrey said and Cal nodded, taking a seat on the loveseat and cracking open the beer he’d brought with him. Audrey exaggerated the motion of looking from her boyfriend to her best friend, and back again. She cleared her throat.
Cal didn’t seem to notice.
“Tell her,” Audrey said as she poured two shots of honey-brown liquid and slid one in front of Maggie.
Maggie threw back the sugary sweet schnapps, the heat burning down to her stomach. Audrey immediately refilled her glass, but didn’t pressure her to drink it.
“Mac told Cal about how wonderful you were the first day the two of you met,” Audrey said. “We were moving, and you were carrying one of my boxes. You tripped, and Mac watched you slip right down the entire flight of stairs. When you got to the bottom, you first checked to make sure the box full of my stuff was okay, and then you laughed.”
“He talked about your laugh for weeks,” Cal said.
“He wanted to ask questions, but didn’t want to come across as creepy. The day he unknowingly stumbled into Tattered Cover, he came home a completely different man.”
“I thought you told him I worked there,” Maggie said, and Audrey shook her head.
“I wouldn’t do that. What if he’d been a stalker? No offense, baby.” Audrey leaned over to pat Cal’s hand.
He shrugged. “No, that was pure coincidence. He didn’t ask about your schedule, but he was paying attention. He started dropping stuff off while you worked. He didn’t ask about your favorite foods, but he started cooking vegetarian options after the second time you ate here. If I mentioned you were sick, Mac had a container of homemade veggie soup waiting for me to bring to you. If I mentioned you’d had a hard week, then he had a book I should drop off.”
He must have thought of her almost constantly, and yet Audrey never let on.
“He asked me not to say anything,” Audrey said. “He just wanted you taken care of, but he didn’t want to scare you off. I thought it was sweet, and I thought it was possible he had a crush, but then the night you talked to Dean, Cal pulled me aside to tell me that Mac is in love with you.”
“He was pissed that I was thinking of setting you up with my friends,” Cal said. “He wanted me to be sure I picked people who would be respectful and would listen if you said ‘no.’ I wanted you to pick him.”
“We both did,” Audrey smiled reassuringly. “We both kept trying to push you two together.”
“Without being obvious about it.” Cal set his empty beer down on the coffee table.
“And then I started fake dating Dean.”
Cal frowned, glancing between Audrey and Maggie. “Did you say fake?”
Audrey refused to meet Cal’s eyes.
“So my brother has been ripping his own heart out, thinking she was in love with someone else when it was all just a joke?” Cal’s voice was harsher than Maggie had ever heard.
Maggie didn’t think it was a good time to mention that she'd thought she’d been in love too. It wasn’t like she’d gone out of her way to hurt Mac. She’d barely known him. She hadn’t known he was an option to date. She hadn’t known he was interested. She wasn’t sure it would have mattered.
“Nobody was playing a prank, Cal,” Audrey hissed. “Grow up. It’s not Maggie’s fault that Mac didn’t have the balls to say something to her.”
Maggie felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her stomach rolled, displeased with the cookie she’d offered it. A dull throb was starting in her temples. Having Mac’s feelings laid bare in front of hers was a lot to process, and she was feeling a little guilty that it wasn’t Mac who was telling her everything. It felt like an invasion of privacy. The stakes felt too high, like one misstep would send her spiraling down several flights of stairs into a deep, dark abyss.
“Why didn’t he just say something?” Maggie asked, and immediately two sets of eyes flashed to her.
