Once we’re in the other room, I whisper, “Johnny’s funny. You two must’ve gotten in a lot of trouble over the past few years.”
“Too many times to count.” Michael looks around the living room, which has boxes stacked in every corner. I’m guessing some of the guys are moving out. “Wanna sit by the pool? We’re less likely to be interrupted there.”
“Sure.” I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts. I almost threw up on the way over here, and I don’t think that was from the baby. Michael makes me nervous, like there are crazy-ass butterflies doing a samba in my belly.
The backyard looks straight out of one of those frat movies. A huge yard and pool. A jacuzzi. An enormous grill. My eyes go back to the jacuzzi as thoughts of our night together barrage my mind.
Michael leads me to a bench under an oak tree. Deliberately, I turn away from the jacuzzi. It’s hard enough to focus around this man.
“I thought we should clear the air.” I glance down at my hands. “Talk about your sister’s wedding and the fallout after. And… I think I should tell you all the shit I’ve done to get back at you after what happened with Luke in high school. I’m not proud of myself. I get, uh, impulsive sometimes, like how I ended up with all those holes in my house, and it seems like you’re on the receiving end of that. Well, you and my sheetrock. I just want to start this”—I wave at my stomach—“with a fresh slate. If you’re amenable.”
I finally look up at him, and he gives me that soft smile that makes me want to crawl into his lap. “That’s a great idea.”
“Can we start at the beginning? I feel kinda dumb going this far back, but if I could understand this better, maybe it would help me make sense of why you always set me off in high school.”
He balances his elbows on his knees. “It’s not dumb. Say what you want to say. You and I have always danced around shit. It’s never worked out well for us.”
“Exactly.” I wipe my palms again on my shorts and swallow past the surge of nausea. “Can I ask why you told Luke all that shit about me? You and I have yelled at each other about it, but we’ve never sat down to discuss it like rational adults. Back then, I thought you and I were friends, good friends even when we were younger. It was really crushing to hear all those things you said.”
His brows furrow. “Luke always swore he never told you what happened.”
“He didn’t. I overheard. I have a tendency to overhear things I shouldn’t. That night, I was wedged behind his nasty couch because I had to get my dad’s sweatshirt back. You guys returned before I could hightail it out of there, so I hid while y’all ate pizza and snuck Luke’s dad’s beer stash.”
“Fuck.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve apologized in the past for this, but that was a really shitty thing for me to do.”
“You yelled an apology. Well, after I yelled at you.”
He winces. “Yeah, not my best moment.” Shaking his head, he places his hand over his chest. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I had no business meddling in your relationship with Luke. I’ve worked hard to not be so black and white in my decision-making, except back then I was wound tight. I was surprised to hear you were going out with someone behind Luke’s back, but I thought he had a right to know. I was following my conscience.”
Silence grows between us. “I’m not going to lie—hearing that you thought I could cheat on someone was really devastating. I wish you had just asked me what was going on.” I clear my throat. “Before you and Bash started high school, you promised we’d always be friends, promised you’d have my back. It was crushing to find out you didn’t mean that.”
“God, I was an ass. You’re right. That’s exactly what I should’ve done. Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I get why you embarked on a campaign of retribution.”
Somehow, that makes me laugh. “I wanted to make you cry uncle.”
“When my truck reeked like tuna for the entire summer, there might have been some stinging eyes. Torture I totally deserved.”
“Wait.” I squint at him. “Weren’t you the one who suggested Ben fake-date Sienna? How was that being honest?” I overheard Ben and Sienna discussing it once.
“That was different. Ben’s ex, Janelle, had already lied to him for years about their kid. In that case, turnabout was fair play. Ben needed to protect himself, and I figured pretending to date Sienna would give him the barrier he needed with Janelle.”
“That… actually makes sense.”
He smiles at me, and a strange, peaceful sensation settles in me, one I haven’t felt in a long time. Not since my family lived in El Paso and my dad was alive.
He coughs. “Luke ended up being an idiot, so I’m not going to apologize for everything.”
“So you’re saying you ended up protecting me?”
“I’m saying at least he cheated on someone else and not you.” That does shed light on things. “Plus, he violated bro code. Bash made us all promise not to make a move on you. He said you’d gone through a lot after your dad died, which I knew, and we were all horn dogs. Luke was the worst. But Bash once told me how he sat with your dad in the hospital, and your dad made Bash swear he’d always look out for you and Frannie and protect you. I knew how seriously he took that.”
Looking down at my lap, I think back to that horrible time. “My mom stopped letting me see Daddy because I’d started getting nightmares about him dying, but I wish I could’ve visited him more before he passed.”
“Pancreatic cancer, right?”
“Yeah. It all happened really fast. One day we were a happy family barbecuing in the backyard, and the next we were packing up everything we owned and moving to Heartland because Dad was gone.”
Michael wraps his arm around my shoulders, and I sink into his embrace. “Since we’re laying everything on the table, I should probably confess that once you started dating Luke, I realized I’d lost my chance with you, and it pissed me off. Granted, at the time, I didn’t know I was feeling jealousy. I just knew I hated seeing you with him.”
