Maybe Someday (27 page)

His eyes are fixed on my mouth, and he quietly swallows, then reaches beside him and picks up his phone.

Ridge: Hurry, Syd. I need a serious flaw, and I need it now.

I force a smile, although my insides are screaming for me not to text him back a flaw. It’s as if my fingers are fighting with themselves as they fly over the screen in front of me.

Me: Sometimes when I’m frustrated with you, I wait until you look away, and then I yell mean things at you.

He laughs, then looks back up at me. “Thank you,” he silently mouths.

It’s the first time he’s ever mouthed words, and if he weren’t walking away from me right now, I’d be begging for him to do it again.

Heart 1.

Sydney 0.

• • •

It’s after midnight, but we finally finish adding icing to the fifth and final cake. He cleans the last of the ingredients off the counter while I secure the Saran wrap around the cake pan and slide it next to the other four pans.

Ridge: Do I finally get to meet the raging alcoholic side of you tomorrow night?

Me: I’m thinking you just might.

He grins and flips off the kitchen light. I walk to the living room to power off the TV. Warren and Bridgette should come home sometime in the next hour, so I leave the lamp on in the living room.

Ridge: Will it be weird for you?

Me: Being drunk? Nope. I’m pretty good at it.

Ridge: No. I mean Maggie.

I look up at him where he’s standing in front of his bedroom door, watching his phone, not making eye contact with me. He looks nervous that he even asked the question.

Me: Don’t worry about me, Ridge.

Ridge: Can’t help it. I feel like I’ve put you in an awkward situation.

Me: You haven’t. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would help if you weren’t so attractive, but I’m hoping Brennan looks a lot like you. That way, when you’re shacking up with Maggie tomorrow night, I can have drunk, wild fun with your little brother.

I hit send, then immediately gasp. What the hell was I thinking? That wasn’t funny. It was
supposed
to be funny, but it’s after midnight, and I’m never funny after midnight.

Shit.

Ridge is still looking down at the screen on his phone. His jaw twitches, and he shakes his head slightly, then looks up at me as if I’ve just shot him through the heart. He drops his arm and runs his free hand through his hair, then turns to walk to his room.

I. Suck.

I rush to him and put my hand on his shoulder, urging him to turn back around. He rolls his shoulder to brush my hand off but pauses, only partially turning to face me with a guarded expression. I step around to his front so he’s forced to look at me.

“I was kidding,” I say, slowly and very seriously. “I’m sorry.”

His face is still tense and hard and even a little disappointed, but he lifts his phone and begins texting again.

Ridge: And therein lies the problem, Sydney. You should be able to screw whoever you want to screw, and I shouldn’t give a shit.

I suck in a breath. At first, it pisses me off, but then I focus in on the one word that reveals the entire truth behind his statement.

Shouldn’t.

He didn’t say, “I don’t give a shit.” He said, “I shouldn’t give a shit.”

I look up at him, and his face is so full of pain it’s heartbreaking.

He doesn’t want to feel like this.
I
don’t want him to feel like this.

What the hell am I doing to him?

He runs both of his hands through his hair, looks up at the ceiling, and squeezes his eyes shut. He stands like this for a while, then exhales and drops his hands to his hips, lowering his eyes to the floor.

He feels so guilty he can’t even look at me.

Without making eye contact, he lifts an arm and grabs my wrist, then pulls me toward him. He crushes me to his chest, wraps one arm around my back, and curves his other hand against the back of my head. My arms are folded up and tucked between us while his cheek rests against the top of my head. He sighs heavily.

I don’t pull away from him in order to text him a flaw, because I don’t think he’s in need of one right now. The way he’s holding me is different, unlike all the times in the past few weeks when we’ve had to separate ourselves in order to breathe.

He’s holding me now as if I’m a part of him—a wounded extension of his heart—and he’s realizing just how much that extension needs to be severed.

We stand like this for several minutes, and I begin to get lost in the way he’s wrapped himself around me. The way he’s holding me gives me a glimpse of what things could be like between us. I try to push those two little words into the back of my head, the two words that always inch their way forward when we’re together.

Maybe someday.

The sound of keys hitting a counter behind me jerks me to attention. I pull back, and Ridge does the same as soon as he feels my body flinch against his. He looks over my shoulder and toward the kitchen, so I spin around. Warren has just walked through the front door. His back is toward us, and he’s slipping off his shoes.

“I’m only going to say this once, and I need you to listen,” Warren says. He still isn’t facing us, but I’m the only one in the apartment who can hear him, so I know he’s directing his comment to me. “He will never leave her, Sydney.”

He walks to his bedroom without once looking over his shoulder, leaving Ridge to believe he never even saw us. The door to Warren’s bedroom closes, and I turn back to face Ridge. His eyes are still on Warren’s door. When they flick back to mine, they’re full of so many things I know he wishes he could say.

But he doesn’t. He just turns and walks into his room, closing the door behind him.

I remain completely motionless as two huge tears spill from my eyes, scarring their way down my cheeks in a trail of shame.

Ridge

Brennan: Gotta love rain. Looks like I’ll be there early. I’m coming alone, though. The guys can’t make it.

Me: See you when you get here. Oh, and before you leave tomorrow, make sure you get all your shit out of Sydney’s room.

Brennan: Will she be there? Do I finally get to meet the girl who was brought to this earth for us?

Me: Yeah, she’ll be here.

Brennan: I can’t believe I’ve never asked this, but is she hot?

Oh, no.

Me: Don’t even think about it. She’s been through too much shit to be added to your list of concubines.

Brennan: Territorial, are we?

I toss my phone onto the bed and don’t even bother with a reply. If I make her too off-limits to him, it’ll just make him try that much harder with her.

When she made the joke last night about screwing him, she was just trying to add humor to the seriousness of the situation, but the way her text made me feel terrified me.

It wasn’t the fact that she texted about hooking up with someone. What terrified me was my knee-jerk reaction. I wanted to throw my phone against the wall and smash it into a million pieces, then throw
her
against the wall and show her all the ways I could ensure that she never thinks about another man again.

I didn’t like feeling that way. I probably should encourage Brennan. Maybe it would be better for my relationship with Maggie if Sydney actually started dating someone else.

Whoa.

The wave of jealousy that just rolled over me felt more like a tsunami.

I walk out of my bedroom and head to the kitchen to help Sydney get things together for dinner before everyone gets here. I pause when I see her bent over, rummaging through the contents of the refrigerator. She’s wearing the blue dress again.

I hate it when Warren is right. My eyes slowly scroll from the dress, down her tanned legs, and back up again. I exhale and contemplate asking her to go change. I’m not sure I can deal with this tonight. Especially when Maggie gets here.

Sydney straightens up, pulls away from the refrigerator, and turns toward the counter. I notice she’s talking, but she isn’t talking to me. She pulls a bowl out of the refrigerator, and her mouth is still moving, so naturally, my eyes scan the rest of the apartment to see who it is she’s talking to.

And that’s when both halves of my heart—which were somehow still connected by a small, invisible fiber—snap apart and separate completely.

Maggie is standing in front of the bathroom door, eyeing me hard. I can’t read her expression, because it’s not one I’ve ever been exposed to before. The half of my heart that belongs to her immediately begins to panic.

Look innocent, Ridge. Look innocent. All you did was look at her.

I smile. “There’s my girl,” I sign as I walk to her. The fact that I’m somehow able to hide my guilt seems to ease her concern. She smiles back and wraps her arms around my neck when I reach her. I slip my arms around her waist and kiss her for the first time in two weeks.

God, I’ve missed her. She feels so good. So familiar.

She smells good, she tastes good, she
is
good. I’ve missed her so damn much. I kiss her cheek and her chin and her forehead, and I love that I’m so relieved to have her here. For the past few days, I began to fear that I wouldn’t have this reaction the next time I saw her.

“I have to go really bad. Long drive.” She winces and points to the door behind her, and I give her another quick kiss. Once she’s inside the bathroom, I slowly turn back around to gauge Sydney’s reaction.

I’ve been as upfront and honest with Sydney as I can possibly be about my feelings for Maggie, but I know it’s not easy for her to see me with Maggie. There’s just no way around it. Do I compromise my relationship with Maggie to spare Sydney’s feelings? Or do I compromise Sydney’s feelings to spare my relationship with Maggie? Unfortunately, there’s no middle ground. No right choice. My actions are becoming split directly down the middle, just like my heart.

I face her, and our eyes meet briefly. She refocuses her attention down to the cake in front of her and inserts candles. When she finishes, she smiles and looks back up at me. She sees the concern in my expression, so she pats her chest and makes the
“okay”
sign with her hand.

She’s reassuring me that she’s fine. I practically have to pry myself away from her every night, and then I maul my girlfriend right in front of her—and she’s reassuring
me
?

Her patience and understanding with this whole screwed-up situation should make me happy, but they have the opposite effect. They disappoint me, because they make me like her that much more.

I can’t win for losing.

• • •

Oddly enough, Maggie and Sydney seem to be having fun together in the kitchen, prepping ingredients for a pot of chili. I couldn’t hang, so I retreated to my room and claimed I had a lot of work to catch up on. As good as Sydney is with this, I’m not as skilled. It was awkward for me every time Maggie would kiss me or sit on my lap or trail her fingers seductively up my chest. Which, come to think of it, was a bit odd. She’s never really all that touchy-feely when we’re hanging out, so she’s either feeling a tad bit territorial, or she and Sydney have already been hitting the Pine-Sol.

Maggie comes into the bedroom just as I’m shutting the laptop. She kneels down on the edge of the bed, leans forward, and inches her way toward me. She’s looking up at me with a flirtatious smile, so I set the laptop aside and smile back at her.

She crawls her way up my body until she’s face-to-face with me, and then she sits back on her heels, straddling me. She cocks an eyebrow and tilts her head. “You were checking out her ass.”

Shit.

I was hoping that moment had come and gone.

I laugh and cup my hands around Maggie’s backside and scoot her a little closer. I let go and bring my hands back around in front of her and answer her. “I walked out of my room to a rear end pointed toward my bedroom door. I’m a guy. Guys notice things like that, unfortunately.” I kiss her mouth, then pull back.

She’s not smiling. “She’s really nice,” Maggie signs. “And pretty. And funny. And talented. And . . .”

The insecurity in her words makes me feel like a jerk, so I grab her hands and still them. “She’s not you,” I tell her. “No one can ever be you, Maggie. Ever.”

She smiles halfheartedly and places her palms on the sides of my face and slowly runs them down to my neck. She leans forward and presses her mouth to mine with so much force I can feel the fear rolling off of her.