Maybe Someday (15 page)

She laughs, then nods.

Me: I’ll play the one we practiced last night, and then I want to play this last one again. Are you okay? If you’re tired of singing, just tell me.

Sydney: I’m good.

She lays down her phone, and I reposition myself against her chest. My entire body is battling itself. My left brain is telling me this is somehow wrong, my right brain is wanting to hear her sing again, my stomach is nowhere to be found, and my heart is punching itself in the face with one arm and hugging itself with the other.

I might never have this opportunity again, so I wrap my arm over her and begin playing. I close my eyes and search for the beat of her heart, which has slowed down some since the first song. The vibration of her voice meets my cheek, and I swear my heart flinches. She feels the way I imagined a voice would feel during a song but multiplied by a thousand. I focus on how her voice blends with the vibration of the guitar, and I’m in complete awe.

I want to “hear” the range of her voice, but it’s hard without using my hands to feel it. I pull my hand away from the guitar and stop playing. Just like that, she stops singing. I shake my head no and motion a circle in the air with my finger, wanting her to keep singing even though I’m no longer playing the chords.

Her voice picks back up, and I keep my ear pressed firmly to her chest while I lay my palm flat against her stomach. Her muscles clench beneath my hand, but she doesn’t stop singing. I can feel her voice everywhere. I can feel it in my head, in my chest, against my hand.

I relax against her and listen to the sound of a voice for the very first time.

• • •

I wrap my arm around Maggie’s waist and pull her in closer. I can feel her struggling beneath me, so I pull her even tighter. I’m not ready for her to go home yet. Her hand smacks my forehead, and she’s lifting me off her chest as she attempts to wiggle out from beneath me.

I roll onto my back to let her off the bed, but instead, she’s slapping my cheeks. I open my eyes and look up to see Sydney hovering over me. Her mouth is moving, but my vision is too fogged over to see what she’s trying to say. Not to mention that the strobe light isn’t helping.

Wait. I don’t have a strobe light.

I sit straight up on the bed. Sydney hands me my phone and begins to text me, but my phone is dead. Did we fall asleep?

The lights. The lights are going on and off.

I grab Sydney’s phone out of her hand and check the time: 8:15
A
.
M
.
I also read the text she just tried to send me.

Sydney: Someone’s at your bedroom door.

Warren wouldn’t be up this early on a Friday. It’s his day off.

Friday.

Maggie.

SHIT!

I hurriedly jump off the bed and grab Sydney’s wrists, then swing her to her feet. She looks shocked that I’m panicking, but she needs to get the hell back to her room. I open the bathroom door and motion for her to take that route. She walks into the bathroom, then turns and heads back into my bedroom. I grab her by the shoulders and force her back into the bathroom. She slaps my hands away and points into my bedroom.

“I want my phone!” she says, pointing toward my bed. I retrieve her phone, but before I hand it to her, I type a text on it.

Me: I’m sorry, but I think that’s Maggie. You can’t be in here, or she’ll get the wrong idea.

I hand her the phone, and she reads the text, then looks back up at me. “Who’s Maggie?”

Who’s Maggie? How the hell can she not remember . . .

Oh.

Is it possible I’ve never mentioned Maggie to her before?

I grab her phone again.

Me: My girlfriend.

She looks at the text, and her jaw tightens. She slowly brings her eyes back to mine, and she snatches the phone out of my hand, grabs the doorknob, and steps back into the bathroom. The door closes in my face.

So
was not expecting that reaction.

But I don’t have time to respond, because my light is still flickering. I head straight to the bedroom door and unlock it, then open it.

Warren is standing in the doorway with his arm pressed against the frame. There’s no sign of Maggie.

My panic instantly subsides as I walk backward and fall onto my bed. That could have been ugly. I glance up at Warren, because he’s obviously here for something.

“Why aren’t you answering my texts?” he signs from the doorway.

“My phone died.” I reach over to my phone and place it on the charging base on the nightstand.

“But you never let your phone die.”

“First time for everything,” I sign.

He nods his head, but it’s an annoying, suspicious,
You’re hiding something
kind of nod.

Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

“You’re hiding something,” he signs.

Or maybe I’m
not
being paranoid.

“And I just checked Sydney’s room.” He arches a suspicious brow. “She wasn’t in there.”

I glance to the bathroom, then look back at Warren, wondering if I should even lie about it. All we did was fall asleep. “I know. She was in here.”

He holds his stern expression. “All night?”

I nod casually. “We were working on lyrics. I guess we fell asleep.”

He’s acting strange. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was jealous. Wait. I
do
know him better. He
is
jealous.

“Does this bother you, Warren?”

He shrugs and signs back. “Yeah. A little.”

“Why? You spend almost every night in Bridgette’s bed.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

He breaks his gaze, and I can see the discomfort cross his face before he exhales. He makes the sign that indicates Maggie’s name. He brings his eyes back to mine. “You can’t do this, Ridge. You made this choice for yourself years ago, and I tried to tell you then what I thought about it. But you’re in it now, and if I have to be the annoying friend to remind you of that, so be it.”

I wince, because it kind of pisses me off how he’s referring to mine and Maggie’s relationship. “Don’t refer to my relationship with Maggie as being ‘in it’ ever again.”

His expression grows apologetic. “You know what I mean, Ridge.”

I stand and walk toward him. “How long have we been best friends?”

He shrugs. “That’s all I am to you? A best friend? Ridge, I thought we were so much more than that.” He smirks as if he’s trying to be funny, but I don’t laugh. When he sees how much his remarks have bothered me, his expression quickly sobers. “Ten years.”

“Ten. Ten years. You know me better than that, Warren.”

He nods, but his face is still full of doubt.

“Good-bye,” I sign. “Shut the door on your way out.” I turn and walk back to my bed, and when I face the door again, he’s gone.

8.

Sydney

Why am I so pissed? We didn’t do anything.

Did we?

I can’t even tell what the hell happened last night before we fell asleep. Technically, it wasn’t anything, but then again, it was, which is probably why I’m so pissed, because I’m so freaking confused.

First he doesn’t tell me about Hunter for two solid weeks. Then he fails to mention that he’s deaf, although I really have no right to be upset about that. That’s not something I should feel obligated to have been told.

But Maggie?

Girlfriend?

How could he fail to mention in the three weeks I’ve been talking to him that he has a girlfriend?

He’s just like Hunter. He has a dick and two balls and no heart, and that makes him Hunter’s twin. I should probably just start calling him Hunter. I should just call them
all
Hunter. From here on out, all men shall be referred to as Hunter.

My father should be thanking the high heavens that I’m not in law school, because I am by far the absolute worst judge of character who has ever walked the planet.

Ridge: False alarm. It was just Warren. Sorry about that.

Me: SCREW. YOU.

Ridge: ???

Me: Don’t even.

A few seconds pass with me staring at my silent phone, and then a knock comes from the bathroom. Ridge swings the door open and enters my room, holding his hands with his palms up in the air as if he has no idea why I’m upset. I laugh, but it isn’t a happy laugh at all.

Me: This conversation will require a laptop. I have a lot to say.

I open my computer as he makes his way back to his room. I give him a minute to log on, then I open our chat.

Ridge: Can you please explain why you’re so pissed?

Me: Hmm. Let me count the ways. (1) You have a girlfriend. (2) You have a girlfriend. (3) Why, if you have a girlfriend, was I even in your BEDROOM? (4) You have a girlfriend!

Ridge: I have a girlfriend. Yes. And you were in my room because we agreed to work on lyrics together. I don’t recall anything happening between us last night to warrant this reaction from you. Or am I mistaken?

Me: Ridge, it’s been three weeks! I’ve known you for three weeks now, and you’ve never ONCE mentioned that you have a girlfriend. And speaking of Maggie, does she even know I moved in?

Ridge: Yes. I tell her everything. Look, it wasn’t an intentional omission, I swear. You and I have just never had a conversation where she came up.

Me: Okay, I’ll let it go that you failed to mention her, but I’m not about to let everything else slide.

Ridge: And this is where I’m confused, because I’m not clear on what you think we did.

Me: You’re such a guy.

Ridge: Ouch? I guess.

Me: Can you honestly say that your reaction to the possibility of her being at your door earlier was a normal, innocent reaction? You were freaking out that she would see me with you, which means you were doing something you wouldn’t want her to see. I know all we did was fall asleep, but what about the WAY we fell asleep? Do you think she would have been okay with the fact that you had your arms around me all night and your face was practically glued to my chest? And not only that, but what about the fact that I sat between your legs the other night? Would she have smiled and kissed you hello if she had walked in right then? I doubt it. I’m fairly certain that would have ended with me being punched.

Ugh! Why is this upsetting me so much? I bang my head lightly against the headboard out of frustration.

Moments later, Ridge appears in the doorway between our bathroom and my bedroom. He’s chewing on the corner of his bottom lip. His features are a lot calmer than when he was in here just a few minutes ago. He walks slowly into my room, then sits on the edge of my bed with his laptop on his knees.

Ridge: I’m sorry.

Me: Yeah. Good. Whatever. Go away.

Ridge: Really, Sydney. I haven’t been looking at it like that at all. The last thing I want is for things to be weird between us. I like you. I have fun with you. But if for one second I led you to believe that something was going to happen between us, I am so, so sorry.

I sigh and attempt to blink the tears away.

Me: I’m not upset because I thought something was going to happen between us, Ridge. I don’t WANT anything to happen between us. I haven’t even been single for a whole week yet. I’m upset because I feel like there was a moment, or maybe two, when—as much as neither of us wants to cross that line—we almost did. And you can deal with your actions on your own, but the fact that I was unaware that you had a girlfriend was really unfair to me. I feel like—

I lean my head back against the headboard and squeeze my eyes shut, long enough to force back the tears once more.

Ridge: You feel like what?

Me: I feel like you almost made me a Tori. I absolutely would have kissed you last night, and the fact that I didn’t know you were involved with someone would have made me a Tori. I don’t want to be a Tori, Ridge. I can’t tell you how much their betrayal hurts me, and I will never, ever do that to another girl. So that’s why I’m upset. I don’t even know Maggie, yet you made me feel like I’ve already betrayed her. And as innocent as you may be, I’m blaming you for that one.