Somehow, it made it even better.
CHAPTER 18
TOO BLEAK, STOPPED CARING
A few hours later, Maggie was still processing her IRL interaction with Otter.
Or rather, Aiden.
The considerably older, very-different-than-she’d-pictured Otter/Aiden.
She’d barely managed to keep focus enough to go through some brief edits, and she got half as much done because her brain kept flitting back to the strange turn of events that afternoon.
No wonder he had seemed so mature. The man was her age, not some barely legal . . .
She frowned at herself. “Really?” she said to herself aloud, irritated. “You’re going to fixate on that now?”
It wasn’t like he’d deliberately catfished her. If anything, it had been a series of comedic misunderstandings and a lack of information. At any point in their texts and messaging, it could have come out. But they simply hadn’t talked about it. They both knew they were in the same town and they had some common acquaintances, but they’d never brought it up. If anything, it reminded her of days in college, when she’d hung out with her few core friends and they’d talked about everything under the sun: whether ghosts were real, how to right social wrongs, whether you could swim in bubble tea, whether marriage was a social construct or not.
The one thing they didn’t do was small talk.
In true introvert fashion, she and Aiden had focused more on deep dives into esoteric topics than the mundane realities of “Hey, how old are you?” Frankly, it was part of what she had liked about him. She liked that, for a few hours at least, she wasn’t Maggie, frazzled, divorced, empty-nest-facing editor. She was Bogwitch, a badass bitch who wielded a mean blade and liked black-and-white movies. And she had enjoyed the too-pure-for-real-life Otter, who kept his rowdy cohorts in line, was a force-of-nature healer, and liked animation in any form. Also, the fact that he was a college kid meant she didn’t have to worry about any potential romantic expectations, period. He was not a viable candidate, he wouldn’t hit on her, and she sure as hell would not hit on him.
But that seemed to fly out the window now, although she wasn’t sure why. She’d been single for years, and had no desire or intention to date.
Not that I want to now!
But . . . there was something there, and she had to admit, it had her rattled.
That night, at six on the dot, Rosita called her. “Tell me everything,” she said without preamble.
Maggie sighed. She didn’t talk to Rosita all the time. Her job, her family, her extended family’s restaurant, her aging parents—all this stuff kept Rosita busy, so they tended to send each other little texts, memes, and GIFs periodically. When they did talk, it was usually a big download of words, catching each other up. There was never awkwardness: it was always like they’d spoken to each other the day before. So she wasn’t surprised by her best friend’s eagerness, even if she was dreading it.
“There’s not really much to tell,” Maggie hedged. “It’s actually kind of silly. Total fluke. One-in-a-million shot.”
“How is it a fluke that you wound up in a hot guy’s kitchen, afraid he was going to kill you?”
Maggie let out a sound that was half frustrated sigh, half growl. “It wasn’t . . . it was a safety check, Rosita!”
“What were you doing at his house?” Rosita countered. “Sidebar: I notice you’re not protesting his hotness.”
“Like I said, he’s a friend from a video game group I joined. I texted you that I was playing with a guild, and he’s the leader,” she said. “I thought he was just this dorky local college kid who’d fractured a bone in his foot. He seemed like he was having a tough time, and I thought I’d bring him some soup. Then once I got there, I just kept hearing Kit saying ‘This is how you wind up on a true-crime podcast’ in my head, and I freaked myself out. Then I found out that just because Aiden’s going to community college does not mean he recently graduated from high school, which was a stupid assumption on my part.”
Rosita snickered.
“And he found out I wasn’t an octogenarian grandma,” Maggie added. “So I wasn’t the only one who was guilty of misassumptions.”
“So . . . you laughed it off, and left?”
“I mean, I heated up his soup,” Maggie said. “Guy is on medication and wearing an air boot. He was kind of out of it.”
“And then you left?”
“I had lunch with him . . . what?” she snapped when Rosita burst out laughing. “I was going to make lunch for myself anyway, and it was pho, which you know I love, and—”
“You gave him some of your pho?” Rosita interrupted. “Damn. You must like this boy. Man, I mean.” More laughter.
“Goddamn it,” Maggie muttered. “Listen, I would’ve done this for one of Kit’s friends. As far as I knew, he was Kit’s age. Why would I bail on him just because he’s my age?”
“He’s your age, huh?” Rosita pounced. “Hmmm. That’s interesting.”
“No, it’s not.” Maggie scowled. “You stop that.”
“I’m not saying you have to marry the guy, for God’s sake,” Rosita said.
“What are you saying, then?”
“I’m saying he’s the first guy you haven’t chased off with either your looks, attitude, or your baton since Trev left,” Rosita pointed out. “Don’t think you’re fooling me, chica. You started to let things go when Trev moved you out to the fucking wilds, and ever since he left, you’re leaning in, trying to pull a whole Sasquatch thing. I haven’t heard you so much as mention a male of the species. No dating apps. No setups. Certainly no hookups, because you’d have told me.”
“If you hadn’t married Oscar,” Maggie said, “you would probably be in the same boat.”
“The hell I would. I need sex, sweetie.”
“I’m having plenty of orgasms. Men just aren’t involved.”
A pause. “Women, then? Or nonbinary?”
“Pure silicone,” Maggie said, with a short laugh and the comfort that came only with being friends with someone for over thirty years. “Gotta say, I’m better than anybody I’ve ever been with. I’m never breaking up with battery powered.”
“Oh, hon.” Rosita sounded pitying. “You just weren’t with many people. You slept with that guy from high school, and let’s face it. Sex in high school is pretty wretched. Nobody knows what they’re doing. Then you dated that asshole in college . . .”
“He wasn’t as bad, skills-wise,” Maggie clarified. “Probably because of all the practice he had with other women at the same time he was sleeping with me.”
“And then you married Trev.” Rosita sighed. “Three people. Any scientist is going to tell you: that’s a small data set.”
Maggie stepped outside. The sun had set, and it was pitch dark, the clear, cold skies showing the first sprinkling of stars. She pulled her sweat jacket closer around herself. “I have no interest in pursuing the research,” she said. “I’ve come up with a better alternative through technology. They’ve been automated out of a job.”