She knew from Rosita’s huff of breath that she was frustrated. “You know I don’t want to hound you,” she said. “I haven’t brought up anything in the past five years. I know you were totally focused on getting Kit to school. I know you’ve been working your ass off to keep that house, even though I voted for you to sell that fucking thing and move back to California . . .”
“You know why I couldn’t,” she said. “It’ll take a while to sell this house. Besides, I didn’t want to rip Kit from his friends and his school when he’d already lost Trev. He was dealing with a lot of shit, and he had Harrison and his other friends. He needed the stability.”
“Again, I know,” Rosita said, far more gently. “But Kit’s in college now. You can focus on you.”
That sounded terrifying. “I can. I am,” she said, hoping she sounded more convincing to her friend than she did to her own ears.
“And you seem to like this guy.”
“Otter?” She made a pffft sound. “He’s . . . a friend. Video game friend.”
“I know you. You don’t make friends easily, anywhere on the gender spectrum,” Rosita noted. “So what’s special about this one?”
“I wouldn’t say special . . .” When Rosita made an inarticulate sound of disbelief, she relented. “He’s a nice guy. Total cinnamon roll. Kinda old fashioned. You know the dude-bro culture online. He keeps them from being intolerably dickish.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“He’s not working right now.”
“Aha. Gotcha.” Rosita’s quick dismissal was sharp. “So, living in his mom’s basement? Looking for someone else to pay his bills?”
“God, no,” Maggie said immediately, remembering their conversation that afternoon. “He had a hospice business on the west side, with his best friend—who is also in the guild, by the way—but he sold it to move back here. He grew up in Fool’s Falls. He needed to take care of his father, who had cancer, and then his father died, and he’s been taking care of his mother, who’s getting older and starting to need help and care. So he’s dealing with that.”
Rosita let out a low whistle. “That’s not easy.”
Maggie immediately remembered that Rosita’s parents were getting older. “How are your—”
“Nope. I will talk to you about Mama and Papa in a sec, but we’re not finished with this yet,” Rosita said, and Maggie heard the smile in her voice. “You immediately defended this guy. If you didn’t like him, you wouldn’t care if I thought he was a useless dickbag. Therefore, I have to assume you not only care about the guy, you really like him.”
“Bold assumption.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
Maggie winced. She’d been asking herself the same question. Mac had specifically counseled her not to see him in the first place—and boy, she’d screwed that up. “It’s probably better if I don’t see him more in real life,” she said carefully. “I mean, after I help him with his whole foot thing. I figure I can still game with him and the rest of the guild, but it’s not like we’re going to, you know, socialize or anything.”
“What do you mean, help him with his foot thing?”
“He needs help getting groceries,” she said. “And his mother needs groceries, too, so we’ll grab some for her and deliver them.”
“Okay.”
“And he’ll probably have a doctor’s appointment or two, I’m sure. And he doesn’t want his mother driving.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
Maggie pouted. “Why does it feel like you’re mocking me?”
“I’m not, I swear.” Rosita’s amused tone did not reassure her. “So, he’s going to just be sitting there in his house, huh? And you’re going to deliver some groceries, and play chauffeur, and that’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“He is cute, though, don’t you think? I mean, objectively?” Rosita pried. “Kind of auburn hair, built like a linebacker. Total bear material.”
Maggie sighed. “Can straight women date bears? Is that a thing? Are we appropriating the term from gay culture?”
“For the love of . . . Do you think the man’s cute or ugly? Quick, don’t think about it!”
“He’s not ugly,” Maggie finally relented. “That said, he’s not exactly pretty either. He’s . . . rugged?”
“Is he ever,” Rosita purred.
“Listen, that’s not the point here. He’s nice.” Maggie paused for emphasis. “And yeah, we get along. Talking to him’s like talking to you. He doesn’t talk my ear off with stuff I’m not interested in, never noticing that I’m not interested. He doesn’t try to impress me with stuff. He doesn’t just wait for a pause in my conversation so he can jump in with his own shit. He asks questions and actually listens. He’s funny and smart.”
“Sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I value him,” Maggie said, realizing as she said it that the words were true. “And I’m not going to fuck this up by romanticizing it. That is the last thing I need. So it doesn’t matter if I think he’s attractive or not. I am not letting myself be attracted to him or anyone.”
“All right, I’ll stop pushing,” Rosita said. “I still think this is hilarious, though. He thought you were eighty, you thought he was eighteen. You were like this cross between You’ve Got Mail and Harold and Maude.”
“Again: we’re not romantic.”
“Hey, you can’t control my ships,” Rosita teased. Then Maggie heard a crash and the raised voices of tweens in an obvious argument. Rosita rattled off to someone in quick, sharp, loud Spanish. “Dammit, I am going to have to break it up. Those kids are going to drive me right up the wall. Let’s talk this weekend, okay? Love you.”
“Absolutely, and love you too,” Maggie said, before hanging up. She meant every word . . . she wasn’t just protesting to protest. She did like Aiden. She hadn’t had good luck with sex, and had even worse luck with relationships—well, outside of her sweet relationship in high school. As clichéd as some people might’ve found it, her marriage had really done a number on her, and the last thing she wanted was a man in her life to take care of, to humor, to shrink herself to accommodate. Otter—Aiden—was a friend, and barely that. She wasn’t going to somehow romanticize what they had or add pressure she didn’t want to something that didn’t exist.
She sighed, hugging her jacket to herself a little tighter. The air smelled like rain, even though she couldn’t make out any clouds. It felt like a storm coming.
Damned metaphors, she thought, and scowled at the sky.
CHAPTER 19
IT’S JUST A FLESH WOUND
Aiden’s foot still hurt when Maggie picked him up the next morning. It wasn’t that bad—he’d probably gotten injured worse in football, back in the day. Of course, “back in the day” was over thirty years ago, and while nursing was physically demanding, he’d been riding a desk for years. Now his older body was grumping at him nightly.