Aiden sighed, considering a second gin and tonic. It was going to be, as Maggie would say, a long fucking day.
He was facing the bar, still contemplating a refill, when he saw Riley’s expression out of the corner of his eye. Riley had been leaning against the bar, but now stood up straight, like he’d been goosed, and his eyes widened with surprise. No—disbelief.
God, he hoped Sheryl wasn’t behind him. He started to gesture for the bartender. If it was Sheryl, he was going to need at least a double.
He felt the delicate hand on his shoulder, tapping him, and he turned, feeling warmth and comfort and relief. She was here, she’d gotten there safely, and he’d . . .
Then he got a look at her, and his brain went completely offline.
It was the closest thing he could compare it to. Initially, he didn’t know who he was looking at. Rather than her usual tangle of hair, she had an absolute riot of dark curls tumbling down her shoulders. In place of her baggy clothes, she wore a very simple, formfitting black dress. Even some long dangling silver earrings and a silver cuff bracelet. She had sheer black stockings and black heels. Her dark walnut eyes were lined in black and dramatically done up, and her lips pouted full and dusky. She studied him intently.
He didn’t know how long he stared at her. He could feel his mouth going dry and his heart beating harder in his chest than it had since he’d run practice in high school football. He felt hot, then cold, then hot again.
Maggie.
Riley, on the other hand, was grinning like an idiot. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said, in his worst, cheese-tastic, utterly Joey Tribbiani impression. “Here for the wedding?”
She turned to Riley briefly, and her sneer could’ve frozen Puget Sound. Then she pointedly ignored him, turning back.
“Aiden,” she murmured, and she looked embarrassed. And annoyed that she was embarrassed. “Told you I’d make it. Sorry I’m a little later than I wanted.”
“Maggie,” he breathed, the word hesitant—like he could still be wrong.
She bit her lip, then crossed her arms, a tiny black clutch in her hand. “You look good,” she said. “I mean, the suit. Looks good.” She glowered. “I’m shutting up now.”
“Maggie?” Riley said, goggling. “Wait—Maggie, from your game thing? From Deb’s house? The one you left with at your football party?”
She ignored him.
“You really didn’t have to come all this way,” Aiden said, even though every cell in his body seemed to shout Thank God she’s here, everything is now awesome. “I could’ve handled it.”
“Nobody’s saying you couldn’t,” Maggie said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to. This is about what you need, okay?”
“But you always help me.”
“Aht! None of that,” she said, looking into his eyes like she could pin him with her deep-brown gaze alone. Hell, maybe she could. “You seem to think that just listening to you is some herculean feat. Like bringing you some soup and grabbing some groceries is indentured servitude. You helped me figure out what was wrong with my router, and watched a bunch of movies with me, and you’re a good friend. That’s what friends do, Aiden. So let me be a friend, okay?”
He swallowed hard.
No one had cared about him, supported him, like this.
He’d been won over by Jordan, swept along in a tidal wave of enthusiasm, but he’d also felt shut out as Jordan kept his worlds from colliding—and he’d ultimately felt betrayed. As much as they’d had shared interests, ultimately they only had one real thing in common: they’d both loved Jordan, above everything else.
While Sheryl had been caring and supportive, she could also be judgmental and critical. He’d gone along to get along. He never cared about things that seemed so critical to Sheryl, like how their apartment looked or what neighborhood they lived in or what they drove. They had butted heads politically from time to time, until they’d agreed to disagree and avoid hot topics like the proverbial third rail.
Maggie challenged him. She poked at him, teased him, joked with him. But she was also one of the few people on earth he felt like he could tell all his secrets to—and the one person he’d ever met that he felt accepted him completely, just as he was, and would fight to make sure he could exist happily that way.
“I’m glad you’re here, Boggy,” he admitted, hoping her guild name would help him keep a lid on his runaway emotions. His voice still came out as a rough croak.
She smiled. “I am, too, Otter.”
“You’re Bogwitch?” Riley interjected, still unable to move past that particular tidbit of information. “But . . . but . . .”
She arched an imperious, perfectly manicured eyebrow at him. “What?”
“You look amazing!” he said, and it was almost an accusation.
She looked down at herself, then shrugged. “Yeah.”
Now Riley really looked stunned, and a little impatient. “This is because you’re into Aiden, isn’t it?” he deduced. “You decided you’d do that movie thing, where you got a new dress and you’d find someone to give you a makeover? Cinderella, am I right?”
She huffed out a breath, popping a hip and crossing her arms. Despite being shorter than Riley, she looked like an Amazon looking at an ant, considering crushing him under her impressively high heel. “Here’s the difference between you and me,” she said. “I always knew I could look like this.”
Riley tilted his head, like a confused Labrador.
“This outfit’s over five years old. I didn’t go to anyone. The makeup, the jewelry, the hair—I did all that shit myself. No makeovers involved. It’s not perfect or anything, but the bottom line is,” Maggie finished, “just because I don’t put in this kind of work every day doesn’t mean I can’t, for fuck’s sake.”
Her confidence—her regal dismissal in the face of Riley’s disbelief—was glorious.
“But if you could look like that,” Riley asked plaintively, “why the hell wouldn’t you? Why would you . . . ?”
“Why would I look like a hag by choice, you mean?” she finished, amusement warring with a light of anger in her eyes.
Riley nodded.
“If you can’t handle me in sweatpants, you don’t deserve me in stilettos,” she said, each word ringing with finality.
She then pointedly turned her back on Riley, who choked on his inadequate words—Aiden wasn’t sure if Riley was pissed or defensive or, worse, trying to protest his innocence. She moved to flank Aiden and slipped her hand in the crook of his arm.
“Shall we find seats?”
Aiden smiled, covering her small hand with his. Her smile back was warm, melting away the frost from her interaction with Riley.
“Let’s,” Aiden said, and escorted her to the ballroom, arm in arm.
CHAPTER 30
I REJECT YOUR REALITY
So far, so good.
They’d made it through the ceremony, which really was beautiful. Jason looked so happy he could explode, and Hailey, in her tiered, lace-and-bead-bedecked dress “experience,” looked like something out of the proverbial fairy tale. He’d taken Maggie back to the （now crowded） bar as the wedding party had pictures taken and servers broke down the wedding-chair setup and moved in the dance floor, as well as putting finishing touches on the tables where the nearly two hundred guests would be eating dinner.