Sheryl looked like she was ready to cry.
Maggie bared her teeth. Good!
“C’mon, they’re playing music, let’s dance,” Aiden said to her gently. “Davy, can you make sure Mom gets back to her room?”
Davy nodded, his lips pulled into a taut line. His face was displaying a range of emotions in a whirled mess. He was glaring at Maggie, but also at Sheryl, which Sheryl seemed surprised about. Aiden’s mother looked angry but also upset, her eyes darting around the room, obviously intent on damage control.
Aiden tugged her out to the dance floor. It was a slowish song, one of her favorites—the sad but strangely romantic “All This Love” by J. P. Cooper. Aiden kept his arms around her, his broad palms resting on her waist. It probably read as romantic, although she suspected it was actually insurance so she didn’t go back to the table and beat the shit out of Sheryl.
Which—okay, wise move on his part.
“Easy, easy,” he breathed in her ear, his beard tickling the outer shell, the heat of his breath brushing against her jawline. “It’s okay.”
“It is not okay,” she protested in a hiss, her breath still ragged, her heart barely calming down. “It is far from fucking okay. That bitch outed you.”
“I know.” He held Maggie tighter.
“Let me go,” Maggie muttered. “I just wanna talk.”
With my fists.
“Yeah, right, killer,” he said. “Maybe you calm down a little before you pursue some conversation.”
Maggie probably shouldn’t have gone that far, all things considered. It was good that Aiden had stopped her from straight-up beating Sheryl. But still—the whole thing was so toxic. They’d wanted Aiden at this goddamned wedding with a date. They should’ve been more careful what they wished for.
She struggled a little, then sighed, forcing herself to take deep breaths. “You’re taking this awfully well,” she finally noted, a song later, after her pulse settled.
“Nobody’s stood up for me the way you do,” he said.
She stroked his face. It just felt natural. She wanted to just wrap him in a weighted blanket and . . . protect him from all the small-minded, hurtful people in his life. She wanted to hug him tight and never let him go.
It made her heart hurt and her head ache with confusion, but she was going to lean into it.
“Your mom knew, didn’t she?” she said instead. “About Jordan. That’s what she was afraid people would talk about. That’s why she wanted you to have a date.”
He nodded, and she felt him exhale. “My parents were so pissed when we broke up, demanding answers, and I was angry and hurt, and I told them it was because I’d been with a man. Then they didn’t talk to me for a few years, until my dad got sick and wanted to reconnect.”
Oh, God. Maggie’s heart broke for him, and she hugged him, stroking his broad back.
“Davy knew bits and pieces, too—probably because Sheryl said I was gay, and he thought it was true and that I’d been just using her, especially since I didn’t date anyone afterward. It turns out he’d always had a thing for Sheryl, and he’d recently been divorced, and when they got together, I felt like . . . I owed it to her. At least she was happy.”
Maggie couldn’t help it. She let out a strangled noise.
“I know,” he said. “I mean . . . now, I know. I didn’t have to feel so guilty. I didn’t need to become the villain in this narrative. It’s just been a hard habit to break, y’know?”
Maggie wrinkled her nose. Aiden had contributed, sure—all communications problems took two to tango. But Sheryl was far from the blameless victim that she tried to portray herself as.
“I hate that you went through all that,” Maggie said. “I’m just so sorry. And I’m sorry she acted this way now, here. You deserve so much better.”
To her surprise, Aiden was smiling at her, his gray eyes glowing with happiness. “It’s fine. No, really,” he reassured her, when she went to protest. “Nobody has ever gone to bat for me like you have. Anybody else would’ve blamed me, until they heard more of my side of the story. Maybe even then. But you just . . . well, had my back. Just like you promised.”
She shrugged, feeling a little weird. “You’re one of my best friends,” she pointed out.
“More than that. I have never, ever felt as supported and cared for as you make me feel.” He leaned down, kissing her forehead. “Thank you, Maggie.”
She felt it, like a combination of heat and chills, dancing over her skin. She involuntarily clenched tighter.
He must’ve seen it. His eyes were suddenly glowing for a different reason. She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat.
“Maggie,” he rasped, leaning forward slowly. “Can I kiss you?”
She knew she should say no. That she really, really ought to say no.
But she couldn’t.
So she heard herself say “yes,” and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 32
MOMENT OF AWESOME
She felt his breath before she felt his lips, warm and inviting, smelling like chocolate and coffee buttercream from the slice of wedding cake they’d eaten before all hell broke loose at the table and she’d come close to committing assault. He tugged her closer to him, even though that was barely possible. His hands were so big and strong and yet comforting as he pulled her tight.
When his mouth covered hers, she felt unmoored as the soft brush of his mustache and beard tickled against her lips.
She sighed and leaned in.
Heat and energy rang through her, tingling through her nerve endings and lighting her up like a scoreboard. She made an involuntary soft sound of surprised pleasure, and kissed back, hard. Gentle be damned. She had wanted this too much and for too long, whether she was conscious of it or not, and now that he’d opened the door, she was running right through that mother. She licked at the seam of his lips, and he opened with a stunned small groan that she felt more than heard over the overloud pop music the DJ was playing.
He was too tall, was the problem. Even with her heels, which she was managing to wear more easily than she’d thought （it was like riding a bike, apparently）， he towered over her, and she was in serious danger of climbing him like a jungle gym.
He pulled away, suddenly, his breathing harsh and ragged. His blue eyes were wide and alight with hunger, and she was there for it.
“Maybe we should have that talk now,” he croaked. “Probably somewhere without spectators?”
She blinked. Then she looked around to see people staring, some whispering, all with varying expressions of curiosity or shock. The blush that ran over her covered every square inch, it felt like. Even her knees and elbows. At the same time, another, louder part of her wanted to say: So fucking what? I kissed Aiden Bishop, and it was glorious. Ten out of ten, would do again. And will, as soon as he gets his mouth back down here.
But he was right. Privacy was good . . . and her body was signaling, not so subtly, that more privacy would be best for what it had in mind.
Knock it off, she chastised herself. Aiden liked kissing, it seemed—he was physically affectionate. That said, she didn’t know that much about being demi, but she knew that he might be good with some things and not others. Just because she was turned on like a lighthouse didn’t mean that he matched her intensity, and that was fine. She wasn’t going to put him in a position he was uncomfortable with, not ever.