138. Chapter 138

Maggie’s stroking her hair and skating gentle fingertips down her naked torso.

“Are you just saying that because you want me to feel good?” Alex is asking, and Maggie smiles and shakes her head into the pillow.

“Wouldn’t do that, Danvers. No, I mean it, I’ve… I’ve been with a lot of women.” She pauses and chuckles and shakes her head again. “But it’s never felt like it does with you.”

Alex traces the contours of Maggie’s face with her fingers. “How not?”

Maggie takes a deep, thoughtful breath.

“In high school, I made out with a lot of girls, slept with a few more. One of them… one, I was really in love with. Like, wow, you know? Her dad found out and beat the crap out of me. She never talked to me again.” Alex blinks down tears and kisses Maggie’s nose and vows to find out this man’s name and kill him.

“And the sex was incredible, you know, because it was new and it was passionate and risky and in the back of my truck.” She pauses and Alex chuckles and Maggie shakes ghosts out of her eyes. “But looking back, that’s just what it was, you know? Sex. And it was hot because it was different, and risky, and terrifying, not because she returned my feelings with any depth. Am I talking too much? You really wanna hear this?”

“I do. I want to know. About you. Who you are, who you’ve been – ”

“Who I’ve done.”

Alex laughs and Maggie continues. “I think college was the first time I really made love with someone. She was a senior so she had a single room and we could take our time and we could cuddle and all that, you know? But she graduated when I was becoming a sophomore and she moved out of state and she wrote a few times, but that was it. Why are you glaring?”

“A senior slept with you when you were just a freshman? You were basically still a kid!”

Maggie kisses Alex for her defensiveness on her behalf: something she’s certainly not used to, and it makes her heart tremble.

“Yeah, like you’ve never slept with anyone older.”

Alex’s eyes shadow over slightly and Maggie’s face goes still, and she draws Alex closer to her.

“My orgo lab TA was older, I guess. I think he was in his thirties, and I went to college young, you know, so I was what, nineteen? He was my first. He was gentle, you know, sweet I guess. Married, too, which he didn’t bother to tell me until he came. I didn’t. Never did, actually, not until…”

She glances up at Maggie and she blushes and she expected Maggie to be pleased, but she’s not; her face is a map of rage and sorrow and grief and love, love, love. But she says nothing, and Alex has never talked about this before, not in this way, so she presses on.

“I had a couple boyfriends after that, you know, nothing serious. One was fine with not having sex, which worked just fine for me, but he wanted to cuddle and hold my hand all the time and I didn’t know how to tell him that I didn’t like even that. But he was alright. Really into astrophysics. I think that’s the part that was attractive about him. And did I tell you I had a party girl phase?”

Again, she expects Maggie to laugh, but Maggie’s smile is soft, and Maggie’s smile is sad, and she strokes Alex’s cheek and she kisses her nose and Alex presses on because she can’t quite process how protected, how cherished, Maggie is making her feel.

“So there was a lot of drunken sex. Like, bathrooms, dance floors, back seats of cars, all that. I don’t remember most of it, I just remember trying to feel… something. I’m sorry. I’m talking too much, you don’t wanna hear – ’

“I do, Danvers. I do.”

Her voice is low and her voice is tired, and Alex snuggles closer to her.

“So what happened after your senior girl?”

“You mean who happened?”

Alex laughs and Maggie’s dimples are back, now, because she never can resist Alex’s laughter.

“No one while I was at the academy – probably the longest stretch I went without a girlfriend since I was a teenager – and then you know Darla, and you met my latest…”

Alex grimaces and Maggie grins as she watches jealousy roil across Alex’s face.

“She had nothing on you, babe.”

“She’s…” Alex splutters, searching for the right word. “Blonde.”

Maggie laughs heartily at that, and she kisses Alex’s forehead and smooths her hair out of her eyes and kisses her again.

“There is absolutely no comparison, Danvers. When we were together, I thought she was… you know, she’d asked me to move in with her, so I thought, you know, I thought she was special, that she wanted to commit, you know, but then it was all… kinda downhill from there. I think… I think she knew I was falling for you.” Maggie sighs deeply, and Alex can’t help the surge of pride in her chest.

“But in the end, turns out she was cheating on me, anyway.” Alex makes a sound of indignation and Maggie smiles.

“All worked out for the best, Danvers. Because now I have the best.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Alex. Yes.”

“Me too, Maggie. Me too.”