200. Chapter 200

She doesn’t normally do parties, but M’gann had wanted a wingwoman, so she’s found herself claiming the one beat up bean bag chair in the corner by the kitchen and smirking over her beer as M’gann talks it up with this boy Maggie had done her duty of introducing her to.

Her eyes shift lazily across the room until they settle on a very freshman-looking blonde with glasses and wide eyes, standing near the bathroom and shaking her head repeatedly with a frazzled-looking smile as a handful of frat boys try to put red solo cups into her hand.

Maggie is up and in the thick of things before M’gann even hears her say she’ll be right back, and she’s straightening her plaid shirt and drawing herself up to her full height, which still only brings her up to these boys’ chests, but what the hell, this kid is a freshmen if she ever saw one and judging by the way she’s furiously adjusting her glasses, she’s never had to deal with pressure from senior college boys – or anyone, for that matter – to drink.

“Problem, gentlemen?” Maggie asks, and they sneer down at her, now. The blonde girl shakes her head at Maggie, concerned, but Maggie ignores her for now.

“Oh come on, Sawyer, the one time you actually come out – hehe, hey, see what I did there? – to a party like the rest of the world, you figure the best thing to do is ruin our fun?”

“Well that’s just the thing, man, I don’t care all that much about ruining your fun. It’s this kid’s fun I’m worried about – and she’s a kid, guys, come on, hey, you’re a kid, right – ”

“I’m a freshman!” the girl pouts, and Maggie hides a smirk.

“Right, exactly, a kid. And you know what, fuck man, even if she wasn’t a kid, she fucking said no. So back the fuck up.”

“Or what?”

Maggie doesn’t flinch as she stares up at the senior boys, her fingers twitching, ready, as her thumbs rest confidently on her belt loops.

“Kara, what the hell? I thought you said you weren’t coming to this thing, I told you it – what’s going on here?”

The bottom drops of out Maggie’s stomach, then, because the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen – short hair, glasses, thin lips but god, soft, soft, soft – is storming up to them, putting her hands on the shoulders of the blonde girl (Kara, apparently) protectively.

“These guys were trying to get me to drink, and this girl was defending me, I didn’t think I was gonna come, but I got done studying early and I thought you were in the lab and I missed you, Alex,” Kara explains quickly, so that the new girl doesn’t include Maggie in the list of people she’s about to beat the shit out of.

The girl’s eyes quickly scan Maggie’s face, and Maggie feels heat shoot straight down to her core, and she wonders if the girl – Alex, Alex, Alex, Maggie rolls the name around in her head – feels it, too.

“You guys gonna beat it or you gonna let me take out years of childhood rage and trauma on your faces for messing with my kid sister?” Alex asks, and the guys glare, and one of them shoves Maggie slightly as they grumble away.

“Are you okay?” Alex focuses entirely on Kara, and Maggie wonders what it must feel like to have that girl’s full attention focused on you.

“Thanks to you,” Kara looks past Alex to Maggie. “And I don’t even know your name.”

“Sawyer. Maggie Sawyer. Kara and Alex, you said?” Maggie asks, holding her hand out to both of them in turn and trying her best to grasp them both the same way, but she can’t help it, she lingers on Alex’s hand, and she swears that Alex lingers back, and sure enough, her eyes are fully fixed on Maggie, now, fully concentrating on her, and Maggie’s suddenly scared she’ll do something mortifying like swoon.

“You don’t know my sister and you’re… sorry, but you’re smaller than my sister, and you put your body between her and all those dudebros,” Alex says, her eyes locked in Maggie’s, and Maggie tries to remember how to speak.

She shrugs. “Happy to,” she says, and Alex’s eyes flit down, just slightly, to Maggie’s lips.

“Are you here with anyone? I just got out of the lab and I was going to take Kara for some potstickers – ”

“Yessssssssssss!!!!”

“So if you’re not here with anyone, I… do you wanna come with us?”

“No, just my friend, and she…” Maggie looks over her shoulder at M’gann, who’s already looking at her and winking suggestively, waving her away with a grin and a you’d better tell me everything in the morning glance. “Where the hell do you find potstickers at this time of night?”

Alex flashes a wicked grin, and Maggie decides she’s falling in love.

She grabs Maggie by the hand and pulls her out of the steamy party atmosphere into the cool night air, and Maggie’s never felt so perfect.