398. Chapter 398
It had been hard.
The whole being friends thing.
Hard because Alex’s eyes were stone when they weren’t flickering down to Maggie’s lips, and hard because it kept tearing open Maggie’s heart that Alex didn’t realize that of course she wanted her – of course she did – but she was trying to do what’s best for her. What’s best for Alex.
She was trying to put Alex first. She was trying to protect Alex .
From herself.
From falling for a girl who didn’t deserve her, who would only break her.
And she was trying to protect herself.
Because she’d fall hard and she’d fall fast – hell, she already has – and then one day she would stop being so bright and shiny to Alex, and Alex would ditch her for some other woman, some more deserving woman, or women, and Maggie has been broken before, but she can’t be broken by Alex Danvers.
Because somehow she already knows that there isn’t enough scotch and tiramisu in the world to fix being broken by Alex Danvers.
So it had been hard.
The business of figuring out how to just be friends.
It had been hard, but Maggie told her she didn’t want to imagine her life without her, and Alex didn’t want to imagine that world, either.
So it was pool the next night and it was pool the night after, and it was late-night poring over case files and it was early-morning breakfast at Noonan’s and it was, eventually, laughter and banter and real, solid friendship.
And it was, eventually, Alex dating other women.
Because Maggie gave up on her before they even began, didn’t she?
Because Maggie had no right or reason to object, did she?
And it was hard.
Hell, it was torture.
Watching Alex get nervous about what to wear, what to say, where to go.
Listening to Alex’s recaps, watching Alex blush.
It was torture, but Alex didn’t know.
Didn’t know, because somehow, the secret agent had missed the one thing that Maggie always assumed screamed off of her body: that she wanted Alex. No, more than wanted her. Respected her. Revered her. Liked her. Cared about her. A lot. Could love her. For her whole life.
It was torture, but Alex didn’t know.
Or at least, Maggie thought Alex didn’t know. She wondered sometimes, in her more confident moments – in the moments where she could swear Alex’s eyes were drifting down to fixate on Maggie’s lips; in the moments where she could swear Alex’s breath hitched when Maggie touched her arm while they played pool; in the moments where she could swear Alex tensed up every time Maggie so much as greeted Darla – if Alex did know.
What she was doing to Maggie.
Because she never brought dates to the bar.
Never brought dates in front of Maggie.
So when Maggie is having yet another night drinking alone at the bar, she’s not cautious about who she’ll run into, about what she’ll see, when she pushes open the multistall bathroom door.
She expects quiet.
She doesn’t expect Alex.
Alex, pinned against the space between two stalls, her head tossed back against the cold metal, her breathing ragged, her back arched.
With some blonde woman’s hand up her shirt and lips on her throat.
Maggie contemplates leaving.
She contemplates leaving and she contemplates screaming and she contemplates throwing up in the alley before getting on her Triumph and riding away, away, away.
Fast.
She contemplates it, but Alex chooses exactly that moment to open her eyes – to glance down – and her eyes lock into Maggie’s.
Hard.
And Maggie’s seething anger rides the wave of how perversely turned on she is, and her mouth speaks before her brain can think.
“Don’t you think the lady deserves something better than a quick fuck in a bathroom stall?”
Her mouth speaks before her brain can think, which makes her voice more raw, more vulnerable, more hurt, than enraged or indignant or even jealous.
She wants to run, now.
But the woman is whipping around, her hand retreating from Alex’s chest, a combination of irritation and anger on her lips.
“Who the hell are you?” she demands, and Alex just leans against the metal of the stalls like it’s holding her up. Because it is.
“Maggie,” Alex says, and it’s almost a whisper, almost an apology, almost an explanation.
“I asked you something first,” Maggie counters, ignoring Alex’s prayer, spine straight and eyes anywhere but Alex’s mussed hair, swollen lips, rumpled shirt.
Realization dawns on the other woman’s face, and she smirks as she glances between the woman she was just fucking and the woman who’s demanding she give Alex better than a bar bathroom.
“So you’re the one she’s hung up on,” the woman says, and Alex groans softly, and Maggie blinks.
“What?”
“This is your detective, isn’t it?” The woman smirks and doesn’t wait for an answer. “She talks about you a lot. Hell, I half-expected her to scream your name just now. I think you have your answer now, sweetheart,” she turns to Alex. She leans into her ear and she whispers hotly, “She likes you.”
She runs a slow fingertip down Alex’s side, gives Maggie a once-over, and saunters out of the bathroom with a small smirk on her face.
Alex splutters and Alex tries, desperately, to breathe.
“Why did she say that?”
“Say what, Danvers?”
“That you like me.”
“I dunno, you can always catch up to her and ask – “
“Maggie.”
“Alex.”
“Was she right?”
“Danvers – “
“Was she right.”
There’s a silence, a pause, in which they both live entire lives, and Alex shifts off the stall, toward Maggie, eyes wide and lips parted and voice soft, soft, soft.
“Was she right, Maggie?”
“It doesn’t matter, Alex, I’d only wind up hurting you – “
“So she was right.”
“Alex.”
“Take me on a date.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to be dating these other women, Maggie. I mean, it’s been nice and it’s been… but I just… I wanna be dating you. I thought you didn’t want me, but if – “
“I told you, Alex. That was never why I…”
“So take me on a date.”
“Take you on a date.”
Alex takes her hands and smiles soft, smiles slow, smiles shy and smiles perfect.
“You said I deserve better than a quick fuck in a bathroom stall. So show me what I deserve.”
And Maggie can’t help it: she smiles, too, and the entire bar lights up.
“It’d be my honor, Danvers.”