532. Chapter 532

She’d expected Kara to be proud, but damn, she should have remembered to bring her earplugs for protection.

Because Kara isn’t just proud. She’s shrieking proud.

“It’s just coffee, Kara,” she tells her as Kara tears through her closet, fussing about what she should wear, about which outfit is just the right amount of sexy, but the brilliance of her smile reveals the lie behind her words.

It’s not just coffee.

It feels like more than that, somehow.

So she lets Kara ramble about how excited she is – like it was her date, not Alex’s – because Kara’s voice is keeping her calm. Is keeping her from panicking.

She collapses to the floor with Gertrude while Kara raids her closet, demanding to know why she doesn’t have any shirts that aren’t grey or black and wondering aloud if Maggie is a leather or lace kind of girl.

And when they curl up on the couch together that night – Kara and Gertrude and Alex, all the Danvers girls – Kara soothes Alex’s nervous heart rate with her soft singing.

It’s Gertrude that wakes them up in the morning.

Gertrude that tells Alex that her phone just buzzed.

Alex reaches out a groggy hand around Kara’s sleeping body and fumbles for her phone.

Her heart leaps when the caller ID reads Maggie.

Because the day before, they’d exchanged numbers.

“Available as I want you to be. Wow um… excellent. I… Um. I guess we should exchange numbers then? So I can call you. About the coffee. Or the dinner. Or whatever. You didn’t answer me about the coffee.”

Maggie beamed and giggled and Alex didn’t feel laughed at, just… appreciated.

Gertrude and Spot both whined for the tennis ball to be thrown, and Maggie bent down to pick it up, to chuck it for them.

The muscles in her arm rippled, and Alex was a goner.

“Yeah, I like coffee, Danvers. Here, give me your phone. I mean, so I can put my number in. If that’s okay.”

“My sister,” Alex had clarified about the lockscreen photo, and Maggie smiled with something sad in her eyes.

“You two are close, then,” she observed.

“Closer than close,” Alex answered, proud, but trying to search for the sadness behind Maggie’s eyes.

“That’s really important,” Maggie smiled as Alex passed her the phone with an empty contact screen.

They’d laughed heartily when the pups returned with the ball, and they’d giggled awkwardly while they waited for Alex’s text to go through so Maggie could put her into her phone, too.

If Maggie was as nervous as Alex, though, she didn’t show it.

But god, she is. So nervous that she texts Alex the next morning, because she’s been up all night thinking. Up all night worrying.

Because she’d noticed this gorgeous woman in the park, and she’d seen her with that blonde girl, and relieved had flooded through her veins when the girl was on Alex’s lock screen and they’re sisters, they’re sisters, but Maggie still can’t believe her luck.

That this woman – Alex. Alex Danvers. She can’t stop running the name over in her head – seemed to like her. Asked her out.

A beautiful, smart, tough woman like that, asking her out? She can barely believe it.

So she texts her – not particularly early, she thinks, for an FBI agent – and she tells her she’s looking forward to coffee, and does Alex want to sit in the park so they can bring their dogs?

Because – she rubs her face against Spot’s nervously – she could probably use some moral support.

She’s surprised by how immediate the response is.

Good morning! Sure! If you want to, I mean. The park’s really close to my place, so it works well.

Maggie grins and blushes and shows Spot the text. “Twenty bucks she didn’t mean to say it like that,” Maggie tells her, and sure enough, her phone buzzes again not twenty seconds later.

Damn, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I can easily get Gertrude from home. To go to the park. With you and Spot and coffee. Not… I’m sorry…

She chuckles and she bites her lip, and she doesn’t know whether to be amused or disappointed. She is, irreparably, both.

Because there’s something about this Alex Danvers.

Something about her that Maggie wants. Badly.

And that something feels like everything.

But maybe Alex just wants a friend? Because – but her phone buzzes yet again.

Not that I would mind. Other… with you… eventually. If you want there to be an eventually. With us. If you want there to be an us. Eventually. I mean, I just didn’t want you to think I only wanted one thing from you. With you. Okay, I’m gonna stop texting now. If you still want to, I’ll see you at the park at one like we planned. Wow. Okay. Have a good morning.

Maggie’s heart slams with something like exhilaration as she reads Alex’s ramblings – her adorable, sweet, thoughtful, sincere ramblings.

Other than Spot, Maggie can’t remember the last time she met someone this sincere.

“Whaddaya think, Spotty? I think this is an eventually kinda girl, huh?”

Spot leans up to lick her face, and Maggie beams. “Thought so.”

She trembles as she types, part from nerves, part from excitement.

No worries, Danvers. I’d love to see Gertrude again. And you. One pm it is. I’m looking forward to it. All of it.

It’s 7:16 am.

Maggie sighs. It’s going to be a long day until 1pm.