“We should talk,” she said.
He grabbed both of their drinks and brought her to the living room. “Sit down, before you fall down,” he said. “I’m not mad at you, so I’m not sure why you look ten seconds from going out the window.”
The window was a good idea, actually. She’d been calculating how long it would take to get to the front door, down the flights of stairs, and out to her car, and if she could do it before he caught her. She’d seen him run and was pretty sure it was a definite no.
“You can tell me anything.” Dean smiled, his green eyes soft on her face. “You know I love you.”
“Yeah.” Maggie said. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Dean raised one of his golden eyebrows at her, but said nothing. Maggie took a deep breath. Her stomach was rolling, but the anxious pitch was easily distinguishable from the heated twist it so often did around Mac. This was the roil of nerves making themselves known. Maggie took a steadying breath.
“When I first asked you to fake date me, I had an ulterior motive.”
“I figured as much,” Dean said, but his voice was gentle. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Maggie took a deep breath and a sip of her drink. The liquid was sweet on her tongue, which helped with her nerves.
“I kind of believed I was in love with you,” she said with an exhale. “I thought while we were on all these dates, you’d realize you were in love with me too, and then we’d date for real. Just like in all the romance novels.”
Dean put his tumbler on his coffee table and rested his elbows on his knees. He ran one of his hands over his face, eyes wide and staring at the floor. Twice he opened his mouth and twice he closed it again without saying a word. Maggie snuck glances at him out of the corner of her eye. If she looked at him full-on, she was sure her face would flame.
“It wasn’t one of my smartest moments,” Maggie said as Dean leaned back against the couch. He was fidgety, eyes still wide in his classically handsome face. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t honest with you from the start. I’m sorry I asked you to fake a relationship with me, and I’m sorry I avoided you instead of telling you I don’t want to continue that fake relationship.”
Dean looked at her. “I have some things I’ll need to say, but first I need to ask, why now? Why are you done pretending with me?”
That was probably the easiest and hardest answer of all.
“I don’t think we should fake a date anymore because I’m actually not in love with you at all. I never was. I love you platonically, which is completely different, even if it took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure it out.” Maggie studied her shoes against Dean’s gleaming hardwood floors.
Dean stood from the couch and walked to his window. It had a view of downtown and the lights from all the other buildings winked like stars in the darkening evening. Dean’s reflection frowned, and he brought his hand up to rub at his temples and his forehead.
“I’m so sorry Dean.” Maggie said and watched as the reflected Dean shut his eyes and rested his forehead against the window.
“What changed?” he asked, eyes still closed. “How did you figure it out?”
“It was a bunch of things. The first was what you said at the waterfall. Your version of love sounded so beautiful and powerful. It sounded right, but it didn’t describe what I felt for you. Even my version of love didn’t describe what I felt for you. Not really.”
“And the second reason?”
“I recognized that what you had said described the way I feel about someone else.”
Dean pulled away from the window, turning to lean his shoulders back against it. He studied her as if he’d never seen her before. She waited for his anger and disapproval. His lips had twisted, and he worried the bottom one with his teeth. God, he was already mad at her, and she hadn’t even told him the worst part yet.
“It’s Mac, isn’t it?” Dean said and pushed off the window to come back to the couch.
Maggie nodded.
“That’s good,” Dean said. “You deserve that.”
Maggie wasn’t sure what that meant. Wasn’t he upset? She’d manipulated him, lied to him. Was this sarcasm? “Deserve what?”
“Everyone deserves someone who looks at them, the way that man looks at you.”
Maggie’s whole body flushed at the comment, and her mouth dried up. She chewed on her thumbnail. “How does he look at me?”
Dean wrapped his arm around the back of the couch, his fingers lightly touching her shoulder. He tugged on the ends of Maggie’s hair. “He looks at you like you’re a glass of cool, clear water, and he’s been wandering through the desert for days.”
“That actually sounds really nice.” Maggie’s eyes burned.