“Are you okay?” he asks, and the blood drains from my face. When you’re not expecting it, it’s easy to trick your brain into thinking there’s nothing to worry about. But the minute I hear his voice, a voice I’ve listened to all night, I hear exactly who it is.
Shoving my hand over my mouth, I muffle my own ear-piercing scream.
Rule #11: If you’re not good with words, actions will do.
Beau
“What? What’s wrong?” I snap, quickly backing up as if I’ve hurt her somehow.
I can’t say I’ve ever had this response after giving a woman an orgasm. Definitely not what I was going for.
She fumbles along the wall like she’s trying to find something. Without warning, the lights in the room turn on, blinding me as I slam my eyes shut and cover them with my hands.
“Oh no, no, no, no,” she mumbles, and I struggle to peel open my eyes in the now bright room. The moment they adjust, I quickly slam them shut again.
“What the fuck!”
Why is Maggie here? Why is Maggie standing against the wall with her dress hiked up around her hips? Did I just…
Holy shit.
My mind is scrambling for answers while she continues on her dramatic rambling and overall freaking out. It’s obvious I’m not who she expected either.
“I was supposed to meet a girl I found on the app,” I mutter.
“Beau, that was me!” she snaps, clearly irritated by how long this is taking my slow brain to comprehend.
“No. It couldn’t be.”
When I open my eyes again, her dress is back down covering her panties, and she’s pacing the room in a frenzy. “It was a mistake. I didn’tknow! There was no way I could have known.”
“Maggie, calm down.”
She freezes and glares at me with wide eyes and a wild look of panic on her face. “Calm down?”
“Yes, calm down. So…we know each other. Big deal. We’re both adults. And we didn’t even have sex.”
The intensity of her expression does not waver for a drawn-out moment before she finally scoffs and shakes her head. “I keep forgetting you’re only twenty-two.”
“Hey,” I reply. I’m not exactly sure what that was supposed to imply, but it felt a lot like she used my age as an insult.
“Beau, we don’t justknow each other. Your dad is my friend—mygoodfriend. And colleague, and if he knew I had you here in his club—" She looks pained as she covers her face with her hands, dropping onto the bed.
I don’t talk for a while, not sure what to say, but definitely feeling a sense of disappointment. Not disappointed because my mystery woman is Maggie—not disappointed by that at all, actually—but more so because everything we had planned is basically nixed now. My dream woman, ready to boss me around and take control, is no more.
Well, technically, she’s sitting right in front of me, but she’s having a full-blown crisis at the moment, and I don’t see her getting over it anytime soon.
“Do you want me to leave?” I ask reluctantly, because I don’t really know what else to say at this point.
“Yes, please. But keep your mask on.”
I watch her carefully as I slip the black ribbon over the back of my head, and I hate that we’re ending it this way. It doesn’t feel right. One minute I had my fingers inside her, and now I’m being sent away.
“Beau…” she says, calling after me as I open the door. When I look back, she continues, “No one can know about this.”
With a nod, I reply, “I know.” And just like that, I disappear into the dim hallway. Music is still blaring from the main room along with the low chatter of voices, and I make my way toward the exit. I know we can’t continue what we were doing, but I don’t like walking away from her, not like this. Not after what we just did.
I take that uneasy feeling with me all the way home. Even as I crawl into bed, artfully dodging my mother’s prodding questions by sneaking in through the patio instead of the main entrance, I’m still thinking about Maggie.