An expression he had never seen before crossed her face, a combination of disbelief and irritation and calculation, as if she were trying to figure out which move came next. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Just say it,
he told himself.
Like a Band-Aid. Tear it off in one clean pull.
He couldn’t. “There are some things I need to take care of. I can’t really explain now. I’ll try to—”
I’ll try to make sense of it later
She stopped him before he could finish. “After midnight on a Friday night, there isn’t anything you have to take care of that can’t wait until Monday morning. I can assure you of that.” Hands on hips, she waited.
This time, he didn’t say anything.
Two circles of pink began to glow in Paige’s face. Her eyes widened. “You son of a bitch. Is there someone else?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what the hell is going on?”
Jack took a step back. One foot. Two. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I just need some space,” he said. “Some time to figure things out. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
“Damn right you should have.” She dropped her voice and glanced at the couples around them. “The Deveau Ball isn’t exactly the place to tell your fiancée you’re not sure you want to marry her.”
But Jack had never been surer of anything in his life. He edged away.
Paige stared at him. “We aren’t through talking about this. Don’t you walk away from me. Don’t you dare leave me standing here.”
Jack dropped his gaze and turned, pushing blindly through the couples still pressed against each other. Guilt ran up the back of his neck and jumbled his brain. What was he doing? Paige would never forgive him for this. Ever.
He didn’t care. Nor did he care what the city’s rumor mill might churn out by this time tomorrow. Closing his ears to her voice behind him, Jack stumbled through chairs, past tables, in the direction of the bar and the curtains beyond. He wasn’t sure where he intended to go. Just away. Outside. Or back into the arboretum. Or even inside the depths of a janitor’s closet, for God’s sake.
Just someplace where I can be alone
. He was almost to the rear exit, just a few more steps, when he heard a female voice, close beside him.
“Jack?” Low, sultry, it came from somewhere in the darkness to his left.
Shit. He didn’t want to talk to anyone else; he was so incredibly tired of making chit chat with people he saw once a year. Cracking his knuckles, he turned and put on his game face just the same.
Eden. He should have guessed. That woman managed to turn up in every wrong place. She stood near the exit, holding a lit cigarette. Smoke wound from her fingertips up to her face, creating a hazy portrait smudged gold and navy blue in the half-light. “Had enough?” She tilted her head back and slid a long glance up his torso. “You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”
She raised the cigarette to her lips and inhaled, a languorous movement that called to his mind the screen sirens of old. On anyone else, Jack couldn’t stand the sight or smell of cigarettes. On Eden, with her long fingers and heart-shaped mouth and razor-sharp cheekbones, it looked almost glamorous.
“Where’s your fiancée?”
The word ate into him. “Probably cursing me out.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Did you tell her about Maggie?”
“I didn’t have to.” He cleared his throat. “Besides, that’s not the reason…I mean, not the only reason…”
She flicked a bit of ash into a planter near her feet. “Sure it isn’t.” She lifted one shoulder, a slow shimmy of bare skin that made Jack recall Eden and Maggie back in college, sunning themselves on the quad with bare shoulders and legs shining up into the sky.
He dug one toe into the floor and studied the laces of his shoes. “Is she…is she involved with someone?”
“Maggie?”
Of course Maggie.
Eden inhaled again before answering. “I don’t think that’s any of your damn business. She would have told you herself if she wanted you to know.”
Irritated, he took a step closer. “I‘m not going to hurt her.”
She blinked up at him, and a sort of laugh escaped her currant-red lips. “How on earth can you make a promise like that?”
How could he answer? What could he say?
He jerked his chin in the direction of the dance floor. “Listen, Paige and me—it’s over.”
The look on Eden’s face was less surprise and more odd admiration. “Really?”
Close enough
.
I’m sure she won’t take me back, and I don’t want to go
. “That’s why I need to see Maggie. To tell her—”
“What? That you’re still in love with her? That you’re going to whisk her away from her life? That everything will be just like it was back in college? Tell me, Jack—what if Maggie doesn’t feel that way about you anymore? What if she just wants to move on? Why can’t you let the past alone?”
Frustration wormed inside him. Jack took Eden’s arms in both his hands, in a gentle gesture that held the ache of a college boy with his heart half-healed. Looking down into her face, he fell all the way back into memory, all the way down that long slide into the Jack-who-used-to-be.
“Because she was my wife.”
*
“Which casino should we go to first?” Maggie twirled in the middle of the sidewalk, pointing first to Caesar’s Palace, then to the MGM Grand. “Maybe Mandalay Bay? Or the Venetian? Ooh, look, they have a show…”
Jack wrapped his arms around her and scooped her up. “We’re only here for twenty-four hours. You might have to pick and choose.”
She buried her head against his chest and nuzzled his neck with kisses. “I want to do everything.”
He laughed out loud. “I know you do.” Releasing her, not wanting to, he turned and waved at Eden and Stefan. The two friends stood a few feet away, watching an elaborate fountain outside the Bellagio. Jack shook his head. Las Vegas. What a place. He’d never been west of the Mississippi, but Mags had closed her eyes, dropped her finger onto a map, and declared that Vegas would be the perfect place to celebrate his graduation.
I wouldn’t have cared if she picked southern Utah, Alaska, or the moon,
he thought.
If Mags is with me, that’s all that matters.
She wound her fingers through his. “Let’s go to the Mirage. I want a fruity drink.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Eden and Stefan wandered over, arms draped loosely around each other’s waists in the comfortable manner of ex-lovers and friends. They’d had some kind of encounter last year, Jack remembered, but to their credit, both had taken the breakup in stride.
At the bar a few minutes later, the four friends raised their glasses.
“To graduation,” announced Jack.
“And friendship,” Eden added, with a sideways glance at Stefan. She leaned over and planted a kiss on Maggie’s cheek.
“And love,” Maggie chimed in. With one hand on Jack’s knee, she clinked her daiquiri glass against the others.
Yeah, to love,
thought Jack, downing his beer.
And everything that follows after.
*
“I think I’m a little drunk.” Maggie leaned against Jack, her eyes slits against the bright bar lights.
He rubbed the top of her head and glanced at his watch. Almost two in the morning. Damn, but time went fast, especially when you didn’t want it to.
“Where are Eden and Stef?” she whispered into his shoulder.
“Stef’s playing craps, and Eden’s playing a guy over by the roulette table.”
Maggie giggled. “I’m glad we came.”
He kissed her ear. “Me too.” God, he felt so filled up by her, as if every part of his life had been gray and dull before Maggie. He dreaded their goodbye at the airport next month. Even though he’d spent his entire college career working toward a Rhodes Scholarship, the thought of actually going to London and leaving his girlfriend behind made his chest split in two.
We’ll have holidays
, he tried to reassure himself,
and maybe when she’s done with school she’ll come over for the last year and stay with me.
Jack hadn’t told anyone his true plan yet: he meant to ask Maggie to marry him, this Christmas, maybe, or on her birthday in the spring. Then it wouldn’t matter how far apart they lived. He could stand any amount of miles, any amount of time, knowing that Mags waited at the end of it.
He slid off his barstool and helped her down.
“You know what would be funny?” She looked up at him.
He recognized the glint in her eye that meant her mind was spinning an adventure. “What?”
“If we got married out here.”
His mouth dried up. “What did you say?”
They neared the casino’s wide glass doors, and Maggie gestured outside. “There’s, like, fifteen wedding chapels in one square mile. Wouldn’t it be funny if we went back to New York and told everyone we’d gotten married out in Vegas?”
He didn’t answer for a minute. Stone sober, he looked down at her, then back at Eden and Stefan, then out at the small white building down the street. The sign outside it read “Elvis Weddings Available Here.”
“Yeah,” he said after a long minute. “That would be funny.”
*
Morning sunlight streamed through the cheap motel blinds, and Jack winced. Flipping over, he buried his face in the pillow and tried to go back to sleep. He heard a toilet flush and a door open and close.
“Jack?”
He rolled over again. “Yeah?”
Maggie sat down on the bed beside him, eyes red and cheeks white. “What is this?”
For a minute he wasn’t sure what she was pointing at. With her hands spread on the sheet, she stared at her fingers. He frowned. “The bed?”
She didn’t even break a smile. “No. What is this?” With a shaky right hand, she traced the silver band around her left third finger.
Truth slammed into his brain, and Jack sat straight up. He’d forgotten. For a few sleepy hours, he’d forgotten all about it. He glanced down at his own left hand. A matching band, slightly wider, circled his own finger.
“Did we—” She stopped as panic broke up her voice. “Tell me we didn’t.” Her gaze darted around the room, taking in the half-empty bottle of champagne on the bureau, the wilting white roses, the videotape labeled “Maggie and Jack.” She stared again at her finger, then at his. “Oh, no.”
Oh, no?
That wasn’t the reaction he’d hoped for. Jack took a deep breath. Maybe they had been hasty. Maybe they should have waited. But they could still have a ceremony back East, couldn’t they? Mags could wear a white dress and have a regular line of bridesmaids. She could pick out whatever cake and flowers and music she wanted. He’d do anything for her; God knows his family had enough damn money to throw her whatever wedding she dreamed of. All he cared about was that she belonged to him. That they belonged to each other. Jack and Maggie Major. He smiled at the thought of it.
“This was a mistake.” She began to pace around the tiny room, moving from bathroom to window in five or six steps. She bit her bottom lip as tears streaked her face.
A mistake?
Fear striped his insides. “Mags, wait a minute.”
It was your idea in the first place
, he wanted to say, but he knew that wasn’t fair. She’d had too much to drink and been swept away by the excitement of the city. Had he taken advantage of her? Of the situation? Jack refused to believe it. She’d stood next to him at the little altar and looked up into his eyes. She’d said the words and kissed him with such ardor that he’d believed she knew exactly what she was doing.
Now doubt began to set in.
Before he could say anything else, Maggie had pulled on a t-shirt and shorts and disappeared from the room. Jack leapt out of bed, searching for clothes. Rifling through his bag, he pulled out a pair of jeans, stuffed his feet into old sneakers, and followed her. At the edge of the parking lot, he caught up to her. She stood staring out across a line of hedges behind the motel.
“It was a mistake,” she said again. She didn’t meet his gaze, just continued to look into empty space.
Jack’s heart thudded down around his knees. He thought she loved him. He thought she felt the same way about the future that he did. Had he gotten it wrong? He didn’t speak. He had no idea what to say.
After a long minute, she turned to face him. Her mouth turned down at the corners, and when he tried to read her eyes, he saw emotions he couldn’t decipher. “We shouldn’t have. It’s just—I’m not ready. You’re going halfway around the world in a few weeks.”
“I want you to come with me.”
“Jack, I have two years of school left. I can’t follow you to England.”
“You could transfer. You could study there with me. Or we could just wait until you graduate. Two years is a hell of a long time, but it isn’t forever.”