Page 17 of One Night Collision

“You’re spiraling,” she says. “I can see it from here. Just stop. He’s into you.”

“You don’t know that.”

Hannah rolls her eyes at me. “Yes, Maggie, I do. Anybody who has ever seen you two together knows that.”

“Who’s seen us together? Aside from his friends, that is!”

Hannah just blinks at me. “You're as social media challenged as my grandmother!”

Before I can ask what that means, Hannah has whipped out her phone and is thumbing through different screens. When she finds what she’s looking for, she turns her phone around to mewith a triumphant grin. “Spotted in Bellehaven. I cannot believe you are not all over this page. Do you not know how much money you could make by offering a discount for group members? Like every man in this town who does something wrong is haunting this page and praying they don’t show up on it!”

Great. Now I’m old and dumb.But even then, my gaze is focused on the pic on the screen. It’s me and Damien from the other night when he stopped by the shop just after I’d closed. All we’d done was take a little walk around the square. Until the very end, when he’d kissed me for the whole world to see. And some asshole had taken a pic and put it online. “Are you telling me there’s goddamn Bellehaven paparazzi?”

“You’re still the new kid in town—well, newish!”

“I’ve lived here for almost a decade!” I protest.

“Yeah, in a gated community with zero involvement in the town,” she points out. “You’re the mystery woman, which means everybody wants to be all in your business. He’s hot, successful, and single. Every woman over the age of twenty-five and a few under it have been chasing after Damien Sizemore ever since he moved back to town… Why the heck wouldn’t you think people would be watching?”

In that light, it made sense, but I still didn’t like it. Was that what he wanted to talk about? Probably. It would make sense. Feeling slightly better about things, I just went back to work, ignoring Hannah and all of her knowing looks.

—-

By the time eight o’clock rolls around, I’m back to being nervous. In my head, Damien has dumped me, gotten back together with me, told me he only wants a fuck buddy, and about a dozen other things. But when I look up and see him striding toward me, his suit traded in for jeans and a simple T-shirt that fits him to perfection, every other thought just vanishes. He looks good.Hot and very, very fuckable.

When he reaches me, there’s no big fuss, no hesitation. He just grabs me and kisses me. And when I'm melting into a puddle at his feet, he pulls back and grins at me. “I’ve been wanting to do that all goddamn day,” he says.

“You can totally do it again. I won’t mind… not even a little.”

So he does. When he pulls back the second time, he doesn’t let me go. He just wraps his arms around me and holds me close for a minute.

“I guess you’ve seen the pics, haven’t you?”

He frowns at me. “What pics?”

“Apparently we’re big news in Spotted in Bellehaven,” I tell him. “But if that’s not what you needed to talk to me about, I’m going back to being worried.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t know about that damn group and its nosy-ass members, but I’m not surprised by it. But it answers a question or two for me… namely how your ex-husband knew you and I were together and why he showed up at the courthouse today trying to stir shit.”

I feel myself just shutting down. Like, everything around me dims and all the sounds are just reduced to a soft hum. Calvin is making good on his threats.His promises.

“Don’t,” Damien says, his hands tightening on my upper arms. “Don’t go away.”

Feeling his hands on me, hearing those words, it’s like an anchor that keeps me from drifting too far off course. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t mean physically, Maggie. Don’t check out on me. That asshole isn’t coming between us. No matter what,” he says. “The fucker only showed his ass because he thinks you might actually be happier without him.”

“I am… happier without him. Happier still to be here with you. I just—I thought that was behind me. We’re divorced. Hell,he’s engaged to someone else now. Why the fuck does he care what I’m doing?”

“Because you left him. Because you got fed up with his bullshit and walked out… tiny-dicked motherfuckers are always a little sensitive about that.”

He was. Tiny-dicked. But if I never have to think about Calvin’s junk again, I’ll be happy. “What did he say to you?”

Damien shakes his head, clearly disgusted with Cal’s behavior. “Just running his mouth, talking about how you’d come crawling back to him… which we both know wouldn’t happen even if hell freezes over.”

“That’s the truth.”

“I wanted you to know he was trying to instigate shit. I didn’t want you running into him or getting caught unawares,” he explains.

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