Page 32 of Running Into You
“Josh.”
“I knew it!” She shrieks and raises her fists in the air like she’s Rocky and she’s just run up a million steps. When she’s finished her celebration, she pushes me toward the chair and sits crossed-legged on her desk in front of me. She resembles a six-year-old that’s just been told Santa is going to come twice this year. “Details, now! Spill! The! Tea!” She claps with every word.
“It’s not a big deal.” I shrug, even though I know it is. “He crashed my date last night, I got pissed at him, he apologized and… then he made it up to me.”
“How many times did he make it up to you?”
“Multiple times,” I admit, and she squeals with delight. I try not to laugh as she shimmies on her desk.
“So, you’re dating now?”
“No,” I say firmly. “We are doing no such thing.” I give her a brief synopsis of the ground rules that Josh and I established as she watches me with a wrinkled brow. The more I talk, the more she deflates.
“So, you’re friends,” she says once I’ve finished.
“Yes.”
“Who hang out together.”
“Exactly.”
“And have sex sometimes.”
“Mmmhmmm.”
“And you’re both not going to sleep with anyone else.”
“Bingo.”
“Thank you for the clarification. How silly of me. That doesn’t sound like a relationship at all.” The sarcasm in her tone is palpable.
“I’m making it sound more complicated than it is.” I stand up and start smelling the soap stacked neatly on her counter. “Nothing has changed with our friendship. We’ve just added sex into the mix. Much like we added running earlier in the week.” She continues to look at me like I’m completely delusional, and I start to feel more than a little defensive. I hold up the soap as a distraction. “I like this scent. What is it?”
“Tea tree oil. Don’t try to distract me.” She hops off her desk and straightens the soaps I’ve left slightly askew. Maggie needs everything in her life to be symmetrical, which is a wonderful quality for people to entrust with their eyebrows. “Don’t you think you’d rather be in a relationship?”
“What is so great about being in a relationship?” I snap. “How’s your relationship, Mags?” I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. Maggie’s shoulders slump, but she doesn’t turn around. I know things with Mark have never been great, and I feel horrible for poking an open wound. “Shit, Maggie. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“You’re not wrong,” she says sadly as she turns to face me. “Things have been difficult. I keep hoping they’ll get better.” Her brown eyes blink away tears and my heart breaks for her. I remember those feelings. Wanting to make something work when it’s clear to everyone else that it’s broken. I had to figure out I was better off alone than in a toxic relationship and Maggie needs to come to that realization on her own. I hold out my arms to her and she eagerly steps into them. I silently curse myself for being a shitty friend. Maggie lives for hugs, and I don’t give her enough of them.
“Why don’t we stop talking about men and go pay too much for coffee instead?” I say finally, still hugging her.
“Yes, please.” She draws back and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She leaves the room for a moment and returns with her purse and keys.
It’s perfect fall weather to be walking outside. We talk about anything but the men in our lives as we stroll the park with our lattes. Maggie tells me that her dad and stepmom are planning on coming to the city for Thanksgiving. He’s a retired elementary school principal, and she owns her own catering business. From what she’s told me, her father seems very protective of Maggie, and I wonder how he and Mark get along. Maggie really loves her stepmom, Valerie. She lost her own mom to ovarian cancer when she was a teenager, and I can tell she still misses her a lot. Her father remarried a few years ago. I feel a stab of guilt over avoiding my own living mother like the plague when Maggie would give anything to have hers back. But it’s a well-documented fact that not all mothers are created equal.
“Betty?” A man’s voice calls to me from behind us and I turn in its direction. It takes me a moment to recognize Josh’s friend I’d met only last night.
“Callum, hey!”
“I thought it was you.” He smiles so genuinely; I have a sudden urge to buy him things. Seriously. He looks like he could be the love interest in a 90’s rom-com. He pushes his blond hair back from his face, bringing attention to those blue sapphires he has for eyes. His gaze shifts to Maggie, and he practically does a double take. I don’t blame him. Maggie is stunning. She smiles at him, and the poor boy looks like he’s forgotten his name.
“Callum, this is Maggie. Maggie, this is Josh’s friend, Callum. I met him last night at the bar.”
“Ah.” She grins at him now. “I heard it was quite a time.” He recovers from his speechlessness.
“The last time I witnessed a match like that, it was on pay-per-view.” We all laugh. “I won’t keep you, just wanted to say hello.” He turns back to Maggie and suddenly he seems reluctant to leave us. “It was nice to meet you, Maggie.”
“Likewise,” she says shyly. We say our goodbyes to Callum and keep walking. I give Maggie a minute to recover and then give her the same figure-eight hand gesture she pulled on me earlier.
