Page 15 of Another Last Call
Nine
Maggie
Itriedtomaskthe way my fingers shook as I unlocked my apartment door, hoping Caleb wouldn’t notice. Flexing my hands to work some warmth into them, I twisted the key and pushed the door open.
“It’s not much,” I said to him, suddenly nervous. “But it’s better than living with my mom.”
He stepped inside and I glanced around, making sure it was presentable. Downstairs, the dining room had a high ceiling, but the apartment was built over the kitchen and bar area. It was small, but tidy, the furniture old but clean. My bed sat in one corner, neatly made, and a living room area and makeshift kitchen took up the other wall. The bathroom was old but functional and even had a washer and dryer in it.
It wasn’t much, but it was mine.
“It’s nice,” he said.
I knew he was just being polite, but I wasn’t embarrassed. Caleb clearly understood what it was like to live like that. I couldn’t imagine how much work it was going to be to turn his cabin into something that compared to the other lake houses. I’d never been inside it before, but I knew what some of those houses on the lake looked like and the way he spoke about it, he had a lot of work ahead of him.
Smiling, I shrugged off the flannel jacket I was wearing, hanging it by the door before holding my hand out to grab Caleb’s for him. He passed it to me, his cheeks turning pink as he thanked me.
It was adorable.
Fuck, had he gotten hot. Like, unfairly hot. The moment I’d seen him that night, the crush I’d battled with as a kid had come roaring back. As a teenager, I thought Caleb was the cutest guy I’d ever seen. But as an adult?
Fuck.
I wanted to play with his hair. I wanted to find out what kissing him would be like with that beard. He had that blue collar sort of look, wearing jeans and work boots and a plaid jacket that just…
He looked so damn good.
“When did you move in?” he asked as I went to the kitchen to grab a beer for each of us.
“After high school,” I said, popping the cap off one bottle and handing it to him before opening my own. “I had a little hideout up here for a while before that. That would have been after you left, though.”
“Damn, that’s too bad. We could have had crazy parties up here.”
I shrugged as we sat down together on the couch. “Or at least somewhere a little more private than that gazebo.”
Caleb glanced at me. I couldn’t quite look back as I pressed my lips together, unsure of how he would respond. We’d been talking for hours at that point, easy conversations that made me feel like those years apart had never existed.
Even with all that talking, we hadn’t even referenced the night I’d last seen him. That night, when I’d stumbled my way through asking him to sleep with me. When I knew he wouldn’t be coming back, and it was either tell him how I felt then or keep it a secret forever.
Then he chuckled, which was about as good of a reaction as I could hope for.
“Can I be honest with you?” he said, his voice deeper than it had been. “That night is still one of my top memories of all time.”
I smiled, looking down at my beer. “Mine too.”
Neither of us seemed to know what to say after that.
“Mags, can I ask you a question that’s really inappropriate?” Caleb finally said.
“Please do,” I replied.
He took a swig of his beer, as if for courage. “You told me that night that I’d gotten you off. I believed you, but now…”
He trailed off and I felt my face turning red.
“Did you actually?”
“At the time, I thought I had,” I admitted. “I wasn’t lying. But, in hindsight, well…”
