Page 31 of Another Last Call
“To which part?”
“Your dad paid your mom off?”
She shrugged. “His parents did.”
“Did you ever find out who he is?”
“Yep. She told me his name so I can avoid ever having to meet him.” She took a deep breath, then let it out shakily. “So now everything she’s worked for and everything I’ve ever known is going to be gone in two months. Two months, they gave her, for the thing that’s been my entire life.”
The timing was shit, but as she spoke, I was struck again by just how beautiful Maggie was. Her hair swirled around her head, her eyes shining with the remnants of her tears. I understood at that moment why she’d been upset with me, why she’d felt alienated as I talked about the lake house. Sitting next to me was a girl I’d grown up with but had never known anything about.
“Mags, I’m sorry about the other day.”
She glanced at me warily.
“I was careless with the way I talked and I didn’t realize it was upsetting you until it was too late.”
She moved her eyes back forward, glaring towards the water. “I thought you weren’t going to ask me to stop being angry.”
“You don’t have to forgive me if you don’t want to.”
We sat quietly on the bench, staring out at the lake and listening to the wind as it howled.
“Apology accepted.” Her words were quiet and begrudging. “More importantly, I’m sorry.” She chuckled dryly, her voice thick as though she was going to cry again. “I’m what they warned you about when they said ‘don’t stick your dick in crazy.’”
“I don’t believe that for one second,” I said. “Overdramatic, maybe. Crazy, no. And apology accepted.”
“Definitely overdramatic,” she agreed.
After another moment of silence, I couldn’t help asking. “At the risk of making you mad, can I ask about something you just said?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“When you said you should have taken up ‘more’ of those old guys…”
Maggie’s shoulders tensed as I trailed off.
“I slept with a guy who liked to buy me things. And was older than me. And a little bit… married. If I’d taken up even ten percent of the sleazeballs who’d tried to buy me over the years, I’d have enough to save the bar.” She looked at me sidelong. “Judging me yet?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Yes, you are. But thanks for pretending.” She looked back out at the lake. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t think I have what it takes to be a sex worker.”
“I don’t think that counts as prostitution.”
“Close enough.” She shrugged, finally unfolding her legs from in front of her, shivering as another gust of wind blew past her bare arms. “I’m going to save the bar. We have two months to make all the repairs. If I can get the money by the end of the month, we’ll have time to fix it.”
Seventeen
Caleb
Ididmybestto help The Sea Glass, but there were only so many bacon burgers I could stomach.
I mean, I tried. For the next few days, it became my go-to food, though I did finally break down and order a Caesar salad instead of fries and gravy. But when I woke up one morning and seriously considered ordering a bacon burger and just dropping it in the garbage so I could have a bowl of fruit for breakfast, I knew my plan needed some work.
The problem is that I didn’t knowwhatI could do.
The obvious solution would have been to give Maggie the money. From the moment we’d walked off the beach and back into The Sea Glass, she’d set to work with a fierceness and concentration that I recognized and related to. What was missing, though, was any sort of plan or efficiency.
