Page 64 of Another Last Call
She stammered for a moment. “My mom’s going to come back, though.”
“Yeah, and Steve too, if he wants. There’s enough money for either two full time positions, or a full time and two part time.”
“And where are we finding this mysterious staff member to help us run the restaurant?”
“Well, if we offer a bit of a higher wage, we can probably attract someone who works at the Starbucks or something.” I shrugged. “Make it clear that they’re not the only gig in town. We’ll find someone.”
Maggie sighed. “Even if we can afford it, I live here. I wake up in the morning, and I’m at the bar. We close, and it seems stupid to go upstairs when I have work to do down here.”
I’d seen Maggie in a number of states. Years ago, I’d seen her eyes flash nervously as she asked me to take her virginity. More recently, I’d seen her angry to the point of screaming, her face red and flashing.
I’d watched her deal with nuisance customers, turning down piggish tourists who treated her like an object, and I’d watched her surprise customers with the little things she’d do to make them feel at home.
I’d seen her beg for me to make her come.
I’d seen her laugh begrudgingly at stupid jokes I made, and I’d seen her smiling softly in post-orgasmic bliss. I’d looked down at her with my cock in her mouth, and up at her as I licked her pussy. I’d seen her cry, albeit only a handful of times, and only once as an adult.
Day in and day out, I’d seen Maggie handle a myriad of emotions, sometimes with more grace than at other times. Sitting in our shared office, cradling her head in her hands, I was seeing her in a state I hadn’t before, and couldn’t quite name. I think she felt hopeless. Overwhelmed, definitely. Probably scared. Dejected. Hurting in a way that tortured me, denying help when all I wanted was to take her in my arms and make everything better.
Despite the arguments and drama, I saw Maggie as the perfect being she was. Imperfect as anyone, and perfect to me.
There was no denying it anymore.
There was no way for me to promise her another last time.
I couldn’t tell her that sitting in our little office, though.
“Mags, let’s get out of the bar for a bit. Come over to my place after we close. We’ll have a drink and figure things out.”
Thirty-Three
Maggie
MarbleBeachisfarenough north that the summer days are longer than most.
During the winter, it’s dark in the morning when people leave for work, and dark when they leave work to go home. It gets cold, snowy, and depressing. Sometimes people come to the lake to ice fish, but most of the time they go to the other side of the lake for that kind of thing. It’s quiet and isolated and lonely.
At the peak of summer, though, it’s light out until nearly ten-thirty at night. The tourists love it. They start roaring campfires long before the sun sets and drink well into the night. Kids ride their bikes through the streets, stop for dinner, then still have enough sunlight to go back and play for a few more hours.
The night that Caleb asked me to go to his place for a drink was past the peak of summer, but it was still mostly light out when we locked the doors. Even so, it felt strange to me to be out. I’d been working past sunset every night.
After Caleb left the office to help Big Tim clean the kitchen, I dug out the reports he was referring to. He was right, of course. The Sea Glass was having a record year, and we were doing it with two less staff members than my mom usually had. Of course I was working insane hours. I’d taken over my mom’s role but had never filled my own. It hadn’t made sense to me to spend money hiring yet another person when I could just do it myself.
I finally understood why my mom had used the apartment as a storage room. Even when things were tight growing up, having a home to escape to at the end of the day was worth more than what she would have saved by living where she worked.
I followed Caleb to his place in my car, convincing myself it would help me stick to our promise of not hooking up again. Caleb probably thought I was a joke at that point. We had sat in my apartment weekly that summer, naked and sweating, vowing it was the last time. I swore each time that I meant it, but a week later I would fail to stop myself from ending up over him or beneath him, pleasure shooting through my body.
But I was scared to let us fall into the trap of being something more. Sure, we were breaking the rules constantly, but I didn’t know if getting rid of the rules was the right way to go.
Caleb was my business partner. He was tied to my life, my livelihood. And while I trusted him completely, he still lived in his cabin. In his lake house.
He was going to leave someday.
The sun was just going down when I parked on his driveway. He was already standing on the gravel, waiting idly as I got out of the car. I couldn’t help the tingle of attraction that ran through my body as he stood there, the golden light glowing around his face.
He unlocked the door and I followed him in, then stopped in my tracks.
“By the way,” he said casually. “I finished the renovations.”
