“What happened to wanting to raise your kids in New Hope?” she asks softly. “What happened to not wanting to uproot Grandma?”

I look at the floor. When Maggie wasn’t around, I didn’t doubt for a minute whether our love was strong enough. How do I explain that all changed the minute she came back to town? “I want this to work. You are so damn good for me.”

Her hand touches my jaw, and the contact is so unexpected, so overdue, my nerves flair to life under her fingertips. “Do you love me, Will?”

“Yes.” I want to lower my mouth to hers, to kiss her until we both forget everyone else, but I’m too afraid it wouldn’t work.

“Do you still love her?”

The words wrap their fingers around my heart and squeeze painfully. “Don’t ask me that.”

She gives me a sad smile and pushes herself off the bed. “I’m going to bed,” she says softly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“And then what? What happens next for us?”

She freezes, her back to me. “Do you think she was trying to commit suicide?” Krystal hugs herself and rubs her bare arms. The house is warm, but ever since I told her about finding Maggie this morning, she’s been shivering.

“You can imagine why she might consider it, can’t you? Even her own goddamned sister has taken to calling her Lucy. And you and me…” I trail off. Making Krystal feel guilty about Maggie’s “accident” isn’t productive, and with the tension between my fiancée and me right now, we need our conversations to be productive. Because this limbo is hell.

“When I called her that the other day, I was angry. Scared. It was the only time I’ve ever called her that.” She bites down on her lower lip. “Do you really think the you and me part…”

I close my eyes. “Her accident wasn’t your fault. She was drunk…” The truth is, I have no idea if Maggie’s injury was a drunken accident or a botched suicide attempt.

Krystal shakes her head and watches the river run by on the other side of the glass. “She drinks too much.” Her voice is heavy with worry.

“You can’t save her.”

In the mirror, I see her close her eyes. “Says the pot to the kettle,” she murmurs softly. “I’m just so worried.”

“Me too.” I watch her leave the room, but I don’t know if we’re talking about Maggie or us.

At the other end of the house, I hear Krystal locking up for the night and then the soft thump of her bedroom door as she goes to bed. We don’t sleep together. She doesn’t want us to have sex until our wedding night. Well, our next wedding night. She’s become more conservative in the last few years, more concerned about pleasing her mother or her church or her God. Maybe all three, I’m not sure. I just know it’s important to her so I don’t push the issue.

In fact, since Maggie’s been home, it’s been a bit of a relief. Krystal’s right. I’ve changed. But so has she, and I can’t imagine f**king her right now. And making love is out of the question. There’s too much tension between us, and we can’t snuggle close when we’re both wound up so tightly in thorny vines of doubt.

I lie on top of the covers and turn off the light. I stare up at the ceiling in the darkness.

I’m not sure I can go through with this wedding. When that stink bomb went off, it was so surreal, and then everyone started running out of the church and I was just…relieved.

Krystal has been a constant in my life since we were kids. We went through school together and went to college together. We both decided to move home after graduating from Notre Dame.

She was always there. Always a friend. And when Maggie canceled the wedding and skipped town, Krystal was there to hold my hand.

Our relationship was so normal, and I found comfort in that normalcy. When Maggie didn’t take my calls or return my emails, Krystal became a fixture in my life.

While Maggie always thought I was too good for her, Krystal had every confidence that she was good enough for any man.

I force myself to close my eyes, but my mind spins wildly with the implications of the decision I need to make. I love Krystal. I love that she believes in herself. I love that she believes in me. And Maggie? I don’t even know if I love her. I crave her. I need her.

I want to stop waiting. I want to start living my life. Only one woman can do that with me. And only one wants to.

But as I wrap my hand around my dick, she’s not the one I’m thinking of. Instead, my mind conjures the memory of a feisty redhead in my little apartment by campus. It’s a go-to memory for me. I was finishing up my first semester of graduate classes at Sinclair and Maggie was a freshman.

She sat cross-legged on my couch, scanning the music collection on my phone while I pretended not to be mesmerized by her smile.

“How’s the love life going?” she asked, suddenly bored with my phone and tossing it next to her on the couch.

From my spot on the floor, I ran my eyes over her face. Those big eyes, the sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose that contrasted so sharply with her wicked smile. “There’s not much of a love life to speak of.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re a big, bad graduate student now. A TA. An artist. I see the girls swoon over you. Pick one.”

I remember studying her, wondering if she really didn’t know. “Maybe I already have.”

“So, what’s stopping you?” She slid off the couch and sat in front of me on the floor, taking my face in her hands. “You’re amazing.”

I wanted to lower my mouth to hers and kiss her, but I knew that would scare her off. I’d wanted to kiss her since she showed up in my dorm room at Notre Dame and asked me to. But at Notre Dame she was too young, and there in my New Hope apartment I was too afraid of losing her to make that move. So I said, “Maybe I doubt my skills.”

She laughed. “What skills? Kissing?” When I didn’t reply, she frowned. “Fucking?”

“No.” My cheeks warmed. Maggie used sex as a shield, and as a result she could talk about it—any part of it—without batting a lash. “Why is it that some girls don’t like oral sex?”

Maggie snorted. “Because having a c**k shoved down your throat isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?” She lifted a shoulder, shrugging. “But then I can’t really talk for them, I kind of like giving head. It’s”—her gaze dropped to my pants then quickly returned to my face—“a power trip.”

Oh, hell. The image of her mouth sliding over my c**k slammed into me so fast and hard, I had to shift on the floor to ease my discomfort. “I’m not talking about that kind of oral sex.”

Her eyes went big and she grinned. “Going down on her? That’s what you’re talking about? What girl doesn’t like that?”

I shrug. “Some girls don’t.”

“Really? Why not?” She frowned. “Are you doing it right?”

I grunted. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on down there.”

She lifted a brow. “You sure about that? Maybe you need a second opinion.”

“Maggie, what are you doing?” My breath clogged in my chest because suddenly she was shifting on the floor, slipping her panties off from under her skirt. They were white cotton with little rainbows, and as she slid them down her legs, I wanted to touch her so badly my hands nearly burned with all the live-wire nerves. When she pulled them off and tossed them on the couch behind her, I thought I might suffocate from the weight of the desire in my chest.

“Where do you want me? The couch? The floor? Your bed?”

“I’m not just going to use your body like some sort of dummy I can practice on.” But even then Maggie was my kryptonite.

When she lifted her face, her expression softened, and I was torn in two by what I saw in her eyes. First, I saw her old need to validate her worth with her body, the reason I refused to touch her when she came to my dorm as a fifteen-year-old. But there was more. I wouldn’t have touched her if I hadn’t seen it—the lust sparking in her eyes, the way her breathing grew uneven.

The air between us was tense with everything we never said, heavy with the knowledge that this was it for us because we were too different in one way: I loved her. And Maggie? She hated herself with such an intensity that no one she respected could get close.

And now, as my shaft pulses thick against my palm, Maggie fills my brain so completely, there’s no room for the self-disgust I should be feeling. In this moment, hanging in the web of the memory, there’s no room for guilt. I let myself remember the way she looked as she sat on the edge of the couch and parted her legs, my veins zipping with the forbidden heat of putting my mouth on a woman I’d never even kissed. I let myself remember the first brush of my lips against her inner thigh and the shudder that went through her. Finally, I let myself remember the feel of her against my lips, the taste of her on my tongue, and the sound of her moans as I loved her in the only way she would let me.

As my c**k grows slick, the memory moves forward sixteen months in time, her hair spread out around her on the wet grass by the river, her face framed by my hands as I dipped my head for a kiss so long-anticipated that it’s the most erotic thing my mind can conjure in this moment, as I tighten my grip and push myself into release.

After, the self-loathing settles in, as it should. I stare up at the ceiling, hating everyone who ever made me believe that love was simple, that it was easy.

If love were simple, my love for Krystal would be enough to wash away the memory of Maggie’s kiss.

***

Maggie

This new bridesmaid dress is more hideous than the first.

“What do you think?” Hanna asks as I step from the dressing room.

“It’s…” Hideous. I search for another word. “So unique!”

“We hate it too,” Hanna whispers.

I frown. I don’t hate it, not exactly. It seems cruel to hate such an ugly dress. Akin to hating an ugly child.

The first strike against the dress is its color: maize, a fancy way of saying “sweet-corn yellow.” The hue washes me out and makes me look a little malnourished.

The second strike against the dress is the skirt. The base is tea length. I can go for tea length. I even thought the skirt looked cute landing just below my knees. But it has a removable floor-length skirt that wraps around three-quarters of the dress, exposing only a small triangle of the shorter skirt beneath.

The third, and biggest, strike against the dress is the big ass bow sitting right at my hip.

No, I don’t hate the dress. I just find it to be a little schizophrenic. Sexy casual here, formal there, little-girl cute there. The combination is disturbing.

Krystal flounces into the dressing room and pretends I don’t exist. “Aren’t they the best?” she asks Hanna and Lizzy, looking them over. “You are the loveliest BMs ever!” And with that, she leaves the room, calling for the bridal shop’s dressing room attendant.

I bite my lip. BMs?

“I’ve been called a lot of things…” Lizzy mutters.

“She’s spending too much time on online wedding planning forums,” Hanna explains. Then she drops her voice to a whisper. “You’d think she wanted us to look ugly.”

Not sure what else to do, I turn to study my dress in the mirror. Goddamn it’s ugly. This is a dress that needs someone to take pity on it and put it out of its misery. Bridesmaid dress euthanasia should be a thing.

“Maybe it’s just missing something,” I try.

“Yeah,” Lizzy agrees. “Like a brown paper bag.”

The dressing room attendant returns without Krystal. She’s wringing her hands and cringing. “Um, I think your sister needs you.”

That’s when I hear it. Ever so faintly, I hear the hiccoughing sobs of my big sister in her dressing room.

Hanna, Lizzy, and I exchange worried glances before turning toward the door. I think about staying away, I think about letting the twins comfort her, but there was a Maggie-and-Krystal long before there was a Maggie-and-Will, and right now she needs her sisters. All of us.

My breath catches in my throat as I step into her dressing room. Krystal looks drop-dead gorgeous in white. Her long dark hair contrasts sharply against the fabric and makes her look exotic. Not to mention the things the corseted waist and low-cut neckline do for her cleavage. Even collapsed into a pool of white satin, she’s beautiful.

And she’s crying like I’ve never seen her cry before.

“I want to talk to Maggie.”

Lizzy and Hanna look at each other and then at me.

I nod, letting them know it’s okay. When they’re gone, I close the door to give us some privacy. “Krys?”

She sniffs and peers up at me through her lashes. “Do you hate me?”

“No,” I say, but the word breaks, catching on something in my throat. “I could never hate you, Krys.”

“You should.”

I sink down onto the floor next to her, careful not to snag my dress. “I left him,” I say softly.

I wonder again if Will ever told her the truth about our wedding—what little of the truth he knew, that is.

Krystal’s shoulders tremble with her inhale. “You were too young.”

“I was,” I agree.

“We all knew you were terrified of getting married. It was right there in your eyes every time we brought it up. You didn’t run away from Will. You ran away from marriage.” She sniffs and wipes her cheek with the back of her hand. “And I swooped in and took him before you had a chance to come back to him.”