Maggie was still out by the fire when Cole came home. She was snuggled inside one of his heavy coats, the smell of him keeping her warm as snow flurries spun down in random spurts. Cole had a curious look on his face as he approached her. His eyes darted from the fire to her.
Why, yes, I borrowed your coat and started a fire in your backyard. Hope that’s okay.
What she should have done was gone home, but right now she would rather face Cole than her parents.
“Nobody knew where you went,” Cole said in a voice tinged with leftover panic. “We searched the hotel until one of the front desk people told us they called you a taxi.”
She stared into the flames. They had died down now that she was done burning everything, but the coals were still orange and radiating warmth. “I couldn’t stand it a minute longer,” she answered. “I had to get out of there. Sorry if I made everyone worry.” Maybe she should try to sound sorrier, but she couldn’t seem to manage it.
Stepping around the log, Cole sat down beside her. He kept his distance. “I don’t know why you have a phone. You never use it. Half the time you don’t even carry it with you.”
She let out a huff and glanced at her phone on the picnic table. “Wasn’t it obvious where I’d go?”
Cole shrugged. “I thought you might run here, but I had no clue you’d come out and build a fire.” His eyebrows knit together as he pulled out his phone. She peeked over to see him texting her dad that he’d found her.
“Never a bad time for a fire,” she said, feeling stupid after it came out of her mouth. She was not about to tell him why she’d built it. She didn’t want anyone to know yet. Her guitar was cradled in her lap, Cole’s diary on top. He glanced at both as he put his phone away, inched closer to her, and put an arm around her shoulders. She pushed it away and he let out a sigh.
“You were wonderful tonight, Maggie. I want you to know that. It took a lot of guts for you to get up there. You’ve worked really hard, no matter how it all ended.”
His words touched her, but it was difficult to hold on to them after she’d burned all her music and lyrics. It felt like they were still smoldering deep in her heart, crumbling into hot ash that would never disintegrate.
“We already had this conversation,” she answered, glaring into the fire. “I sucked.”
Silence. Cole slipped the diary off her guitar and set it on his lap. “Can I have this back?”
“Of course.”
He opened the book cover. “Where are your lyrics?”
She bit her tongue.
Cole was quiet. Even his breathing stopped. Finally, he leaned over so he could look her in the face. His eyes were warm brown, reflecting the glow of the fire. “That’s why you built the fire, isn’t it? So you could burn stuff.”
She turned away from him and folded her arms. “I’ve had the worst day of my life. I wanted a release . . . a change . . . something. I almost smashed this damn thing so I could burn it too.” She hit the side of her guitar, and the hollow sound reverberated through the night as she bit her bottom lip so it would stop trembling. “Don’t try to cheer me up, please. Just this once, let me feel like shit, okay?”
“All right,” he mumbled, but under his breath she heard him curse her stubbornness.
They both stared into the fire. She thought about a lot of things in the silence. It went on and on, probably twenty minutes. Cole had told her once that he’d always felt the need to strike up a conversation with people to fill awkward silences, but with her he’d never felt that way. He liked the silence because it meant they were that comfortable together. She wondered where all that had gone, and she wondered if he felt the same way as they shifted next to each other.
“Maggie?” he finally said.
“Yeah?”
“You were right about what you said earlier. I’ve been hiding things from you, and you deserve to know the truth, even if I think it’s going to hurt you and change everything. It hasn’t been fair to you or me.”
Her heart flooded with relief. “You really want to tell me?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s not easy for me, but I’ve got to get over that. I’ve been a coward. Remember when you kept stalling my truck over and over?”
“Yeah.” She winced at the memory, at how frustrated she had been.
“Well, I keep going back to that in my head. You didn’t give up because I didn’t let you give up. This is kind of like that—with you constantly trying to nudge this secret out of me, trying to tell me not to give up, that you can handle it no matter what it is.”
She stared down at the diary balanced on his knees. “Yeah, maybe I have.”
“Well, I think it’s time, then.”
In the distance, a truck door slammed shut. Justin’s voice. Iza’s laugh. Maggie’s heart pounded. Of all the bad timing . . .
Cole growled and stood up. “I shouldn’t have texted Justin I found you. Now they’re going to want to hang out. I’ll go tell them to leave.” He turned toward the house with squared shoulders.
“No, Cole, it’s fine, I promise. You guys had a great night and you deserve to celebrate. Really.” Even though she felt awful, she knew she shouldn’t let her one failure ruin their whole success. She wanted to hear what Cole had to say to her, but it would have to wait.
Justin burst through the back door with three twelve-packs of beer in his arms. “Maggie!” he yelled, as if she was the highlight of his whole night. He gave her a big grin as he passed beneath the deck light.
Maggie gave Justin a half-hearted wave as he lugged the beer down the steps and across the lawn toward her and Cole.
“I see you got your guitar,” he said, still grinning. “Want to play some?”
“No, I don’t,” she snapped as he set the beer down beside her. “I never want to sing or play again, thank you.”
“Oh, come on! It’s not all that bad. You can get back up there and try again some other time. We’re not gonna kick you out of the band.” He bent down to look her in the eyes, but she turned toward the beer and started ripping open a box.
“I need one of these,” she muttered, “. . . or five . . . or ten.”
Justin snorted and patted her on the shoulder. “Good call.” When he straightened, Cole punched him lightly in the chest and hissed something into his ear, probably a warning to leave her alone.
Iza came out next, followed by Krista and Miles and Blake a few minutes later. Everyone made a huge effort to convince her she wasn’t a failure, but their efforts felt so forced it made her stomach churn. She didn’t want to argue with them, especially when they were all drinking. She didn’t want to do anything but get so drunk she’d forget the whole damn day. She chucked her empty can into the fire and grabbed another one.
“Remember when you went over the fence and streaked through the Christmas trees?” Iza pointed her beer at Justin. “You have the whitest ass I’ve ever seen.” She started laughing so hard Maggie was afraid beer would come out of her nose. Cole was sitting next to her, smirking at the conversation. He wasn’t drinking, just staring at the flames.
Across the fire pit, Justin’s face changed from casual observance to surprise. “Oh, yeah, Iza? You sayin’ you wanna see it again?” He set down his beer and stood up, his fingers working at his belt buckle and zipper.
Iza covered her eyes and spun away. “Oh, hell no! Stop!”
Maggie turned away too. She didn’t want to see that. Imagining it was bad enough.
Miles crushed a can and threw it into the fire. It landed next to Maggie’s, which was now glowing hot. “Yeah, dude, no stripping tonight.” He waited until Justin stopped and then waggled his eyebrows at Krista and Maggie. “Unless you’re a chick.”
Krista rolled her eyes and scooted an inch closer to Maggie. She had changed out of her mini skirt and into a pair of jeans and tennis shoes. “In your dreams. And don’t touch Maggie. I’m keeping her safe from you idiots tonight.”
A smile slid across Maggie’s lips. The thought of stripping off her clothes and running through the trees in the snow was strangely appealing, probably because she’d been drinking. She glanced at Cole staring into the fire. She wouldn’t put it past him to streak through the trees just for a laugh, but he seemed in no mood to do it tonight.
Finishing her second beer, she welcomed the buzz with more and more smiles. It was clear she had overreacted to everything.
“Cole, you not drinkin’?” Blake asked as he pulled out his guitar. He sat down and started playing a set of random chords. Krista hummed next to Maggie, her movements fluid as she swayed back and forth.
“Maybe one or two,” Cole said as he leaned back on his hands and looked over at Blake. “Who else is gonna drive your drunk ass home tonight?”
Blake’s playing slowed. “Oh, come on, I didn’t bring enough beer for anyone to get too hammered. Besides, can’t we stay here if we need? You got that extra bedroom and your living room, or downstairs, even.”
Cole glanced at Maggie. “Maggie’s in the extra room, remember?”
Justin grinned and raised his beer at her. “I can stay in there with ya, Mags. Wha’d’ya say?”
Maggie’s irritation sliced through the alcohol in her system. “Don’t call me Mags.”
Her chest burned with so many emotions, she wasn’t sure which one she should focus on. She was giddy from the alcohol, but irritated at everyone around her. She hated the random snowflakes landing on her nose, the way they tickled and made her keep swatting at her face as if they were flies.
“I think it’s best if you guys don’t stay too late tonight,” Cole grumbled as he looked around at everyone. He still had the diary on his lap. Maggie noticed he was gripping it with one hand now. “I have to get up early.”
Blake grinned, still strumming on his guitar. “Gonna go visit your boy again?”
Boy?
Maggie sat up, her attention snapping to Cole. He looked up at her as panic spread across his face. Then he looked at Blake and narrowed his eyes, clearly willing him to shut up.
“Boy?” she asked, looking from one person to the next. She expected an answer from someone, but suddenly everyone was frozen. All eyes slid over to Cole and then back to her. Was that his secret? Why did the band know and not her?
In five seconds, a million things went through her mind, but a few questions stood out. What did boy even mean? Did Cole have a boyfriend? No, that couldn’t be it. Some sort of job? Or . . . of course. It was so obvious. Her heart twisted into a knot.
“Maggie, I . . .” Cole stood up and took a step forward. Krista scooted away from Maggie, as if she could sense the bubble forming around her like a brick encasement.
Maggie looked up at Cole, squeezing the fret board on her guitar so hard the strings threatened to cut into her callused fingertips.
“I have a son,” Cole said in a tender, trembling voice. “It’s what I was about to tell you, but I . . .”
He couldn’t finish. Maggie could see his throat swelling with fear and guilt. Her thoughts fizzled to nothing as he reached a hand out to her, offering to help her stand.
“Can we talk inside?” he asked. He glanced at everyone else. Nobody looked at him. They stared down at their beers or the fire or the dirt speckled with melting snowflakes. It was clear they all knew exactly what he was talking about. Traitors.
“They all know, don’t they?” she asked, sweeping her arm around the group. “So you can tell them, but not my parents? Or me? The person who ‘means so much to you’? Or was that a lie too?”
“I’ve never lied to you,” he said, squeezing the diary close to his body. “And I was going to tell you.”
“After you already told them.”
Slamming her half-empty can on the log, she stood and marched away from the fire, grabbing her phone and guitar case on her way to the house. She yanked the door closed behind her and stomped to her room.
She didn’t know what to feel or think. She wanted to know if Cole was divorced or still married, or ever married. Was he helping the mother? If they weren’t married, what was the reason?
Too many questions.
She threw her guitar on the bed and squeezed her hair with both hands. It was like the entire world had exploded in front of her eyes and she was supposed to put it all back together by morning. She didn’t know where to start. She didn’t know what to think about her parents and the divorce, about her voice and singing and giving up, about Cole and this new thing about a kid. How old was he? She wondered if he had Cole’s big brown eyes and curly hair.
Cole’s scent surrounded her, and she ripped off his coat and threw it against the wall. She had to get out of his house.