Keely, Book 3, 001

The maid service came by at noon and left the place spotless. Saturday night, he and Oslo, Simon, Jax, and Watson went to TD Garden, watched the Celtics in the playoffs. They took a limo to Ruth’s Chris, smoked cigars, came back home and drank bourbon and shot the shit till 2 A.M. The guys were out by eleven this morning.

Now he just wanted her home.

He was in the living room, one knee on Maggie’s favorite William and Mary chair (the one she’d had an upholsterer stitch with Hermès leather in the shade of butter), hand parting the curtain so he could watch the street. Her last text told him she was in Cambridge. His cock was out and held in his other hand, using the foreskin to roll over the head and keep this rager at the ready for when his girl came through the door.

Lo and Behold, headlights arcing toward him, a black car turning onto Hilliard.

Cock tucked and zipped and making a substantial hump in his black pants, he went in the front hall and studied his reflection in the mirror over the pedestal table he had filled with fresh flowers. He wore a linen collar shirt in the color of steel—untucked so the limo driver wouldn’t see his dick—and he hadn’t shaved this morning. He angled his jaw in the low blue light, made sure he was how she’d like to see him; liked what he saw himself, too, and couldn’t wait to get her upstairs and into the bedroom.

It would be cool to slip some shoes on, go down to the street and hug her, get her bags from the limo and bring them up, but that was not how this was going to play out.

He waited in the hall till he heard them on the stoop, then opened the door. Maggie was talking to the limo guy, a forty-year old Slav dressed in black, and they both turned to see him at the door, looking like the man of the house. He didn’t smile, just extended a hand with a fifty between his first two fingers saying, “Thanks, I got it from here,” and the driver took the money. The driver looked from Maggie to him and back, told Mags good night and she thanked him. He returned to his limo.

“Get in,” he said to her, still doing the stern thing (cock literally throbbing in his pants right now), and she ducked underneath him like a good girl. Stepped out on the stoop, he waved to the limo as it pulled away, grabbed her bags and hauled them in. Maggie sat on the upholstered bench across from the mirror, not taking her shoes off. Her back was curved over in a C like those tiny shoulders were too heavy. Bags set down, he quietly closed the door.

When she hid her face in her hands, he rushed to kneel at her side, slipping one arm around her back, the other hand on her knee. He whispered, “What’s wrong, monkey, what’s wrong?”

“Everything,” she said into her palms, light voice thick with sadness. He hugged her.

“What happened?”

She shook her head no like she didn’t want to talk about it.

Both arms went around her now and she fell into him. He cradled her like a baby, and still she hid her face away.

“Come on, tell me,” he urged, and gave her the slightest squeeze.

She folded on his chest, cheek pressed against him, hands curled into frail balls. She whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

A funny cold dread settled at the bottom of his stomach. A feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time. “Sorry for what?”

“For coming home like this.”

There was more. That wasn’t it at all. He said, “It’s okay, Maggie. Tell me.”

“It was just awful.”

“Did you see Max’s parents?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“How’s his mom?”

“She looked amazing,” she murmured.

He told her that was a relief, and when she said no more, he gave her a gentle shake and let his hand caress between her shoulder blades.

“She really did, Cole. His mom looks good. That’s why I was there. That’s why I went.”

“I know that,” he soothed, that tight feeling getting tighter.

“That was all I wanted.”

“What happened, baby? You can tell me.”

“Everybody was there. Max’s whole family came home. It had turned into this big . . . thing.”

His hand went in slow circles on her back, slipping underneath the soft silk of her hair and circling her thin and graceful neck.

“I am sorry,” she sighed, and let her chin dip forward.

His hand continued to caress her neck and the base of her skull, his thumb massaging. His heart got heavier anticipating what dread had seized his girl. It had crossed his mind while she was away.

“Everybody was there, Cole, and . . .” She hesitated a long time, but he was patient. A soft, scared whisper: “I messed around with them . . .”

He knew it wasn’t Max’s parents she messed around with. His fingers twitched, but he held her still. She was so light and frail in his arms. “What do you mean?”

“In the hotel room. . . . I kissed Keely.”

He’d wondered if that would ever happen. Didn’t think it would, at least not now. That had been a long time ago, and the relationship seemed different. Did Max urge her? And if he did, how mad would he be? He waited.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just . . . I felt so left out. Max’s house was all full of his family, and some of them act like they barely remember me even though we were going to be married.”

He bristled, but still kept his cool.

She said, “And Keely kept talking to his mom, and I knew that was the right thing, so I just kind of faded into the background.”

“You can’t fade into anybody’s background.”

She gave a funny laugh that shook her in his arms. “I’m really good at fading into the background, I spent a lot of time doing it.”

“Were they mean to you?”

She didn’t answer but she shook her head on his chest. “It was just, I don’t know, so weird. When we left there I felt awful. Like the most awful I felt since back the first semester of our last year at Farm. I was all in awful knots.”

He remembered it well. He said, “Did Max ask you to?”

“No,” she said, sensing it troubled him. Her tongue sounded too big for her mouth. She said, “I did it. I kissed her.”

“Did she kiss you back?”

She nodded.

Now he was stuck. There was that funny cold feeling in him, and a whole bunch of other things he had trouble parsing. Stuff he’d thought long buried. He was mad. There was anger. Anger at Max, mad even at Maggie. But he couldn’t adjust the focus to really get a positive ID on the anger. . . . It was jealousy. That’s what it really was. A whole bunch of jealousy. Jealous that his Maggie went away with Max and Keely to a place where he wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go. The three of them off together without him, having fun and talking, and then Maggie going stray on him. And you know what? there was anger. Real anger. Max got to be there. Of course Max got to be there. Gets to watch Maggie do something like that that she’d always wondered about. With a girl she might actually care about. Why couldn’t he be there? Why couldn’t they wait for him? His jaw was clenching, and that was all right, as long as he kept his arms loose but strong to support her. At last he said, “That’s all you did?”

She shook her head no again, and that flash of madness jumped out at him again.

He asked, “Were you in bed with them?”

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“What happened?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, monkey,” he scolded her, then kissed the top of her ear.

“I’m so stupid,” she said.

“You’re far from stupid.”

She said, “We were in bed together. . . . Keely didn’t want me to do anything with Max and I didn’t. Well, I did a little, but only the things she asked me to do.”

He was grinding his teeth now, but he wouldn’t ask what it was she did with Max. God, what was there they hadn’t done together, anyway? But his girl wasn’t done with Max, and he knew she wasn’t. He’d told her explicitly that she wasn’t done, but she told him a million times, No, I made up my mind. He knew she didn’t make up her mind. Told her she didn’t. He knew her better than she knew herself, and she wouldn’t even listen. And what did it matter? Was he even really mad? He was mad maybe she didn’t see what he saw. Maggie was lying to herself. They weren’t supposed to lie anymore.

“We went to bed, and it was nice, like sweet. We were friends . . .”

And this fucking erection was definitely not going away now. Even though he was mad, even though this was a wild pitch, this erection would not go away now. He’d conjured it for her while anticipating her homecoming, was going to do all kinds of things that he dreamed up while she was gone. Now she was telling him things that were challenging his arousal.

Maggie continued: “But then . . .”

“Tell me.”

“Then they started to have sex, and I just . . . got out of there. I didn’t even want to be in the room anymore.”

Why? Because you can’t stand seeing Max with Keely. That’s why. You think you can, but you can’t. And I told you that.

He said, “That doesn’t sound too bad, Mags.”

“That’s not the bad part. That was nice. This morning . . . Keely comes to me and says that it was okay that we did that, but . . .”

Now he saw where this was going. Yeah, it made sense. Maggie shouldn’t have done it this way. It should’ve been something discussed beforehand, and something they entered into with wide open eyes. Had they learned nothing? . . . But this was his girl. So smart, so naïve in some ways even though she’d become wizened. He hugged her tight.

Maggie sniffled and rubbed an eye. “But she said she didn’t want to do that anymore. . . . Cole, I feel so stupid. I feel so dumb. Why did I kiss her?”

“It’s okay that you did it, Mags.”

She continued, sobbing, saying now, “I know you’re mad at me. I know you are.”

“I’m not. I’m not mad at you at all.”

She sniffled again, then rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. Crying without tears. He let her get it out, and it didn’t last long. She drew in a ragged breath through her nose and lifted her head of his hold. She sat up, and in the dim light of the hall he could see her eyes were swollen, her lips puffy, and her nose was running. She was so damn cute he couldn’t stand it. He cupped her neck, said, “I told you anything you do is okay. You know that. I’m not mad at you at all, Mags. I love you no matter what.”

“I messed everything up,” she said, and ran her hanging hair back behind one ear. She rubbed her hands on her thighs now, sniffed again, and looked up to the ceiling. A tear twinkled as it fell off her cheek.

He asked, “Did you eat?”

“On the plane,” she said, her voice still tightened by sadness.

“Let me make you some tea.”

She nodded, then said, “I want to get in my pajamas. I want to pretend none of it happened, I just want to be together.”

“That’s perfect,” he said, “I missed you so much.”

Then it dawned on him, and he tilted his chin upward to look at the ceiling.

Shit!

“What is it?” she asked him, registering his wide-eyed realization.

He said, “Let me take your bags upstairs for you.”

“I can take them up,” she said.

“No, no,” he said, standing now, “let me go upstairs first, I’ll take your bags. You go start your tea.”

“I really want to be in my pajamas, baby.”

“Please? let me go first.”

“Fine,” she said, shrugging a little, standing and straightening her shirt.

When he left her in the hall, she was watching her reflection in the mirror, probably seeing how puffy her cheeks and eyes were. With one of her bags in each hand, he mounted the steps to the second floor and took them into the bedroom. Then he was moving quick, sliding the low triangular leather bench back into the closet. The one he was going to bend her over and ass-fuck her until she begged him to stop because she couldn’t stand to come one more time. The handcuffs were on the bed, the leather wraps, her ball gag. He gathered those up quickly, shoved them in the top drawer and closed it quietly.

Maggie was coming up the stairs . . .