Maggie, Book 2, Chapter 4 (Patreon)

“We only have an hour,” Ken said.

Cole said, “I’ve built plenty of fires, it doesn’t take long.”

Cole had a bundle of kindling in his arms he’d liberated from a porcelain bin that sat in the family room next to the yawning square mouth of a concrete fireplace.

They’d been given an hour long grace. One more hour before bed, and Maggie wanted to show Cole their beach. Cole wanted to have a fire. That made Ken nervous.

They stood now on the black pebble macadam of shore that ran in a crescent. The gentle lapping of Narragansett Bay sounded at their backs. They were shielded from view of the Beckers home by a fifteen foot black rock cliff that glistened wet in the fading light.

In a ragged group, holding bottles of beer, they had come across the short rocky swatch from the house to the trail that wound down the cliff. It was chilly but pleasant enough with a jacket. Once they had all passed down the trail, Maggie and Ken and her friend Suzie changed. It was noticeable. Like they’d been holding their breath and were now getting the first taste of much needed air. Descending the path and turning onto the beach, Suzie had skipped a step and caught up to Cole. She let him see her smile, and tossed her hair in the breeze. Flirting with him. Like she was a normal person. Four hours he’d spent with her in the house and he honestly wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she was on the autism spectrum. One minute out of sight of the Beckers she was a horny little girl.

Lee, on the other hand, was wedged tightly in his shell. He’d bonded to his shell. And even now out of the strict gaze of Maggie’s parents he was still his uncomfortable self. He’d straggled at the back of the group, a reluctant attendee, and Max had to encourage Maggie to welcome him. She rolled her eyes and it struck Max as oddly cruel.

Maggie went to Lee. They both walked with their hands in their pockets and had stiff conversation, Lee looked to Maggie, wanted her to return his gaze. Maggie looked at her shoes.

Max helped Cole and Ken arrange larger rocks in a ring next to a large disembodied tree trunk that lay in the black beach, silvered by the weather. Cole arranged kindling in a neat little A-frame and as he tried to get some paper lit Ken came close to Max and he said, “Hey, I shouldn't have mentioned that. About Lee.”

“It’s okay. I know about him.”

“My mother doesn’t. She wouldn't do that on purpose.”

“I know.”

“She likes you.”

* * *

When Cole’s fire took hold Suzie got off the log where she’d been watching and she came to him with a happy face and said, “You’re so awesome.” She squat next to him and put an arm around him, her gaze in the growing fire. Cole put his hand on her knee.

Maggie was sitting with Lee who was telling her a story or something that involved drawing in the beach with a long jagged gray branch. She rose while he was talking, and Max watched Lee finish his sentence to her turned back. Maggie walked away from him and went to Cole. She put her arm around him from the other side and told Suzie to go up to the house and get some blankets. Told her where they were in the mudroom. Lee drew with his stick in the beach, his sad gaze turned down. Suzie was perplexed, looked from Cole to Maggie and back but she went up to the house and in a few minutes she returned with an armful of folded blankets.

They sat along the log, Ken took a spot on a black rock close to the fire. Maggie sat next to Cole and Suzie on the other side. Max tried to engage Lee but he wasn’t a conversationalist and seemed content to draw in the sand despite how miserable his expression seemed. max was surprised he stayed. Cole got along with ken and Suzie hugged his arm a lot. At ten o’clock on the nose Suzie’s phone vibrated in her padded down jacket. She withdrew it, read the screen and in an instant she was the same girl he’d met in the conservatory and who he’d had dinner with.

She said, “It’s Mrs. Becker. She says it’s time to go.”

Cole made to move like he would walk her up to her car but Maggie held his arm. “Don’t you dare. I don’t want my right side to be cold.”

Suzie said, “Your mom asked me to remind you that you have to go to bed.”

Maggie said, “Okay, okay. Bye, Suzie. Nice seeing you again.” She leaned her head behind Cole, said to Lee, “Bye, Lee. Take care.”

Lee waved weakly, his ring-shaped lips puffed in an awkward smile, then he turned towards the path.

Ken rose, gestured to the trail and said, “I’ll walk you guys back up to the house.”

Cole put an arm out and said, “Ken, can you bring some beers down when you come back?”

“I’m not coming back.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going to bed, Cole,” Ken laughed.

“Du-ude, you’re letting me down.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “Bright and early,” he added smiling and cocking his head. He led Lee and Suzie up the path, disappearing in the dark.

“You are so mean, Maggie,” Max said.

“What?” she said, eyebrows lowered defensively.

“To Suzie and Lee. You hardly paid them any attention.”

She shrugged, her face morose, she murmured, “I didn’t invite them. I wanted it to be just us three.”

“It’s us three now,” Cole said and threw an arm around her.

She brightened said to Cole, “Was it bad? I just wasn’t in the mood to entertain them...”

Cole squeezed her neck in the crook of his elbow and said, “Max is making too big a deal. It was fine.”

Max said to Cole, “You get Suzie’s number?”

“Ew,” Maggie said.

Cole said, “Yeah. If she’d stayed I wouldn’t mind seeing what happened.” He winked to Maggie.

She threw her arms around his shoulders and said, “No! Tonight you’re mine!” Laughing and hugging him tight she kicked her legs like she was wrestling but he held his posture firm and she couldn't budge him. She laughed and gave up and he winked at her again, and pinched the back of her neck in his grip.

Max went quiet and watched Maggie and Cole. Their faces were lit by the fire’s warm glow, the color of their clothes saturated by its blazing amber hue. They sat side by side, not touching now but sitting very close, both of them throwing their gaze out over the bay. Max’s heart began to pump with awful excitement. Maggie couldn't sleep with Cole—that would be forbidden. He wouldn't allow that, but seeing what it would be like had filled him with an ecstatic anxiety that was sending a hardness through his shaft. He stopped himself from chewing his lip when it started to hurt. The idea of Maggie and Cole together was so taboo, so awful but it was driving his pulse mad right now.

Max stuttered, “You want...you want me to...I could go get some beers...”

“Fuck yes,” Cole said dryly with no hesitation.

“Look at brave Max,” Maggie said. “What if you encounter the dreaded minotaur? ...watching you sneak his beer while looking at his watch...”

“It’s your bedtime, Max,” Cole joined in, saying it in a decent Dutch accent, impersonating Martin.

“Ha. Ha,” Max said, pronouncing the two words with deliberate precision. “Martin gave us some leeway on the hops.”

“He did,” Cole said to Maggie, looking at her and nodding in affirmation.

“I don't care,” she laughed. “Drink as many beers as you want.”

“Yeah,” Max said, “Yeah.”

He held his hands clasped together, his thumbs going around each other in winding circles, trying to build up the nerve to leave Cole and Maggie together. Fearful to do it, worried that she might try something wth Cole but also wondering how he would feel if she did. She couldn’t. Their friendship could never survive.

He went anyway, just for the thrill of his racing heartbeat. He got up, said, “Okay, beers? ...” and he held up three fingers. Cole and Maggie nodded. They were all in. He shuffled along the trail, curling up the path towards the house. His cock had grown plump in his underwear. His ears were ringing with a high metallic note, like the bells on Maggie’s bird cage. His heart hammered so hard it blurred his vision. He walked the path, dying to look back but getting an awful pleasure from denying himself. He let his imagination wander.

* * *

Cole said, “It’s beautiful here, Maggie.” He was looking out over the fire at the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore. It was black out there now, black sky and black water. An indigo swipe at the horizon lit up silver peaks on the water.

“It is. I wish I’d taken the time to enjoy it when I was younger. You grew up by the ocean?”

“Mm-hmm,” he nodded. “Connecticut. Old Saybrook, but we weren’t near the water. We’d party at the beach...but this is so peaceful. And it’s all yours.”

“We didn’t party though. Not here. Actually, not anywhere,” she clarified, then laughed.

“I love it here. It’s so peaceful,” he said.

“It’s cold,” she said. Shimmied her butt in the sand closer to Cole so that their hips touched. She looked up at his handsome face. He had sharp eyes, piercing blue, a strong stubbled jaw and blonde hair. The fire lit him from below, showed off the masculine ridges of his face and put a dancing light in the bottom curve of his eyes.

“What?” he laughed, catching her looking at him.

“Nothing,” she said, smiling. Took her blanket and lifted it over his lap so they were both underneath and she snuggled into him. “You know...I...I never had a boyfriend when I lived here.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I was kept busy. With schoolwork. But sometimes...God, this is so embarrassing.”

“What?” he said, a smile pulling up one corner of his mouth.

“I had an imaginary boyfriend,” she said and she covered her face and giggled into her hands.

“Oh my God, Maggie,” he said, “You're so cute.” His arm went around her in a friendly maneuver. A wind picked up and rustled the licking flames and she shivered. Wiggled herself into Cole’s side.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’d have...oh, man...I’d have conversations with him here, down on the beach.”

She felt him shaking with a laugh, looked up to see him stifling it.

“Stop,” she said and poked him under the blanket. “It’s so sad. We were in love. We’d talk about all our dreams. He was very supportive.”

“You guys make out?”

She didn't answer him. They’d done more than make out, but that was up in her bedroom, her hand moving quietly under her sheets and her other hand over her own mouth.

Cole said, “I feel like I might have had a girlfriend like that, too.”

“Yeah, when you were eleven,” she said. “I was, like, sixteen.”

“Oh poor Maggie,” he said and his hand gripped her shoulder and shook her lightly. “What was his name?”

She rolled her eyes and looked to him, said, “His name was Cole.”

His expression didn't change, an expectant smile staying expectant. He'd anticipated laughing at her answer but his eyes darted over hers and she didn't look away. She let the moment get awkward, enjoyed the tightness spreading in her belly. The waves lapped and the bay gently roared, the fire hissed and cracked. “I’m kidding,” she said, frowned her brow low and laughed, thumped her forehead against his jean jacket shoulder.