Page 51 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

Yep, I was right: the Christmas music that I was rolling my eyes about at the start of December has gotten worse. It feels like the only way to escape it is to be at my or Maggie’s place or in one of our cars; even Lucent has started playing it, albeit at a very unobtrusive volume.

And yet it’s fun to go places. Sure, there are too many people everywhere, but it’s hard not to be excited about picking out gifts for each other, and appreciative that it’s appropriately cold outside between getting out of the car and going into a store, and awed by the lights and decorations around town, and interested in the various events there are to attend.

Maggie and I, Paxton, and Emma and Joy have already made plans to go to Merritt’s next week, on the Wednesday before Christmas. The usual margarita specials will be on, as well as a menu of holiday-themed drinks, and we’ve heard from Huck and Harleigh about a gift giveaway they’re going to do. It’ll be such a good night—especially since the days truly keep on coming without a single bit more drama from Kyle.

It’s been days, indeed, since Maggie saw him at the mall and I still can’t say enough how thankful I am for his withdrawal. He really did listen to what I said at the park. Thinking back, we’re lucky it didn’t piss him off and spur him on; there’s a good reason people are warned not to interact with someone like him, and if I had put Maggie in a worse situation, I would’ve hated myself. But instead, I helped. He apparently needed someone other than her to snap him out of what he was doing. A fucking annoying truth since he should’ve listened to her long before that…but at least it got taken care of in the end.

“These should be good,”

Maggie’s mild voice cuts through my thoughts. She turns to our cart and sets in a few packages of underwear, adding to the bras, hygiene essentials, and baby items we’ve already gotten.

“All cotton, three different sizes.”

“Cool,”

I say.

“That’s the last of it, right? The lady said the women’s shelter doesn’t need much else right now?”

“Yeah, ’cause lots of people donate during the holiday season.”

She looks at me with a glum tilt of her mouth.

“Is it dumb to be two of those people? Should we wait until a less busy time of year? Not that we wouldn’t donate then anyway, but—”

“No, it’s not dumb,”

I calmly interrupt, leaning on the handlebar of the cart.

“I bet there is an influx of donations at certain times of the year, but that doesn’t make all the stuff useless.”

I shrug and smile.

“The lady said they need these things. She wouldn’t have told you that if it wasn’t true. And we’re able to give, so let’s do it. Then we’ll keep on doing it in the slower months like you said, ’cause it’ll be important to us then just like it is now.”

I can see how much that settles her bit of worry. It’s in her shoulders, her eyes, the smile she gives back to me.

“Okay,”

she says. She comes to stand next to me and places one hand on my back; I can hear the light skip in her breathing.

“Then yes, this is the last of it. Let’s go.”

I straighten out of my slouch, glad when she keeps her hand on me.

“Meeting everyone for the Christmas parade at 6:30?”

“Mmhmm.”

Her smile brightens as her eyes slip along me.

“Hope you’ll be ready to snuggle me where we stand again, ’cause it’s gonna be cold out there.”

I return her flirty look.

“Hm. Torn between admitting I’ve been ready for that since the first time I did it and making a Bossy Moss joke.”

She giggles.

Ah, I love it.

Love that I can tell she’s fondly thinking back on our closeness outside that restaurant like I am.

I want her close now; I want her close always. As close as she can be. Closer than anyone else is allowed to have her. In the most innocent ways. In the hottest of ways.

And I know she wants it all like I do…especially that last one. It’s in the shift in the look she’s giving me here, and in whispers she has shared with me, and in just about all our kisses, and in how her breath changes a little bit whenever she touches me, and in her responses anytime my fingers find their way over her eyebrow or down her neck or just under her shirt or over her thigh.

I sigh.

So does she.

“We really should go,”

I murmur.

“Don’t wanna be late.”

Those green, green eyes drift over me again—did they ever really stop?—and she nods.

“Yeah. I can’t stand here and drool over you forever.”

All my layers of desire for her aside, I have to snort into laughing. I drop my arm around her shoulders.

“Do it while we walk. That’s what I do. Gotta learn to multitask.”

Her giggle comes again, and her hand on my back becomes her arm around my waist. We push the cart with our free hands.

“Now, that’s smart.”

We know the truth, though: both of us have been juggling thinking about each other and going about our daily lives for a long time. We’re skilled at it.

—

“Oh my gosh! Luke!”

I look up from the order sheet I’m filling out for my bar needs and see Maggie at the nearby glass patio doors, pointing and aglow with a grin.

“It’s snowing!”

I smack my pen and clipboard down. “No way!”

“Yes! The forecast didn’t lie!”

“But it doesn’t snow here!”

I only halfway joke.

The night is winding down, so Lucent is so slow that the only patron I have is a fellow who has been taking it easy. I’m free to hurry out from behind the bar. Maggie isn’t far from bouncing up and down, which is great because it means her knee isn’t hurting as much and which is also simply adorable. The latter alone has me grinning, too, as I go stand with her.

And we do get snow, but only for a few days once or twice a year, and it seems like it’s usually in January or February. I really didn’t think the most recent forecast on our phones would turn out to be true. Yet there’s no denying that actual flurries are coming down on the patio this very moment, fluffy and steady at least for now.

“Oh, wow,” I say.

Maggie makes a soft little noise and crosses her fingers.

“Come onnnn, hang around until Christmas.”

“Pff, hey, don’t wish that on us. Christmas is still a week away. People here would lose their minds and reduce the city to rubble if we had snow for a week.”

My guy at the bar chortles.

“You got that right.”

He and I exchange nods of amused agreement while Maggie groans. She doesn’t admit we have a point, but I know she knows.

“I hope it lasts through tonight,”

she says.

“even if it doesn’t go another couple days like my app says. Then we can enjoy it after we’re off work.”

I suck pensively on my teeth.

“I guess whatever falls could stick, anyway. It’s been pretty cold lately.”

I shudder at recalling the parade the other night.

“The Christmas parade was so cold.”

Maggie hunches her shoulders. “It was.”

I’d deal with it again without complaint because Maggie stood in my coat with me just like we talked about, and I loved every second. It took the parade from fun to damn awesome. Judging by how soft and bright I remember her smiles for me being, I’m confident she would say the same if I brought it up.

As it is, we talk for another minute about the weather in general and then she shuffles back to the cleaning she’s been doing while her hostess duties are quiet. I return to my task too. Things remain chill as I tend to my customer; we chat a bit about how our holiday seasons are going, but mostly he keeps to himself. Every now and then, I look at Maggie, who is doing a commendable job of continuing to work when she wants so badly to pay attention to the snow.

I’m glad Ronald isn’t here. He’d be watching her so closely that she wouldn’t have dared show excitement for the weather lest he find a way to punish her for it.

That dirty old bitch.

I wonder how much of a salary gets wasted on his bad-at-his-job bitch ass.

I don’t think about him for too long, though. He’s way less important than the warm happiness I’ve been living in.

Indeed, I go on living in it, and so does Maggie. By the time the restaurant is closed and we’re free to go, the snow is sticking, which makes us even happier.

Obviously, we can’t resist playing in it once we’re safely at my apartment.

And by ‘playing in it,’ I mean she spins in careful circles in the falling snow, her arms outstretched and her head tilted back, while I surreptitiously build the best snowball I can.

It’s not a good one, but it keeps its shape when I throw it at her.

Her gasp slices through the night, as does my laugh as she swats at where some snow splattered over her hair—it must’ve slipped into the collar of her coat.

“You did not!”

she exclaims in a white puff. When she sees I’m forming a second snowball in my already-chilling hands, she gasps again and bends down to form her own.

And oh my God, do we have a blast in our little battle.

Our yelps and peals of laughter fill the air probably a little louder than they should at this time of night, but she doesn’t try for being quieter, just hurls basically loose snow at me because she can’t get it to press into any kind of ball shape. It’s hilarious even though the sprays of tiny ice bits get into my clothes and ears and eyes ridiculously easily.

“I don’t think you’re trying hard enough to make snowballs!”

I tease her.

“You know you’re getting more value out of just flinging handfuls of snow at me!”

“I don’t have time to make them perfect! Your attacks are too fast! I have to defend myself!”

“Yeah, right! You’re the one who’s winning!”

She pauses reaching for the ground again and smiles in pleasant surprise.

“Really? I—”

I rush down and swoop the frosty white powder up and towards her, and as it flies into her, she shrieks.

The sound echoes through the otherwise muted night, unstoppable because she smacks her hands over her mouth too late.

And I.

Laugh.

My.

Ass off.

So much so that I barely hear her say, “Luke!”

more quietly than she’s said anything else.

“Holy fuck!”

I manage to get out, holding my stomach.

“Magnolia!”

She comes to me with her wide eyes looking all around for signs that she’s in trouble, her hands hovering like she’s ready to stifle herself again despite that our battle has ended. Snow from my attack is all over the front of her coat and her work pants, and plenty more has been gathering on her hair because it’s still coming down out here.

The thought, Perfection, explodes through my mind.

She’s the picture of a girl who’s worried about breaking a rule of some kind and of a girl who’s been having fun without a care in the world. She’s said my name in admonishment even as she’s coming into my personal space with gentle ease. She’s Maggie Moss through and through. And it is lighting me up from the inside.

Stopping in front of me, she says.

“I can’t believe you made me—”

I cut us both off with a kiss—her words, my laughter—though I can’t keep my smile from making its own interruption. After a second, she’s the one who chuckles, the sound so light, and I wrap her waist and neck in my arms and feel her arms encircle me too. We go through one short, cold kiss after another until our amusement is under control and our lips can press and hold in their own kind of embrace.

But I cut that off, too, before very long at all, because this is the moment.

With my heartbeat going wild, I have to tell her in a hushed spill.

“I love you.”

“I love you,”

she exhales jaggedly, no pause, like the words are alive and bursting free after being held captive in her chest like mine have been in my own.

And it’s…God…it’s breathtaking.

Beautiful.

Beyond anything good I’ve ever felt, heard, thought.

I pull back enough to see her face in the glow of the nearby light. Her eyes are full of worlds that I’m the center of, her cheeks tinged with pink, her hair dusted with those snowflakes—and somehow it’s all even more breathtaking, beautiful, beyond any other thing I’ve known in my life. It doesn’t make sense for that highest level to be passed even an iota, but it is.

She loves me back.

We love each other.

She really is mine.

I…I don’t know if I want to kiss her again or fucking thank her.

One of her chilled hands seeks out my chilled cheek as her lips near mine; she wants another kiss for sure. I let that sway me.

We press back in, and everything around us goes on being silently serene.

Nothing is awry. Nothing complains. Nothing intrudes.

There is only us.

In the back of my mind, I know we should go indoors soon. It’s late and so cold, and we’re damp from our snow fight. But this is our radiant victory to savor, so…savor it we do.

We’ve earned it.