Chapter 25

" Y ou can't keep ambushing me like this," Jazz grumbled as she trailed Maggie through the parking garage to her car.

She'd shown up the second Jazz and Cal's last meeting had ended, kissed her husband, then dragged Jazz into the elevator.

"It seems to be the only way I can get you to actually talk to me," Maggie said as they climbed into her car.

Jazz frowned at her best friend. Sure, she'd kept a couple of things back lately, but she thought she'd done a good job of hiding it, considering how observant Maggie was. "I talk to you every day."

"Then why did I have to find out from Liam that you finally came?"

"Oh." Jazz looked down at her lap. "That."

"Yeah. That."

Maggie handed her a sub and unwrapped her own, taking a bite before giving her an expectant look. "Should we start with the orgasm, or with the fact you lied to me and told me it hadn't happened when it had?"

Jazz sighed and unwrapped her sub, ripping the corner of the paper into tiny pieces and squirming in her seat. Her ass was on fucking fire, and Maggie's car wasn't nearly as comfortable as Cal's Tesla.

"I didn't mean to lie to you. I was going to tell you, I just… I don't know why I didn't. You know, you were busy heading to meet your other friends, and it didn't seem like the right time?—"

"Are you pissed off that I was hanging out with Nadia?" Maggie asked carefully, with no judgment in her tone.

"No," Jazz replied, a little defensively. Maggie raised a brow. "It's not that you're hanging out with other people, it's Nadia. She's great, she's perfect, she's got it all together. She's the polar opposite of me, and I love that for her, but she seems so much older and grown up than us." By us , Jazz meant me .

"She's actually a year younger than me," Maggie said, and Jazz groaned. Of course she was. "And yes, she totally has her life together but Jazz, we are grownups now. We have big girl jobs and bills to pay, and I have a husband."

"I know, but you're not even thirty," Jazz protested. "And I'm barely thirty." Technically, she was closer to her thirty-first birthday than her thirtieth, but that was neither here nor there.

"Thirty is grown up. I really think you'd like Nadia if you got to know her. She's a lot of fun. But," she added quickly, as Jazz opened her mouth to protest, "I'm not going to force you to be friends with her. And I'm also not going to stop hanging out with you because I spend time with her sometimes. We mostly do work related shit anyway."

"I get it, Maggie, it's fine. You're allowed to have other friends. I just get stuck in my head sometimes."

"I know, but I don't want you to think anyone is ever going to come before you. Even Cal knows that if you call, I drop everything. You're my number one. Always."

It wasn't that Jazz didn't believe Maggie; it was that she couldn't. Maggie had told her time and time again that she loved her and accepted her exactly as she was—hell, she'd shown her time and time again—but Jazz couldn't wrap her head around it. Not now that it felt like Maggie had skipped ten steps ahead in life and she was still drowning in quicksand.

She couldn't say that, though.

"Same," she said, instead. "You're my number one always too."

"Too right I am." Maggie brushed the breadcrumbs from her pants onto the car floor. "Speaking of Cal, Liam came to see me last night."

"And presumably spoke about our sex life—which is super weird, for the record." It was the first night she and Liam had spent apart in a few days. In the interest of trying not to appear too clingy, she'd lied and told him she and Sierra were hanging out at her place after work. Well, it had been a lie initially, at least. Convincing Sierra to hang out had taken nothing more than the promise of Thai food and hazelnut truffles from her favorite pot shop downtown. It had been nice, actually, to spend time with her outside of work. It had been the first time they'd hung out since Maggie's bachelorette party, and Jazz had forgotten how much she liked spending time with her.

Sierra had fallen asleep on her couch, while Jazz had tossed and turned in a cold bed, unable to sleep.

"We weren't talking about your sex life." Maggie rolled her eyes. "The orgasm thing just came up."

"Shit, does Cal know now?"

"No, but I wanted to talk to you about that. Liam told me you were worried that Cal, Eliza, and Danisha would have a problem with the two of you being together. What's up with that?"

"What's up with that is that Liam has a big mouth," Jazz said through gritted teeth. If Liam wasn't so cute, and she hadn't missed him so much overnight, she might be more pissed off about it. "But as I explained to Liam, he's an only child and their entire world. I'm personified chaos. That's not exactly what most people want for their kids—ow." She rubbed her arm where Maggie had whacked her with a little package of pretzels. "What was that for?"

"For giving my husband so little credit. What the fuck, Jazz? Cal loves you. Not just because you're my best friend, but because you're you. Eliza and Danisha too. Liam's parents are not our parents—and yes, I recognize that's a weird thing to say, considering I'm married to his dad. "

Jazz covered her face with her hands and groaned. "This situation is all so fucking messy."

"It doesn't have to be." Maggie tugged her hands away. "What do you want here? Taking everyone else out of the equation except you and Liam. Do you want to be with him? Like really with him?"

"I have no idea. This wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to just be sex." She dropped her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, her temples pounding. "But it's not. Just sex, I mean. Maybe it was at first, or maybe it never was. I don't fucking know."

"It's never just sex."

Jazz loosed a humorless chuckle, opening her eyes and turning to face Maggie. "I got a tattoo for him."

To Maggie's credit, she hardly blinked. "Okay. That definitely has some implications, but you do also have tattoos for a bunch of people."

"I'm not sure you and my siblings count as a bunch of people." The bouquet on her ribs was made up of roses for Rose, carnations for Xan, and morning glories for Maggie. She'd been playing around with the idea of adding Cal, Eliza, Danisha, and Liam's birth flowers too.

"It was supposed to be comforting. What did you get for him?"

"Snoopy reading a romance book on my hip. He was obsessed with Snoopy as a kid."

"Of course he was. That is pretty adorable." Jazz sighed her agreement. "You could just… be with him? Marry him, pop out a couple of the world's cutest babies, gr ow old together," Maggie joked. Or at least, Jazz hoped she was joking.

That sounded simultaneously perfect and terrifying. How the hell was she supposed to decide if she wanted that? And then commit to it? She couldn't even stick to one fucking hobby. Maggie didn't get it. Sure, she'd run away when confronted with her feelings for Cal, but even at her lowest, she always had it together. And once she had him back, she'd done everything right: she'd gone to therapy, walked away from her family, started a badass business.

Jazz had only gotten her job because she was Maggie's friend, and no matter how much being around them stung, she loved her family too much to walk away.

"I'm not you Maggie. I don't bounce back when shit goes sideways. I can't just call it quits with my parents and ride off into the sunset with someone because he's the first person to treat me well." The words shot out of her mouth like bullets, each one heading straight for her best friend.

Maggie shrank back, hurt flashing in her eyes and horror filled Jazz. Why the fuck had she said that?

"Oh my God, Maggie, I didn't mean that. I don't even know where that came from, I don't think any of that. Fuck. I'm so sorry."

Maggie pursed her lips, nodding once. "It's fine. I know you don't mean it."

"It's not fine. There's zero excuse for me to lash out like that. I know you're just trying to help."

Maggie reached out and rubbed her shoulder. "We've said worse to each other over the years. It's fine. Seriously. For what it's worth, I wouldn't be talking about this if I didn't think this thing between the two of you was worth it. He's a good guy, Jazz."

Like that was the problem. Liam wasn't just a good guy; he'd raised the bar so damn high she knew no one would ever be able to compete. Liam would never lash out at a friend like she had. Liam would never lie because he couldn't handle talking about his feelings. Liam would never give up just because something was a little tricky. Which meant Liam wouldn't give up on her, even when she gave up on herself, time and time again.

"I like him. More than like probably. And I want more with him. I want everything you said and more, but I'm scared. I don't think I'm ready to deal with it all right now."

"He's not rushing you. He just doesn't want to hide you away. And you deserve better than that, anyway." Doubtful.

But Liam had already done so much for her. Even if it made his parents look at her differently, she could do this for him. "Fine. I don't mind if his parents find out, but I really don't want it to be a whole big thing."

"We can tell them over dinner this weekend. We'll casually mention that you're seeing each other, and they'll be fine with it. I promise." Maggie gave her a reassuring smile that did nothing to soothe the anxiety coiling in her stomach.

For Liam. She could do this for Liam.

Liam jumped out of his car on cloud fucking nine, walking up the stone pathway to his dad and Maggie's place. He had thirty minutes before he had to leave to pick Jasmine up from her yoga class, and got to tell her the news in person, which gave him just enough time to tell his dad and Maggie.

"Knock, knock," he called as he stepped into their hallway.

"In the living room," his dad shouted back.

Liam headed in, finding his dad and Maggie sitting side by side on the couch, Peach curled up with her head on Maggie's lap and her tail on his dad's. It didn't look comfortable, but she was snoring softly.

"Hey," Liam said, sinking into the seat opposite them, practically vibrating with excitement.

"You look happy," his dad commented, while Maggie narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"I have exciting news."

"Go on."

Liam took a deep breath. "You're going to be grandparents!"

He realized his mistake the second the words left his mouth, as the blood drained from both of their faces.

"Maggie's too young to be a grandma, she's not even thir?—"

"JAZZ IS PREGNANT?" Maggie jumped to her feet, Peach rolling onto the plush carpet and meowing begrudgingly. "My best friend is pregnant and you're the one telling me? Are you kidding me?"

Liam rose slowly to his feet, holding up his hands. "Jazz isn't pregnant." This was, without a doubt, the worst way he could've phrased it.

Genuine rage filled Maggie's face. "You got someone else pregnant? What the fuck, Liam? What happened to the best date of your life? What happened to a fun story to tell your fucking grandkids one day? I vouched for you. I told her you were a good?—"

"No one is pregnant," he said, raising his voice enough to be heard over Maggie's tirade. She stopped pacing in front of the couch and glared at him.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm not sleeping with anyone other than Jazz, and this is not the cute way to tell you I'm adopting a puppy like I thought it would be."

"A puppy," his dad repeated, staring at him, shellshocked.

"Yep." Liam held up his phone, showing them the picture from the shelter's website. "This is him. Cute, right?"

"Oh my God." Maggie folded in on herself, collapsing on the couch, covering her eyes. "The two of you are aging me, you know. I'm younger than both of you and you're aging me."

Liam grimaced. "Sorry. I didn't think this through." It was nice to know just how seriously Maggie took defending Jasmine, though.

"You know, your moms and I always swore that if you ever got someone pregnant, we would react better than our parents did, and I have to say, I think I handled that pretty well," his dad chimed in, though he still looked like he'd been clubbed over the head.

Peach hopped up on the couch again, and Maggie grabbed her, holding her to her chest and breathing deeply. "I could probably have handled it better," she admitted. She brandished a finger at him. "But let that be a warning if you ever do hurt her."

"Consider me warned. This one was on me."

His dad cleared his throat, glancing expectantly between Maggie and Liam. "Clearly I've missed a chapter. You and Jazz are what—dating?"

"We haven't really talked about what it actually is so…" Liam trailed off.

Maggie sighed. "They're casually seeing each other. But like we were casually seeing each other, you know?"

"Ah, I see."

"I'm going to marry her," Liam said without thinking, because apparently his mouth was no longer connected to his brain. "But we're taking it slow for now. We've only gone on one date."

"And Jazz doesn't know it was a date," Maggie pointed out. Semantics.

"That sounds very complicated," his dad said, before shrugging. "But I'm on board. You and Jazz would be great together—haven't I been saying that, love? "

"You have," Maggie replied, some of the stress on her facing melting away as she smiled at his dad.

"Jazz is great, Liam. She's perfect for you, and I'm happy for the two of you."

"Thanks, Dad. Could you maybe mention that to Jazz? She's convinced you're going to think she isn't good enough for me."

"Really? I love her. She knows that, doesn't she?" He directed his question to Maggie, who released Peach to take his hand.

"She does, don't worry. It's just her parents?—"

"Say no more. I'll make sure she knows I'm happy for you."

"Thanks," Liam said. It wasn't exactly the low-key dinner they'd planned for telling his parents, but there was always a silver lining: telling his moms couldn't possibly go any worse.

"Can we see the puppy now?" Maggie asked, and Liam handed his phone over, happy to be back on steady ground. She squealed. "Oh my God, look at him. He's so tiny."

"Aw, Liam, he's lovely," his dad added when Maggie turned the phone in his direction. "What's his name?"

"He doesn't have one yet. I want to talk to Jazz first but I was thinking, since he's technically my first baby, I could do what you did and give him my middle name: Bray." Liam's first name came from his dad's middle name, Uilliam, and his middle name had come from the town in Ireland his dad had been born in. He'd always loved it. Though he didn't spend much time in Ireland these days, once or twice a year at the most, he always felt completely at home there.

"He looks like a Bray," Maggie agreed. "God, he even has your mustache."

"And Jazz's hair," he pointed out.

Maggie gave him a pointed look. "Liam."

"What?"

"Is Jazz aware that you're considering her the puppy's mom?"

"Well, explicitly stating that doesn't feel like it would count as taking it slow, but you know she's going to take one look at him when we pick him up next week and be completely obsessed with him."

And if she wasn't… Well, he could probably return the Proud Dog Mom coffee cup he'd ordered.