Maeve Takes Her Shot(R,C,M)

It’d been another forty minutes before Helena let the match end. After she and Hazel finally finished them off, the four of them took the elevator back up to the auditorium. Hel had made sure she was next to the wall once they got up there and started asking Aubrey about her dad. His ex had dodged his questions about how her dad was doing when she’d taken him to Murphy’s. But now she was telling the three of them about how Doug had his hours cut at the town’s steel factory back in her hometown, and ended up getting a part time job at Robertson’s. Then _that _had tangented into complaining about how every Robertson’s in the county had stopped carrying wine and liquor, just leaving the beer and replacing the rest of the refrigerated section with juices and energy drinks. Thankfully Hel had been able to suppress the anger he’d noticed flare this time when she saw the scoreboard well enough for Aubrey to keep going in her rant.

After they left the auditorium he and Aubrey parted ways with them, and she started leading him back to Murphy’s. He’d wanted to take a shower before meeting with Maeve, but they were running late and Aubrey had insisted that him showering later would give Maeve more alone time like she’d told the blonde she wanted earlier. So he found himself at the bar for the fourth time that week.

Maeve was waiting for them at one of the smaller tables next to the pool table. She was in a purple sweater and a pencil skirt that was hugging her plush waist. She smiled at the two of them coming in, as she had a thousand times as he came into her office for their sessions. It was reassuring.

“It looks like you two had an interesting morning. Anything you wanted to talk about?” She asked as they approached.

He was considering if there was anything worth mentioning when Aubrey spoke first. “We found out that there’s a tennis court under the auditorium. Helena and her guard invited us for a doubles match. Helena seemed stressed for a while and was really pushing us to our limits, but then she had a chance to talk to Richard for a bit and calmed down a lot. She started going easier on us and let us win a little. We all had a great time. Right Richard?”

They both were looking at him now. Other than the parts he wasn’t sure he was uncertain about discussing, he’d had fun. “Right. You were doing even better than me, I had no idea you’d kept practicing with Hel.”

Dr.Petrov smiled and nodded. “I’m glad you both had fun. I had some plans for today, but some things aren’t etched in stone yet. I was hoping we all could spend some time together and have a discussion about how your previous relationship ended. Afterwards, Aubrey wanted some time with you before dinner, and I thought that we could switch back around dinnertime for my curfew. Does that sound alright to both of you?”

They both nodded. He couldn’t tell if Aubrey was as nervous about their discussion as he was. They’d skated around things when they’d seen each other since he’d hurt her.

“Good. Aubrey, did you have anything you wanted to say before we started?” The therapist asked.

His ex looked at him, he could see now that she was as nervous as him. “I’m glad you were willing to take me back after our break.”

Maeve frowned at that, and his own nervousness only grew. He’d noticed her say something about their “break” earlier that morning, but hadn’t thought it was worth asking about. “After what happened?” The older woman asked.

Aubrey looked to Dr.Petrov, trying to maintain herself. “After we took our break.”

“It’s important to be honest with yourself. Is that what happened between you two?” The doctor pushed.

“Yes,” Aubrey insisted. “He wanted us to have a break to make sure I could take care of myself. You told me that was the reason yourself. And while I didn’t do things perfectly, I’ve lived on my own for over a year.”

“Babe. You have to know that’s not what happened. You didn’t deserve it, but it was more than taking a break. I broke up with you.” He took over from Dr.Petrov, more out of his own guilt than the doctor's concern.

“No. You didn’t. You wouldn’t do that.”

“But I did. You don’t need to make excuses for me.”

“You couldn’t have. You’re not that kind of person.”

“But I broke up with you. I’d understand if you were upset with me, you should be.” Why couldn’t she accept that he’d done that to her?

“Aubrey,” Maeve coaxed her towards an explanation. “Can you tell us why it matters whether it was a break versus a break-up? This wasn’t something you mentioned previously.”

The young woman tried to explain. “If we broke up, then either Richard isn’t a good person, or I wasn’t good enough for him. Richard’s one of the best people I ever met. You both keep telling me it wasn’t my fault, but it feels like it was. If it was a break-up it has to be someone’s fault. It makes more sense for it to be me than him, but that doesn’t make sense if you guys are telling the truth. It has to have been just a break, because he wouldn’t do that…” She was getting quieter and progressively talking in circles as they listened to her. "He wouldn't do that. He's not her. Stop..."

He hadn’t remembered a spiral like this while they’d been together. Even on her date night she’d sounded more confident during their argument. The only time he could think of when he’d seen her get this bad was when he first met her, crying into a laundry basket on the sidewalk.

As she was circling the drain, he took her hand and gently squeezed. She looked up at him, mostly silent.

“Hey, look at me.” He said. “So you need it to be someone’s fault?”

She nodded hesitantly, unsure where he was going.

“It’s my fault. I made the decision because I thought you’d be better off without me. I’ve regretted it ever since, but I got lucky. We can have a second chance.” He squeezed her hand again. “It was my fault, but never out of malice.” He watched her, trying to gauge her reaction.

“You won’t be… you won’t be leaving again?” She asked him.

“Never.” He answered her.

She burst out of her chair and latched onto him, sitting in his lap as she rested her chin on his shoulder. “I love you.”

Maeve watched the two of them. She’d hoped that she could help them towards a moment like this. She’d prepared a dozen questions to gently guide them through a discussion, but her attempt to let Aubrey get some of their own discussion of her time before Richard out had led to them shooting straight into the problem.

She was glad they’d been able to discuss how she’d felt about their relationship ending. He’d handled his reaction well this time. He’d insisted it was his fault as she’d expect of him, but he had more of a point this time than previous times he’d claim responsibility of a situation. They could discuss his thought process later, but for now they both deserved some time to relax.

Aubrey was more worrying, and they’d have to spend more time together tomorrow. She’d accepted that she wasn’t at fault, but only by self-rationalizing away the conflict. When they’d pushed and reminded her about the conflict, she’d buckled and lost certainty in herself. She’d only recovered when he had proclaimed his love for her, and even then had fallen back onto her fear of him leaving her. Maeve had tried to be gentle with her during their earlier discussions, but it may be important to have a longer discussion about her fears of abandonment.

But that was for tomorrow. While she’d been thinking about how the two of them were doing mentally, Aubrey had taken the opportunity from already being in his lap. She had started to kiss his neck, and while he wasn't as eager he looked like he was starting to reciprocate. All the stress of her defense mechanisms being threatened were melting away as he pulled her in closer. It was when Aubrey started reaching for his belt that Maeve realized that things were progressing faster than she had quite intended.

She decided to inject herself back into the scene. “It’s good to see you both more comfortable with each other again. Should we have some lunch?”

Richard broke away first. Embarrassed, he nodded. “Y-yeah, I’m starved.” He gently slid Aubrey off of him, and she got back into her own chair as they agreed on what they wanted. Neither woman missed him adjusting his pants.

***

After lunch, Richard collected everyone’s plates to put behind the bar. Aubrey had asked him to get her a second cocktail, but he’d cajoled her into waiting a bit. After he came back, none of them were quite sure what to do next.

“I had asked for us to meet here because I thought it’d be somewhere both of you might be more comfortable. Aside from the time that you and I have spent here together,” She looked at Aubrey as she said that. “I haven’t been to a place like this in quite a long time. Since you both have spent much more time in that place this was modeled on, do either of you have an idea of what we could do together?”

“Your aim’s been getting better with the darts,” Aubrey offered.

“But would we be able to do that with three people?” The older woman asked.

“Probably not.” Aubrey answered, a bit disappointed.

“We only have two colors of cornhole bags, and pool obviously wouldn’t work.” Richard added. He was seeing the same problem that Maeve had.

But Aubrey disagreed. “If we wanted to do something like pool, we could always do cutthroat instead.”

“Are you sure?” She didn’t like when her number issues were brought up, so he wasn’t sure if it would be bad enough to affect tracking the game for her.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine. I’ll just take all the double digits.” She said.

“But that’d let you have one more chance than anyone else.” He pointed out.

“Really? I really thought I’d counted better. Can I just get the purple ones and then just tell me which others I need to make it fair?”

“Just add the green ones and the black eight and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m not familiar with… cutthroat. Could one of you explain it? Maeve requested. As she’d said earlier, she wasn’t familiar with this kind of thing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d visited a bar before this week, when she’d checked on Miss Conners

Thankfully the young woman was eager to teach her another game. “It uses some of the same basic rules as pool, but it’s more directly competitive. The real rules of cutthroat are complicated and hard to track, so I kind of made my own version. You’re supposed to have a third of the balls assigned to you, where you lose the game if all of those get knocked into the pockets. In my version, you get the balls assigned before the game starts instead of during the game. Richard gave me the purple, green, and the black as my safety set. So if you guys can take out all five of those, then I lose. Once you figure out which ones you want, then I can break.” The blonde flounced over to the wall, grabbing some sticks and setting up the table for them to play.

While Aubrey was eager and he was interested, he wanted to be mindful of everyone. “Do you need any help? This doesn’t really seem like your thing, I’m sure we could find something else all three of us could enjoy.” Richard tried to offer Maeve. He felt bad about her having to spend “their” day on things she wasn’t going to enjoy. He wasn’t sure what she’d prefer, but he knew it wasn’t this.

“It’ll be fine. I may need some guidance, but I’m willing to learn. We’ll have some time after dinner just for us. For now, there’s a disproportionate amount of reds. I can take those, and maybe one of the yellow ones. You’d prefer the nine over the one, right? That’s the second three.”

It was nice that she thought of little things like that. They’d used to use counting sequences like exponents as a tool to help him refocus when they were nearing the end of a session and things still felt too heavy. He nodded at her suggestion, and by the point they’d been talking that long Aubrey had their sticks ready.

Aubrey was breaking the game open as she’d suggested. As she leaned into the table, the faintest crest of her hips and butt were visible. That shouldn’t be able to distract him so easily, but he still felt a little wound up from when she’d been sitting in his lap.

She pressed her stick forwards, and it solidly struck the cue ball, splitting the tight triangle formation. The colored balls split apart in a dozen directions and the blue two and red three thunked into the corner holes, meaning both he and Maeve had lost one from their set in the fist strike.

Aubrey took her second shot. She’d moved to the left side and knocked the crimson fifteen into the right side pocket, then the cue ball had rolled into a good position for her to pop in his thirteen. So they were both down to three.

She was still focused, and shifted in front of where he was standing. She made a sharp jab and the cue ball hit his nine, and the momentum was able to carry out his five with it. Her next shot took out his ten, and then he was out of the game.

Aubrey only needed a few more minutes to win. The blonde looked up sheepishly as she realized that she’d already won. “I’m sorry. That was kind of mean of me, wasn’t it?”

Did she think I’d want her to let us win like Hel did? “Babe, no. That was really impressive. Where did you learn how to do that?”

His girlfriend blushed. “When you started spending more time with your Friday group, I started coming here when Tiffany wasn’t available. It was really easy this time, I usually would’ve had at least three or four drinks before I started playing against someone.”

Was she just getting drunk whenever I was gone? “Still, that was really good.”

“It might not be fair though for me to keep playing. I’ll just sit out and you can play regular pool together. I’ll help if you have any questions, Maeve.”

She didn’t wait for either of them to respond before setting up the table again. She just took charge and set up the balls before turning back to them. “Does anyone have a preference on who breaks this time? It might be a bit easier for Richard, since he’s done this before.”

He looked at Maeve, checking how she felt. She had a pained expression on her face, like she felt out of her depth. “Yeah, I’ll break.”

He bent down over the table, lining things up. While it’d been even longer than tennis that he’d been at a billiards table, it felt familiar. He thrust the cue stick forward to drive into the cue ball and break the formation. It didn’t explode like when she’d done it because his aim had been a little off, but it still split them apart. Since he hadn’t managed to sink any, that meant that it was Maeve’s turn.

She held the rod uncertainly. She studied the table, trying to decide where to start.

“The six in the back is in a good position.” Aubrey suggested to her.

Maeve walked to the back side of the table, trying to mimic how she’d seen the two of them hold the stick. Aubrey decided to keep helping. “Press your bad hand against the table, and tilt your thumb up. That’ll create a divet you can use to help aim.”

The silvery grey haired woman tried to follow her instructions. She hit the green ball. It slowly rolled into the pocket with a plop.

“So that means I get another turn.” She said out loud to herself. She looked for another solid, and hit the cue ball towards the orange five. But she struck the cue off center, and it spun to the right.

He started his turn, and had a decent run. The ten, fourteen, and fifteen for him to plunge in. But then he missed the thirteen, and that meant it was her turn again.

Maeve came back to the table, and was having trouble making a plan until Aubrey decided to step in again. “The seven is close by. Try to aim for that, and hit it like you’re angry.”

The older woman tried her best. She didn’t hit it much harder, but it was good enough to knock over the seven like she needed. She moved onto the four, and was able to sink that too. But she was farther away from the two ball, and didn’t have enough **** to knock it in when she tried.

On his next turn he was able to get the eleven, twelve, and thirteen in quick succession. His turn still had to end before he could win though, because he ended up scratching the turn after thrusting with enough **** to knock in the cue ball too.

As Maeve stood up again, she commented on how easily he was winning. “It feels like the game’s about to end. You both must’ve had a lot of practice.”

“We’d go here a lot in college.” He explained. He smiled at his girlfriend. “You used to play just to humor me, but now you’re better than I’ve ever been.”

“I wanted to practice.” She said back to him before turning to Maeve. “You’ve already got most of them. You just need… four more? Just hit hard and keep aiming well, and I know you can do it!”

Maeve sighed and bent over the table. She gently pushed and was able to pocket the two.

Then the one.

But the three was in the middle of the table. Even trying the blonde expert’s guidance, she didn’t have enough **** to drive it into the pocket at the far side of the table.

Dick was able to easily finish things off by popping in the black eight ball. After he won, he turned to both of them. “Good game. Is there anything else you wanted to do?”

After a pause, Aubrey spoke. “Can we do the thing we were talking about?” his girlfriend asked his therapist.

“I’m comfortable with that at this point, but he’s the more important person to ask right now.” Maeve reminded Aubrey.

Her blonde mane twisted and jumped in the are as she hopped up to hold him. She held onto him, one hand on his stomach and one on his back, and fluttered her eyelashes as she tried to warm him up for her idea. “I’ve got something we could do back at your place.”

“What’s that?” He asked. They clearly had a plan, but he was out of the loop.

“I wanted to show you an outfit I remembered you liked. It’s with one of those pleated skirts…”

“Oh.” Oh. One of her skirts? She really wants to get back together tonight. He felt even more guilty for considering this on “Maeve’s day”, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn his love down. He found himself tempted, the ship of his self-control being pulled into her whirlpool. “This… this is alright with you?” It was all he could do to try and make sure Dr.Petrov was comfortable with the idea.

“I offered her the chance while you were with your friend Ava. I’ll sit in the kitchen while you two are busy.” His therapist gave him the final approval he needed.

“The purple or the green?” He asked. It didn’t matter, but the way she was brushing against him was making him want to know.

“It’ll be a little surprise.” She impishly answered him. “Are you interested in finding out?”

In response, he kissed her. Her efforts to be smooth were defeated as she was caught off guard. She closed her eyes and leaned into it. It was her turn to be swept up as his hand wove under her hair and brought her in closer. She felt flushed as everything she’d been dreaming about since they’d ended was coming back. Maybe not everything yet, but it was coming closer.

She pulled away, delighted and trying to regain her composure. “I’ll meet you there then, I’ll just have to stop at my place to get changed.”