Shit. I raise my brows at Lily. Her husband owns a comic book company called Halway Comics, but everyone in the world is aware that Loren Hale’s true allegiance is to Marvel. He says fuck DC on practically every Instagram Live I’ve seen.
She cringes. “Moffy’s love of Batman is not going anywhere, much to his dad’s dismay.”
“Cool,” I say with a smile. It’s amusing.
“Will you watch it with me?” Maximoff asks me again. “Pleeeeeassssee.”
“Sure—”
He’s already grabbing my hand and tugging me to the big TV near the collectible toys. Blinds are snapped shut over the windows and glass door for privacy. I’m introduced to a couple extra bodyguards that Lily is leaving with her son and me.
Both men stand near the entrance like silent shadows.
Lily runs around, grabbing keys. She calls out to me. “The fridge is stocked and you remember where the good snacks are?!”
“Break room, bottom cabinet,” I mumble under my breath.
Lily doesn’t hear me, but she’s rushed and glances at the clock. “Thank you! I’ll be back soon!”
She exits in a hurry, and her son stares up at me like I’m his total world for the next hour. Maybe because I am.
If Maximoff even knew how I came into his dad’s life, would he hate me?
My stomach twists, and I try not to think about that. Moffy is a good kid. He just sits on a yellow beanbag and watches the movie, and when his favorite parts come on, he glances back to make sure I’m paying attention.
One hour and two bowls of popcorn later, the kid is out. Soft snores coming from his mouth. Finding an old Ant-Man fleece blanket on a shelf, I rip open the packaging and then cover Maximoff.
Babysitting duties accomplished. Yay me. I lean back against a bookcase, action figures on the shelves, and I scroll through Tumblr.
Willow hasn’t answered a questionnaire since she left for Wakefield. Either she doesn’t have time to do one or she’s just not into them anymore. She reblogged a couple gif sets of that guy from Gilmore Girls that she says I remind her of, so that’s a good thing, right? She’s still thinking about me.
Shit, I need to stop dwelling on this. I run a hand through my hair and bury my head on my knees. I should be working and avoiding all thoughts about Willow. Seconds away from grabbing my backpack and fishing out my laptop, my cell rings.
She’s Skyping.
My chest lightens, my lips lift. It’s like someone switching on the lights in a dark room, and I know I need to figure out how to find that switch when she’s not around. But it’s just hard.
“Hey,” she says, beaming when she sees me. Christmas morning can’t even beat getting to talk to her.
Underneath my happiness is a gnawing sensation. Like something eating me from the inside-out. Termites in my basement, eroding the foundation. I don’t know how to shake the feeling.
Focusing on Willow, I notice that she’s sitting at her organized wooden desk. Pens and pencils stashed in a cup.
She must be Skyping from her computer, since I have view of most of her room, including her opened door. Students pass by in the hallway.
In another life, could that have been me? College. A dorm. Friends. In another life, I would have lived there and hated every second of it. But I hate being away, too.
I feel like I’m seventeen again, hating two polarizing things and not being able to find peace within the middle. Split apart. Trying to be sewn back together. It hurts. I hate that it hurts.
I meet Willow’s eyes.
“Hey,” I whisper back, trying not to wake Moffy. “You look pretty cheerful.”
“So do you,” she replies. “Or at least, more than last weekend.”
Last weekend, I had two hours of sleep and downed four Lightning Bolts!—Willow told me that if I drank any more energy drinks she was sending Daisy to come check on me.
She scans my surroundings. “Are you at Superheroes & Scones?”
I nod and then flash the phone toward the sleeping toddler and then back to me.
She looks surprised. “You’re babysitting?”
“It’s hard to say no to Lily.” Plus, I genuinely like her kid. Maximoff is sweet and probably the easiest toddler to look after—not that I have a lot of experience babysitting other people’s offspring.
Willow nods like she gets it. “Lily has the best puppy dog eyes. They make you crumble.”
I pull up the hood of my black jacket. “So hey, I… um, I came up with my project for Cobalt Inc., finally.”
Her smile explodes. “Garrison!” she exclaims in a quiet voice, since Maximoff is sleeping. Her enthusiasm emits from the core. “That’s amazing. And see, you didn’t have anything to worry about.”
I shrug. “I’m not going to tell Connor about it yet. He’ll probably think it’s stupid and pull the plug. I’ll ask for forgiveness later or whatever.” Which, I know, isn’t something you should probably be doing when you’re an employee of a multi-billion-dollar corporation.
But I’m too invested in this project to risk losing it. Plus, when I have a prototype, I can better sell the concept to Connor.
I think about not telling Willow the details either. So she doesn’t have to keep this secret from her family, but in the end, I can’t keep it from her, so I just say, “I want to create a video game based off Sorin-X.” He’s a character from The Fourth Degree comics, the same titles that Loren’s company, Halway Comics, publishes.
I need the rights of these comics in order to adapt them into a video game, but I’ll jump through that hurdle later.
Willow looks like she could hug me through the screen. But we can’t touch, and that realization tunnels through me like a freight train at full speed. It’s excruciating. I wish I just told her the news in person—whenever that would be.
“Garrison,” she breathes deeply. “That’s perfect. And you really are the best person to create it. I won’t tell anyone, promise.”
I nod, knowing she won’t, and I quickly change subjects. “How’s your project going?” I’d rather talk about Willow because the more I talk about the game, the more I’m probably going to curse the thing to hell. I can already see the project combusting in flames.
She grimaces. “I mean—it’s a silly school project. It’s not like yours.” She pushes up her glasses that have fallen down her nose.
I’m about to tell her she’s wrong. That her school is just as important and meaningful than a stupid video game, but someone stops in her doorway.
“Hey, Willow.”
My jaw tenses.
It’s that guy. The one I heard over the phone. I recognize his Italian accent.
He leans against the doorframe. In direct view of her webcam. He grabs her attention, and Willow turns her head to meet his gaze.
I glare. Yeah, I immediately hate this guy for no real reason other than he’s showing up unannounced at my girlfriend’s door.
Also: he looks like all the assholes in every prep school that I’ve ever attended. Khakis. Fluffy, styled hair. Sports coat. And I’m thoroughly ashamed to say that I attended three prep schools because I flunked out of two.
But it’s whatever. I can’t really read the expression on this guy’s face because he’s standing too far away from the camera.
That doesn’t stop me from squinting at my screen.
“Hey, Salvatore,” Willow greets. “Is it six already?”
“On the dot,” Salvatore says. My brain starts processing more. This is the guy from Italy that Willow was telling me about. He’s in her group for her marketing project. Willow also told me his name is spelled the same as Damon and Stefan Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries, even though they’re not pronounced the same. She said it was kind of amusing, and at the time, I agreed.
I don’t think it’s amusing anymore.
“Shit,” Willow says. “Time just slipped by. Can you give me a minute?”
“No problem. I’ll be on the steps outside.”
“Thank you,” Willow calls out and then glances back to me. Apologies heavy her eyes. “Garrison—”
“It’s not a big deal.” I do my best to soften my glare. “Go.” I don’t even know what I’m telling her to go to. My chest is tight.
I don’t want to be a possessive asshole. All I know is that I trust her. Don’t trust him. Don’t know him.
He looks like my brothers. No, he just dresses like a douchebag, like they do. But he’s not them.
I swallow hard, my nose flaring. My insides twist, fighting with these feelings. I can’t be the paranoid, controlling boyfriend who forbids her from talking to her own goddamn group partner.
I won’t do it.
I don’t even want to appear like I’m jealous or worried about him. She doesn’t need that stress. I’m trying to be cool. Everything is cool.
Everything’s fine.
She scratches at her arm. “I’m really sorry. This is when I wish I was Hermione and had a Time-Turner. But I am…sadly a mortal.”
“A muggle,” I rephrase for her, which is something I rarely do for Harry Potter references. She’s usually correcting me.
She smiles, but it’s a sadder, weaker one. “A muggle.” She nods and then shakes her head, conflicted. Like she wishes she had time for me and school. Without me asking, she offers more details. “It’s a group thing. We’re going over to Barnaby’s to come up with a slogan for the umbrella ad.”
Barnaby’s is Wakefield’s popular bar. I know because Willow told me about how Tess and Sheetal took her there for an Avengers trivia night.
They came in second.
According to Willow, there were some trick questions relating to Captain America that shouldn’t have been included. Even coming in second, she had fun and she’s making friends. It’s a good thing.
She’s happy.
I want that for her. That’s all that should matter. We say our goodbyes, and just as I pocket my phone, Lily returns from her meeting. She rushes into Superheroes & Scones like she’s been away from her child for a decade. Her 24/7 bodyguard stays near the door with the other two, and I can already hear fans coalescing outside.
My stomach knots. I’m going to have to push my way through those crowds. Great. I don’t love people grabbing at me. I exhale a tense breath.
Lily skids to a stop when she sees her three-year-old curled up on the beanbag, cuddling the Ant-Man blanket.
Gathering my backpack, I avoid her gaze and rise to my feet.
“Garrison, thank you,” she whispers so she doesn’t wake him.
“It was nothing,” I say. “See you.” I head towards the door.
“Wait, Garrison.” Lily catches up with me. “Do you want to come over for dinner? We’re having spaghetti. I didn’t make it, so it’s edible.” She smiles softly, and I see those pleading puppy dog eyes that Willow was talking about.
To me, it just looks like pity.
Lily knows I’m alone here in the city. My family might live in Philly, but I don’t go see them unless it’s a holiday and I’m coerced into it. I have no friends. All that’s keeping me going is work. I should take her offer, but I don’t want to get close to Lily and Loren or any of Willow’s family.
I don’t know how long our relationship is going to last. And if she breaks up with me, if this all ends, they’ll choose her. Like they should. And I don’t want to spend time with Lily and Loren just to lose them in the end.
I won’t.
I can’t.
“I have plans,” I lie to Lily. “But thanks.”
Without another glance back, I zip up my jacket and leave.
10 PRESENT DAY - October
London, England
WILLOW HALE
Age 20
“Why are you taking photos of the chips, Willow?” Sheetal sips a beer and eyes my cell curiously. It hovers over a bowl of chips—or fries as I call them. Barnaby’s has great pub food, and it’s imperative that I send in my rating to Daisy.
“I promised my friend I’d document the food in London,” I explain. “And rate it.”
Tess smiles and plucks a fry from the basket. “I’d give these fries a solid two out of five. Needs more salt.” She bites into it.
Sheetal reaches for the salt shaker. “You mean, chips.”
Tess sticks out her tongue playfully. Sheetal tosses a fry at her, and Tess laughs. Not long after, Sheetal asks, “You need another bevvie?” She eyes her girlfriend’s depleting beer.
“Not yet, babe,” Tess says, smiling into a bite of fry.
They’re an adorable couple, and I’m grateful that they keep asking me to hang out. Even tonight, they could have left after we finished the assignment for our ad, but instead they both ordered a pint.
In my experience, most people don’t love the company of quiet people like me. We don’t bring enough to the conversation. We take up space at your table when you could have someone louder and more outwardly fun. And maybe that’s just my insecurity because Sheetal and Tess don’t make me feel like an intruder. They actively want me here, even if I’m quiet.
Someone bumps into our high-top table, and with my free hand, I reach for the pitcher of beer before it spills.
“Sorry,” the guy mumbles before stumbling over to the bar. Barnaby’s is crowded, college students filled to the brim. We’re lucky we arrived early and snagged one of the high-top tables.
I return to my phone. “So the chips are definitely five out of five.” I text Daisy my review: Delicious. Pub food at its finest. My picture kind of sucks though. It’s all grainy and the dim lighting doesn’t do the chips any favors.
She quickly texts me back.
Daisy: They look superb! Wish you could mail them to me!!
Me too.
“Five out of five?” Tess snorts. “I’m going to need to taste test a few more to see what’s up.” She digs her hand back into the basket.
I pick up my beer stein and take a small sip, the top mostly foam. It’s so strange being in a pub with students as young as eighteen, all legally drinking. “I can’t believe I’m twenty and drinking in a bar,” I say my thoughts out loud.
“I know, right?” Tess nods. “America needs to get with the program and lower the drinking age.” She frowns. “Also, I’m just now realizing that by living here, my twenty-first birthday isn’t going to be as epic.”
“London has saved you from drinking the night away, getting bladdered, and smelling like a vomitorium,” Sheetal notes. “You’re welcome.”
“Bladdered?” I ask.
“Piss drunk,” Sheetal defines.
Tess grins and clinks her glass to Sheetal’s.
It’s another moment I wish Garrison were here. I don’t feel like a third wheel or anything, but I want my new friends to meet him. He’s so much a part of my life that it feels like I’m hiding something or omitting this essential thing.
I glance towards the bar. Salvatore leans a hip against it, bodies packed between him, but he’s focused on a brunette with skin as pale as mine, wavy brown hair, and a deep blue velvet minidress.
“Speaking of ages,” Sheetal says, capturing my attention. “I’ve been thinking about our little group.” She waves around the table, but her eyes are on me. “Tess and I are nineteen. You and Salvatore are twenty. We’re all the oldest in the class since we started Wakefield late, and I could see Professor Flynn grouping us off on purpose.”
Tess nods. “It’d make sense, right? Our families are all well off, too.”
I remember something. “He grouped all the Aussies together.”
Sheetal lets out a breath. “Well, that probably confirms the theory. He’s giving every group an advantage. Like a commonality somewhere. Being a fresher is hard enough, maybe the fella wants to ease some of the stresses on our first year.”
“He is my nicest prof,” I say.
“Mine, too,” Tess agrees.
The music in the pub changes to a popular Arctic Monkeys song as I sip my beer. The liquid goes
down bitter. Garrison loves this band.
“Oh no,” Tess says. “You have that look, Willow.”
“What look?” I ask and reach for a fry.
“Relationship trouble,” Tess says. “Are you missing your boyfriend?” I only briefly told them about Garrison because the more I talk about him, the more I long for him to be beside me.
I’m waiting for the day where that doesn’t happen. Where it doesn’t hurt. But I’m also terrified if that day finally comes.
“I wish he were here,” I admit. “Garrison and I have been through a lot together.”
Salvatore comes back to our table and takes the opened seat beside me. He sets his whiskey down along with a basket of something fried-looking. “What are we talking about?” he asks.
“Willow’s boyfriend,” Sheetal says.
Salvatore swings his head to me. “The one in Philadelphia?”
“That would be the one.” I point to the basket. “What’s that?” I whip out my phone to take a pic. New food. New experiences. College success, but why do I feel so badly about it? My stomach twisting.
“Pork scratchings,” Salvatore says.
“Or for us Americans, pork rinds,” Tess adds and takes a couple.
“Do you have a pic of him?” Sheetal asks me.
I nod and scroll through my photos, landing on one where he’s in his usual black hoodie. Only the hood is down, so you can see more of his face. Hair brushes his eyelashes. Messy like that. We’re standing in front of a Groot cut-out in the movie theater, his arm around my waist.
The sinking in my stomach intensifies.
I understand now.
I’m at a pub. Trying new food. Drinking with new friends. Garrison is alone in Philadelphia. Either working himself to the point of exhaustion or in his apartment trying to fend off Jared, his fame-seeking neighbor. Guilt. It assaults me tenfold.
I pass the phone to Sheetal. Tess leans over her shoulder to see the screen, too.
“Willow, you like the bad boys,” Tess says into a grin.
“What?” I frown. “How can you tell?” It’s not like Garrison is wearing a sign that says I’ve done some questionable things in my past…right?
Whatever It Takes Page 10
