Love Will

by Lori L. Otto

  “You fell asleep?” she asks.

  “I don’t think you understand the significance in that. I don’t fall asleep on my own. I don’t sleep. If I do, it’s in spurts, and I swear I’m actually cognizant of things around me when I am asleep. I can sometimes account for my time when I’m sleeping.”

  “Whatever,” she laughs.

  “I swear. But I slept hard last night. Like I normally sleep after a night of… exertion.”

  “I was gonna say,” she starts, “the Will I know seems to sleep okay when he’s not awake doing other bedtime activities.”

  “I slept great with you,” I say softly. “I can’t wait to sleep with you again.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t lie.”

  “I missed you last night. It was cold here. It snowed again.”

  “How’s your electricity?”

  “It stayed on. I’m good.”

  “You have a place to go if it goes out again? I don’t want some other guy coming over to test scientific theories with you.”

  She giggles. “I have friends a few miles down the road and snow tires on my car. We take care of each other.”

  “Girl friends?”

  “These are, yes. I have some guy friends, too, Will.”

  I groan loudly enough for her to hear.

  “They aren’t scientific like you. They could throw another log on the fire, but that’s the best they could do at warming me up. Okay?”

  “That’s all they’ve ever done?” I have to ask her. The curiosity would kill me otherwise.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes,” I say, feeling my heart falter.

  “They’ve never even added wood to my fireplace. For your sanity, I’ll tell you it’s rare that I invite them over to my apartment. We have parties after closing at the restaurant–my friends and I–but you know how tiny my place is.”

  “I’m doing a little dance right now,” I tell her.

  “I would love to see that.”

  “It’s good. It’s sexy,” I tease her.

  “Well, good thing there aren’t any girls around you.”

  “Who said that? I’ll have you know, there’s a woman asleep about five feet away from me as we speak. We found lonely little Peron a nice girl last night. Which, by the way, Damon says it’s miraculous I slept at all with all the noise they were making. He said he and Tavo actually left the bus for awhile.”

  “Wow,” she says, laughing again. “So is that where you were last night?”

  “Yeah. We went to a few bars in town. I was his wingman.”

  “You?” she asks. “You were his wingman?”

  “I can be a wingman!”

  “How many girls did you hit on?” she asks me, still sounding okay with this whole arrangement.

  “Uhhh…” I start. “None?”

  “Will, give it to me straight.”

  “I swear. I talked to a few, but I didn’t lead any on. Just small talk as I worked toward the goal: to get Peron laid.”

  “Let me rephrase the question. How many girls hit on you?”

  “Why do you ask such questions?” I press her. “It’s not something I can help…”

  “Can you give me a number?”

  “I don’t know… probably seven?”

  “In one night… seven… shit.”

  “What?”

  “Will, how am I going to keep your attention when I’m miles and states away from you?”

  “Shea,” I tell her calmly, seriously, “I left a part of myself in Minneapolis with you. I don’t know why you can’t feel it, because it sure as hell feels like something’s missing since I left you.”

  She’s quiet for a minute or so. I’m just waiting for her to accuse me of using another line on her, so I’m surprised when she finally does speak to me in her sweet tone. “When do you think you’ll come back and get it?”

  “I don’t know when. Just know that I fully intend to, okay?”

  “Okay.” I can hear her smile.

  And when I take that part of myself back, I hope you’ll come with me. I don’t say it aloud. It’s not really even a conscious thought. It’s just a notion that’s taken root and seems to spread like wildflowers in my chest. Near my heart, in fact.

  “We have a show tonight, so it may be too late to call you after. I know our schedules are kind of opposite right now, but–”

  “It’s just for a few more weeks, Will. Then the restaurant will be closed, and I’ll be available to talk whenever until I find another job. Just leave a message in the morning when you’re up and I’ll call on my lunch break again.”

  “Thanks for understanding. And know that I’m thinking about you even when I’m not talking to you, okay? It’s pretty constant, actually.”

  “Same here.”

  “Well, that makes me feel a little less crazy,” I admit.

  “Break a leg tonight.”

  “Go cook your heart out… but not my enchiladas.”

  “Those are our little secret,” she says. “Write a song for me?”

  “I’ve written some… already got another in mind.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can I hear them?”

  “Someday, yeah,” I assure her softly.

  “Have a good day, Will.”

  “You, too, Shea.”

  “I love you, Shea!!!” Damon yells–thankfully, after I hang up the phone.

  “Asswipe, don’t you ever do that again.” I punch him in the chest to make sure he gets the point.

  “What?”

  “What if she heard you?”

  “So what if she did?”

  “I’ve known her for less than a week. You think we’re exchanging I love yous?” I ask him without looking at him.

  “You’ve spent more time with her than all the women you’ve ever been with combined,” he exaggerates. “I figured you’d secretly exchanged vows.”

  After rolling my eyes at him, I find my guitar and sit next to him in the living area.

  “Are we writing or rehearsing?” he asks.

  “I’m writing. Shea wants me to let her hear a song I wrote for her… but everything I have is a little too serious.”

  “They all say I love you, don’t they?” he teases.

  I crack my neck before answering. “When I read back through them, I guess that’s the general gist of them, yeah.”

  “Oh, fuck,” he says. I nod my head. “You’ve known her for less than a week!”

  “I don’t know, Damon. There’s something about her. She’s nothing like anyone I’ve ever met. She challenges me, and wants to know about me. And I want to know her. Like, where she’s been and where she’s going. She genuinely interests me. And she’s fun, too. And fucking beautiful… like the kind of woman where you find something new and gorgeous about her every time you look at her. And you never want to stop looking at her, either.

  “Plus, she’s got her shit together–even though her life’s crumbling down all around her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s losing her restaurant in a few weeks. She doesn’t have anything lined up. She’s got savings, apparently, and very little stress about what’s happening. Oh, and when she loses the restaurant, she loses her apartment, too. But she has this Zen attitude about it all. About everything in her life, really. I love it. I love that about her.

  “There’s no drama in her life. She has this aura of peace. Of calm. Can you blame me for wanting to surround myself with that?”

  My friend smiles. “No… what, does she have no family or something? How do you have no drama?”

  “She has a sister who lives in Africa. Her parents are both gone… she’s completely independent. Lives her life like she wants.”

  “Oh, wow. What does she want with a scoundrel like you?”

  “I have no idea, but she seems to want me. She knows about me, and she still wants me.”

  “She know about your connection to
the Hollands? They are one of the wealthiest families in the country.”

  “Yeah… but she was into me before she knew. It’s not like that, Damon.”

  “Okay.” He knows I’d be able to see through that. “She know how you feel about her?”

  “I haven’t hidden anything from her. She definitely knows there’s something between us. She knows that I think she’s someone special. That she’s different than the rest of them.”

  “Then your songs will come as no surprise to her, right?”

  “Fuck, they’re coming as a surprise to me!”

  “Well, when you read over them, do you still mean what you wrote?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a chuckle. “One hundred percent. But it’s a lot to pour my heart out like that to her when I haven’t–”

  “Haven’t even known her a week. We’ve established that, Will. You can dwell on the fact that it only took you a couple of days to fall for her, or you can step back and see that it’s actually taken you years to find her and fall in love,” he says. “If you’re sensing activity from that lifeless muscle in your chest, go with it, man. In all the time I’ve known you, it’s been as unfeeling as a rock.”

  I know he’s not wrong. In more interviews than I care to count, he’s used three words to describe me: brilliant, talented, and detached. ‘Look up any of those three words in the dictionary, and you’ll find Will Rosser,’ he always says.

  “Guys?” We both look up to see Peron, standing in front of us with his flannel pants on backwards.

  “One o’clock!” Damon exclaims. “Good work! How do you feel?”

  “Like we had sex all night…”

  “You pretty much did.”

  “Uhhh… yeah. I’m mortified.”

  “Don’t be!”

  “I slept through it all,” I admit. “And I had my headphones on, too.”

  “She wants to go at it again,” he whispers, looking worried.

  “It’s just the two of us here. Tavo and Ben are out shopping. I haven’t eaten yet. You?” I ask Damon.

  “Nope.”

  Twelve hours later, I find myself in the same restaurant I’d had lunch in, only this time my dining partner-in-crime is Peron. Tavo and Ben couldn’t wait to get back to their new video game that was released yesterday, and although they insisted on blaring the sound through incredibly high-end speakers and it annoyed the shit out of me, that’s not why we’re here.

  The gig went well. We played Where Your Horizon Meets Mine tonight, this time with the full band, and once again, the crowd went crazy over it. We’d thought about doing Done Away acoustic, but Damon wasn’t quite ready before the show.

  Peron had an off night, and we’d teased him relentlessly that he wasn’t allowed to get laid again while we were on the road. After all, he’d never had an off night before while we were on tour. When the concert was over, he approached me and asked if we could go out for coffee instead of joining the others on the bus.

  “If you’re feeling guilty about Brooke,” I start after they bring an appetizer to us, “you shouldn’t.” I eat a piece of fried lamb meat, happy with the waiter’s suggestion after I’d realized I hadn’t eaten since I was here for lunch.

  “I’m not,” he says.

  “Good. And we were just messing with you back there. Everyone has a bad night every once in awhile. Even you, Peron. And trust me, no one could tell but us.”

  He nods, showing no emotion.

  “So what’s up?”

  “The condom broke last night.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Then another one broke this afternoon.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “What would you like me to do about that?” He’s a thirty-year-old man. He should have this figured out by now.

  “The first time, neither of us were sober enough to care. The second time, I just played it off as a slight malfunction, so she didn’t really know what happened.”

  “You what?” I ask him.

  “I’m so pissed at Brooke,” he says.

  “I don’t give a fuck. What about Jessica?”

  “I don’t know,” he sighs, putting his head in his hands.

  “You don’t know? Did you go pick up a morning after pill or anything?”

  “How am I gonna do that? Drive the bus to a Duane Reade? Do they have those here?”

  “I’m sure they have pharmacies… you could have Uber’d it, I don’t know.”

  “I’m sure they don’t have Uber here.”

  “Well, I bet they have a fucking taxi. If nothing else, putting the idea in her head and giving her a fifty would have sufficed. Did you talk about it at all before she left the bus?”

  “No.”

  “Can you call her?”

  “Didn’t get her number.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, Peron. It’s one thing to have revenge sex. It’s another thing entirely to have a revenge fuck with a potential life-long memento.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine. Right?”

  “You’re looking for assurance from me?” I ask him. “Is that why I’m here?”

  “Just lie to me.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine, Peron. It’s fine for the next nine months, at least. It’s fine until she tracks you down and sends you the first picture of your little mistake.”

  “You think I need to worry about STDs?”

  “If I’m stereotyping her, no, Peron. I don’t think so. But would I trust my dick’s health to a stereotype? Fuck no.”

  “Why did you let me do this?”

  “Nope. You’re not pinning this on me. And trust me, no court of law’s gonna make me pay eighteen years of child support, either. This is all your doing, Peron. You wanted to get laid. You decided to get drunk last night. Then you soberly made dumb-ass decisions today. You had a chance to rectify it, too, and you didn’t.

  “I mean, Per, even I have never done anything this stupid!”

  “Well, Will, you’ve had a lot more experience with how to handle fuck-ups like this, so excuse me for not thinking this through and making the right choices to cover up my poor decisions in the first place.”

  I lift my brows and stare him down. “You wanna rethink that statement?”

  “Well?” he says, as if to say, ‘it’s true, isn’t it?’

  “Don’t be pissed off at me for something you did. Don’t take this out on me.”

  He breaks his gaze from mine and returns to his coffee, taking a few sips while I continue eating. “So do I just go on like nothing happened?”

  “We could go back to the bar we met her at… see if anyone knows how to get in touch with her…” I suggest.

  “And tell her what? I may or may not have knocked her up? I mean, maybe she remembered the first time it broke, and went and got something anyway.”

  “It’s quite possible,” I admit. “You could just ignore it… and just hope the odds work out in your favor.”

  “I think that’s what I have to do,” he says. I’m not happy with the statement, but I don’t think I can argue with him. I think he’s probably right.

  “Just so you know, Peron, I’ve been through two abortions for mistakes girls have pinned on me. I’m still not certain either were mine, because I have been careful and taken responsibility for any incidents like yours, but I’ve gotten that news two times in my life. And I couldn’t call them liars because I was definitely with each of them.

  “One girl got my number through a lawyer. Another one waited for me at my apartment late one night.”

  “Did either of them want to keep the baby?”

  I shake my head. “It’s an awful feeling, too. At first, there was a sense of relief. I mean, for me, as someone whose dad never paid a dime of child support, all I could think was that I didn’t want to be like my dad… but I have no money, you know that. So I was relieved initially, but once I started thinking about it, it was pretty fucking sad. You know… a life I may have helped create is growing inside this woman, and she wants it to die. What does that say about me, as
a man?”

  “Most likely nothing,” Peron says. “I’m sure it wasn’t like they were saying your genes weren’t good enough. Fuck, if they knew anything about you at all, they would have known they’d struck the gene pool lottery.”

  “You know they all knew very little about me.”

  “Yeah. But still, Will, I bet their decisions were made on where they were in their lives, and what was best for them… and possibly you, too.”

  “Still not something I ever want to go through again. Listen, Peron. I’m sorry I was so… direct. I’m sure it’s fine… nothing you need to worry about.”

  He tries to smile at me.

  “You know, I learned early on that this one-night-stand business can be pretty… empty. It can suck the soul right out of you, and I know Damon jokes with me about it all the time. You have to strike a balance with it. It’s a selfish act. You have to do selfless things, too, or else you’ll completely harden. Take care of the girl, too, whatever her needs might be. You’d be surprised at how often it’s not even sexual. A lot of times they just want someone to listen to them.” I laugh a little. “I always warn them up front my advice is shit, but I listen.

  “And if you’re not in the right frame of mind to take care of her, then do something for someone else in your life. There have been plenty of times when I just got what I needed from women, and I’m not proud, but it happened… and when I’d wake up in the morning, yeah, I’d feel like shit for it. To balance it out, I’d call my little brother. I’d find out what I could do for Max. It wasn’t completely selfless, I know. I always got something out of hanging out with him, but I’d always let him pick the activity, and more often than not, I’d put myself further into debt. It was always worth it to me.”

  “I think I took care of Jessica,” Peron says.

  “If you’d been honest about what happened this afternoon, you’d know for sure that you had,” I tell him. When he looks me in the eyes, I can tell he knows I’m right. “Not always sexual.”

  “Maybe I’m not cut out for one night stands.”

  “Maybe you’re not. I’m not gonna twist your arm, and if it’s not going to ease the Peron tension anyway, I’m certainly not going to encourage it. For a lot of guys, it takes the edge off. You’re free to be with whomever you choose. Just know your options. That’s all I’m trying to say.”