“About?”
“Us.”
That simple two letter word gave us both pause. I halted my planned seduction of him, holding my breath and waiting for him to expand on his theory. Will had never called what we were doing anything before. Not like there was loads of precedent to go on, but still. The closest he had gotten was what he’d said to me on New Years Eve at midnight. Secretly, I was still reeling from that. By referring to us as a couple, two pieces of a whole - however loosely - was a major admission. And he realized it as soon as the words left his lips.
“I can’t give you the things you want,” he continued.
I smirked.
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking the fairy tale that every girl dreams about. A big wedding. A beautiful baby. I’ve been there, done that already and I’m not about to start over again. I’m not the marrying type. And considering that my daughter is technically old enough to have her own kids, I’m not keen on the idea of adding to the family myself.”
“I’m not every girl, Will. I don’t want to get married. I hate babies. I’m not interested.”
“You will be.”
He spoke the words with such certainty that I wondered how the hell he could see into my future. The only path I saw laid ahead for myself was one that I walked alone by choice. Maybe I’d take a few detours along the way, but the end result was the same. I was perennially single, because there was no other way.
“Will,” I sighed, wondering how to explain that all to him without freaking him out.
He pressed his index finger to my lips.
“You are so incredibly beautiful, so smart and so damn funny that someone out there is going to notice and promise you all of that. And you’ll see. When you fall in love, you’ll want every bit of it. Aren’t you the least bit jealous of Lauren or Blake?”
“No.”
I wasn’t lying, even if he didn’t believe it. From the look in his eyes, he clearly discounted my opinion.
“What we have is just temporary. Someday you’ll find the real thing.”
His eyes shifted away from me, as if a horrible thought had just crossed his mind. I wasn’t positive what to read into that. If I listened to my favorite father figure, I’d make the argument that we were already well along the road of finding the real thing. If I listened to my own thoughts, it sounded more and more like my head was under water and I was struggling to make sense of the conversation around me.
“Promise me something,” he said suddenly.
I jumped, taken by surprise by the mental whiplash he was feeding me.
“What?”
“That you won’t stop looking for that just because I’m here. We aren’t exclusive, and the second you find what you really want, this is over.”
Again with the imagined air quotes around “this”.
Even so, his words felt like he had just punched me in the stomach.
“I really want this,” I said. My voice was scratchy, filled with more emotion than I expected.
Will raised his fingers to my hair again and smiled at me sadly. “I could never be the one to hurt you, Gracie. I’ll never be the one to keep you from doing what you want. And I couldn’t bear to think about ever making you cry.”
“I don’t cry. I haven’t since I was eight. I’ve tried since then, but nothing came out.”
Of course, considering that I had to swallow past the lump that rose in my throat to tell him that, I didn’t sound very convincing. But it was true, damn it. He stared at me a moment, gauging my sincerity, and then he burst out into a grin.
“In a different time, in a different place, we could have been awesome together.”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said, my composure back in spades as long as I ignored what he’d just uttered, “why don’t we be awesome together tonight?”
Chapter Nine
I awoke in my new favorite position: wrapped in Will’s arms. I snuggled into his embrace, relishing the feel of his bare skin against mine. His grip around me tightened, a reflex even in slumber. I was certain he was still asleep - his deep, even breathing was just this side of a full on snore.
Sunlight flooded through the window in my bedroom. Even though the temperature outside was well below freezing, you’d have thought it was summer in my apartment. Somehow the tension and the uncertainty of the previous night - of the past week, really - had vanished, leaving behind the warmth of an emerging plan.
The new job could work. Fort Wayne could work. Will and I could continue being uncommitted to one another. He wasn’t opposed to me invading his hometown, moving into his backyard so to speak. And as long as I was willing to accept that we’d never be able to be seen in public with each other again, things were golden. At least I could have this. Though always with the understanding that the second I wanted more and was able to find it, Will was history.
He never had to know I didn’t intend to take him up on the bail out clause. Ever. The realization should have scared me beyond belief, but I was as calm as if I’d just admitted the sky was blue or the Earth wasn’t flat. The fact of the matter was it just was.
Embracing singlehood for the rest of my life wouldn’t be so bad if I could wake up like this each morning.
I was more worried about him reneging on his end of the deal than of my own actions. I could so totally see him reconsidering his stance on marriage and procreation upon meeting the right girl. She’d wear him down until he was putty in her hands and he’d give her exactly what she wanted, leaving me behind in the process. Now that freaked me out.
Stephanie was still an enigma to me. I had no idea what his type was. No clue about what he typically found attractive in a woman. Not a guess about what she had going for her when he’d agreed to spend the rest of his life with her. No matter that the promise ultimately went unfulfilled. He’d given it to her until she’d been an idiot and squandered it away.
How did I measure up? Is that why he insisted on keeping this under wraps? Was he ashamed of me?
It certainly didn’t feel that way now, what with me curled up against him. His hand had found its way to my breast, spanning it possessively like he was staking his claim. I brushed my fingers against his, traveling up his arm.
His grip on me loosened and I took the opportunity to roll over so I faced him. His arm remained underneath my body, but it now stretched across my mattress fully extended. Still completely asleep, his face was smashed into my pillow, mouth slightly open. His unruly hair was an auburn cloud around his head. His other arm had settled to rest against his abdomen.
Such a strong feeling of warmth and contentment radiated within me that I began to doubt my own sanity. That was only because I knew my head was otherwise clear. We’d stopped drinking after the one beer. I was totally sober.
Because people eventually can tell that you’re staring at them even when they’re asleep, within a minute or two his eyes popped open. The brilliant green orbs flashed my way for a split second, then retreated behind his eyelids as he blinked the sleep away.
“Good morning,” I said.
That in and of itself was out of character for me. Getting past the fact that I didn’t ever have overnight guests sharing my bed with me, there was nothing good about mornings in general. Mornings sucked.
“What time is it?” His voice was rough, sexy, husky and a million more adjectives that made my stomach curl.
“Early,” I responded. My own arm flopped over my bed, searching blindly for the nightstand so I could grab my cell even while I still looked at him. My hand connected with the phone and I unplugged it from its charger and brought it in front of my face. “Six in the morning.”
I was shocked beyond belief that I could form coherent thoughts at that hour, but I didn’t share. We still didn’t know each other that well and if he was exposed at this point to my true morning self, he’d likely go running for the hills. I for one didn’t want that. And I definitely didn’t want him to want that.
“How lo
ng have you been awake?”
He rubbed at his eyes, then ran both hands through his hair like that would tame the mess. It didn’t. My train of thought paused to watch him do this. Then I realized he had asked me a question and was therefore waiting for my answer.
“Not long.”
Just long enough to map out the entirety of my life, stare blatantly at the naked man in my bed, talk myself down from a stupor and wonder if I was insane. Not long at all.
“Shower?” he asked.
I knitted my eyebrows together. So he was a man of few words this early in the morning. I could live with that, but I still didn’t understand what he wanted from me.
“Together?” he clarified.
Oh.
“Yes, please.”
This brought out the grin from last night, the one that consumed his face and actually made him look happy for a change. That was good enough payment for me to lose a bit of dignity with the eagerness of my response.
“Hold that thought.”
He jumped from the bed, bent at the waist and picked up his jeans off my bedroom floor. He pulled them over his nakedness, then shrugged into his shirt, leaving it unbuttoned all the way down.
“I left all my stuff in the Jeep,” he explained as he turned to leave the room. I’d forgotten that fact; we’d disappeared into the bedroom after our serious discussion, never to return. Since he hadn’t brought anything in with him when he walked through my front door, his change of clothes remained in the parking lot.
I moved to get out of bed myself, but he stopped me with an outstretched palm.
“Stay put,” he commanded. I obeyed. “I’ll be right back.”
I stared up at my ceiling, waiting. There was a pause while he slid on shoes before my apartment door opened and closed. An impossibly short amount of time passed between him leaving and coming back. Either he had parked illegally right at the door, or he had sprinted to his vehicle and back in order to keep his word. I didn’t care one way or the other. The end justified the means, and whatever he’d done meant that he was now back here with me.
He hovered in the doorway, a ratty backpack slung over one shoulder. With a simple eyebrow raise, he extended his invitation for me to join him, but not before he’d caught an ample glimpse of me straddled on my bed. He watched intently as I stood and crossed the room to meet him.
My bathroom wasn’t the biggest, but luxury couldn’t really be expected in an apartment the size of mine. Both of us crowded into the small space reminded me of those real estate shows where the couple that wants to sell their house over-exaggerates how horrible their old place is. The stumbling over each other at the sink to brush your teeth, the shocking display of how you can’t open the shower door while your family members are sitting on the toilet. No matter that most people don’t do that anyway. Then of course they expect someone else to fall in love with the home and take it off their hands.
Our awkwardness had nothing to do with any of that. But it reared its head just the same as Will contemplated where to set his bag, finally deciding to close the lid of the stool and use it as a table. He unzipped the backpack, pulled out his manly shampoo and body wash and nearly elbowed me face first into the tub as he set it in the shower enclosure. I’d been reaching for the faucet to start running the water, and I grabbed onto the wall in a desperate gesture to support myself. It only looked slightly ridiculous, and he only chuckled a little.
“Sorry,” he said a moment too late, and merely because I’d caught him.
He stripped off his jeans and shirt and discarded them on the floor. Since I was already in the buff, I got to watch him, my arms folded under my breasts not because I was shy, but because I wasn’t sure what else to do with them.
Then he pulled me into him, his hands exploring, touching, worshipping what he saw. I responded in kind, my fingers tracing the fluid lines of his body, sliding down his neck, down his chest, around to his ass. My lips followed the trail down his front, lower and lower until I was face to face with the reality of how turned on he was. One of my hands unclenched its grip on his backside to touch him there, eliciting a moan that I didn’t just hear escape from him, but also felt.
Well, then.
I cursed my lack of planning and my poor choice of contraception. I doubted I really wanted to experience the logistics of a shower encounter with a condom. It seemed like an awful idea. Hopefully Blake’s job offer came with good insurance and then I could take care of that problem.
“Later,” Will breathed, somehow reading my mind. Whether later referred to having sex later on today or having sex in the shower once I was on the pill mattered not. The freaky thing was that we were on the same wavelength.
I took his arm and pulled him along with me into the shower spray, closing the curtain around us. We kissed some more, the water beating down on our faces, mixing with the taste of his lips against mine. Just as I was about to sink into him, wrap my arms about his neck, he gently spun me around. Then he reached for my shampoo - not his - and squeezed some into his palm.
“You have the most perfect hair,” he told me as he gathered it between his hands and began to wash it.
Had my back not been turned to him, I would have stared at him in disbelief. Never before had anyone outside of a salon washed my hair for me. And even the ladies with their cosmetology licenses didn’t wash hair like Will did. It was my turn to moan as he massaged my scalp, his fingers working magic on the northern part of my body while the same thing happened vicariously further south. I leaned back against him right before my knees would have buckled. He took the weight of my body on with no effort at all, though I felt rather than heard him laugh.
“You like that, huh?” he whispered into my ear.
Unsure of my own voice, I simply nodded.
“We’ll have to do this more often,” he continued. “Does your new place have a bigger shower? I sure hope so.”
The warm fuzzy feeling fled my body and I spun back around. He barely had enough time to release my hair so I wouldn’t pull it out of my head.
“We can’t do this at my new place.”
“Why?”
“Regina.”
“Regina?”
“Regina, Lauren’s neighbor. She lives right across the street. She came to the wedding; she knows who you are. If we intend to keep this on the down low, you’ll stay the hell away from my house.”
“Maybe her discretion could be bought,” he mused.
I shook my head. “When Matthew first hooked up with Lauren, Regina hounded her until she got the details. Seems she noticed the Mustang in the driveway stayed overnight. A lot. And what’s even harder to hide than a yellow convertible? A freaking police car.”
“Gracie, I don’t go out joyriding in the cop car. Most of the time, it’s just parked in front of my place. I’d take the Jeep if I was coming over to fuck you.”
“So you ganging up on Stalker Jeff with your take home car was just a one time thing?”
“That was a special case of intimidation. A favor to Chris. Though now that I think about it, if Emma does something to piss me off, I could totally embarrass the hell out of her with it.”
“The Jeep still won’t work,” I continued. “She’ll put two and two together. Even if we park it in the garage when you come over and you leave in the dead of night, she’ll still catch it. She has a kid - the woman never sleeps. And she’s Sadie’s babysitter. Lauren’s over there all the time.”
“Damn.”
“Damn.”
We fell silent for a moment, the electricity we’d just created cooling. I rinsed my hair on my own accord and stood watching him, trying to telepathically convince him that the best course of action would be to come clean. If we were out in the open, we could gallivant all over the place. But he wasn’t having it.
“The way I look at it,” he decided with a shrug, “is that we’re no worse off than we were before. So we hook up at my place all the time. We were going to do that anyway. No o
ne comes over to my place. Everyone lives out southwest except for me. Everyone has nicer houses than I do, including you now. We’ll be safe there. We just won’t have Indianapolis.”
I turned away, taking great care to lather myself convincingly with soap.
That’s what I was afraid of.
I was going to miss the hell out of Indianapolis.
Chapter Ten
Sunday afternoon after Will had taken off, I called Blake and then Lauren and told them I accepted their joint offer.
Monday morning, I walked into work and gave them my notice. Since my lease wasn’t up for another seven weeks, I told them that I’d keep working there up until the Friday before I moved to Fort Wayne. It was likely the longest lead time they’d ever gotten, and my coworkers relished planning the farewell party to end all farewell parties.
Blake offered to pay the penalty to break my lease, but I wouldn’t let her. The reasoning was twofold. One, I still thought she was being overly generous with the salary she’d quoted me and I didn’t want to be even more indebted to her. Two, I wanted to spend every moment possible that I could in Indianapolis.
Lauren understood the anti-charity angle, buying into it hook, line and sinker. She pled my case to Blake, who instantly quieted on the subject. It was wonderful having your best friend in your corner, defending you to her sister-in-law who would soon be your boss. As long as we didn’t all end up getting pissed off at each other, I couldn’t think of a better setup. With the Lauren/Matthew and Blake/Chris relationships cemented by marriage, I doubted that would happen. I was the wild card and I wasn’t stupid enough to mess things up.
In the meantime, Will spent every weekend that he didn’t have Emma in Indy with me. All weekend long, from Friday evening until Sunday night. We basked in the glow of a false pairing of our own, pretending we were as firmly together as our mutual friends. With my move imminent, I knew Lauren wouldn’t be heading down for a surprise visit any more, so I cleared a drawer for him and he left stuff there, figuratively moving in.
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