“I said ‘toss,’ not ‘launch an attack.’” Leah made a face at her before uncapping the pen and opening the journal. The first page had that typical blank line with the words ‘This journal belongs to’ above it. Feeling strangely giddy, she wrote her name on the line.
“You should have been more specific,” Helena said.
Because she knew it would fluster Helena, she said in retaliation, “So how was your study session with Jay?”
She glanced over her shoulder to find Helena turning pink beneath the dining room lights. She grinned.
“We were just studying for our exam next week. It’s worth a really big percentage of our grade,” she said primly.
“He’s a nice guy, Helena. Just make the first move.”
“He’s a friend,” she said, leaning over her textbook so that she looked extremely busy. “I’m not going to mess that up.” She made a shooing gesture at Leah. “Just write in your journal. I know you’re dying to.”
Couldn’t argue there. Leah shook her head with a small smile and flipped the cream-colored pages to the first blank page.
As with most of her short stories, she began without knowing what it would be about. She described a dusty dollhouse. Creaking floorboards. Bare feet beneath a night shift. An empty house.
The TV became white noise as she wrote. She thought she heard Helena say something, but since Helena hadn’t repeated herself, she didn’t stop writing to ask. Twenty pages later, as she finished a scene about a daughter succumbing to the madness that had taken her mother, she was struck by the memory of her mom’s face reflected in the bathroom mirror at the party.
She often thought they looked alike. And when her mom closed herself off from everyone, especially her children, Leah had wondered more than once if she looked that way as well.
Instead of staying, of acknowledging Leah’s attempt to bridge their relationship, she had chosen to shut her out. To run. To reject the reality of their brokenness.
The same thing Leah had done to Will.
Leah’s hand stilled over the page. The realization left her cold. Dropping the pen, she shoved to her feet. Her new journal slid to the floor with a quiet thud.
“Leah?”
She turned to look at Helena. Her expression must have given away the rush of panic surging in her chest, because Helena immediately rose from the table and hurried over.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked. She clutched Leah’s hands.
Leah could hardly speak. There was a dull roar in her ears, like rushing waves, crashing in time to the thud of her pulse.
Running away or shutting down was the way her mom had always dealt with anything that even remotely mattered. And when Leah had run from Will, from the terrifying newness of what he made her feel, from the possibility that something real might be happening between them, she had been doing the exact thing she had always resented, hated even, her mother for. How could she not have realized?
Her eyes began to burn. Helena floundered, alarmed. She tugged Leah back down onto the sofa, and Leah went because she had no idea what to do now.
She didn’t want to have her mom’s ability to unplug from her emotions. She didn’t want to shut everyone out until nothing mattered anymore except for the superficial things that couldn’t hurt her.
“Leah, you’re scaring me.” Helena dropped her hands and gripped her shoulders instead. “Say something.”
She shook her head and gave a small, helpless laugh. “I …” What could you say after you just had an emotional epiphany? Only crazy people had emotional epiphanies. “I like Will.”
For long seconds, Helena said nothing. She stared at Leah, slack-jawed, with a line between her brows.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she finally asked, incredulous.
“And he likes me,” Leah said, but Helena only looked more confused. “He totally gets me, and I was too busy running away to appreciate that.”
Head tilted, Helena pressed a cool palm to Leah’s forehead. “Are you sure you’re not feeling feverish?”
Leah brushed her hand off. The burning in her eyes had thankfully gone away, and she felt like she could breathe again. “Helena, I’m serious.”
“Okay then,” she said, still looking skeptical. “So what are you going to do about it?”
She had no idea.
Leah blew through campus Monday morning like an addict going through withdrawal. After her first class, during which she snapped at the professor for his poor spelling in his PowerPoint slides, she made her way to the Web Development office to work on the University multicultural website. She was behind on updating it with the latest campus news, and the busy work would keep her mind off the fact she still hadn’t heard from Will. It would also keep her from going to the theater to see if he happened to be there with his friend again.
Web Dev was located in the main administration building. The second floor office had a row of computers for the student workstations, and her boss, a petite older woman with a steel gray bob, sat in a smaller office just within earshot. She waved to her boss before tossing her backpack on the floor and sitting at her usual workstation.
As she waited for the computer to log her in, she picked at the teal nail polish Helena had put on her the week before and stared down at the keyboard without really seeing it.
She was more upset than she cared to admit that Will had yet to contact her. Since her cell phone was in her missing purse, coming to see her in person would be the next best way to get a hold of her. She knew Will would want to return it in person because his charm worked best that way. It was hard to resist the killer combination of accent and smile.
Unless … Her stomach hit the floor beneath her chair. Unless Will had decided that she was a freak and that it was just too much work. Maybe in a couple of days, she would get her purse in the mail or left in front of her apartment door.
If Will didn’t show up soon, she would have to swallow her pride and find him instead. First, because she really did need her purse and all her identification back. And second, because after her realization last night, she wanted to stop avoiding him and the whole mess of things he made her feel.
Clicking the mouse and typing with enough force to draw the wary eye of her fellow student worker sitting a couple workstations away, she checked her email first. She rarely got emails to her school address other than University newsletters and notices from professors when class was canceled, but it was always the first thing she checked weekday mornings.
She pulled a banana out of her backpack as her email loaded. A moment later, she dropped the half-peeled banana in her lap where it broke and smudged her jeans. But she didn’t even care about that because there was an email from Will McLean in her inbox.
Steeling herself for whatever it might contain, she clicked the email with the subject: ‘I have your purse.’ It read:
Leah,
You left your purse at my apartment the other night, and I’m willing to return a portion of its contents if you are agreeable to meeting me at Vitale’s at your earliest convenience. I hope you like Italian.
If you are open to discussion, we can then negotiate the conditions for returning the rest of your purse’s contents. Please note I’m not referring to sex, which I would never attempt to bribe from you. Honest.
Will
P.S. Please forgive me. I’m so, so sorry. So sorry.
Leah stared at it for a solid minute. What the hell? She didn’t know whether to be relieved he wanted to see her again or furious that he was actually holding her purse ransom. The guy had guts, she’d give him that.
Confused and galled, she responded.
Will,
I hope you realize that this is blackmail and that I could call the police.
Italian is adequate.
Seeing as I don’t want to start getting tiny pieces of my purse in the mail with threatening letters, I will meet you tonight at Vitale’s at eight.
Leah
&n
bsp; Chapter Thirty
Since Elijah hadn’t known Leah’s address (although he had given Will extremely dizzying directions from memory), Will had yet to decide how to best approach her now. Her address had been set to private in the student directory. Short of hanging around the campus web development office or waiting for her to show up at her parents’ estate, Will was at a loss. Maybe he should just send that email after all.
“Why do you look so stricken?”
Will glanced up at his boss with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, just … figuring something out.”
“Is it about your sex addict?”
“She has a name. And I’m not asking you for relationship advice.” When James continued to regard him, he added, “No offense.”
James shrugged and went back to typing. He’d been organizing Will’s notes on the sex addiction case study since Will got in a couple of hours ago. Will had asked that his boss remove it altogether from his book, but he had refused, saying it wouldn’t matter since the identities of the sex addicts would remain anonymous. For now, he was writing them in and he would leave it up to the addicts themselves whether or not they wanted to remain included once he reached out to them.
Still feeling discontent, Will went back to proofreading one of James’s essays. At the bottom right of his monitor, a notification popped up letting him know he’d received a new email.
He froze when he saw the recipient’s name.
Warily, he clicked the notification, which opened up the new email from Leah Carter. After reading through it in confusion, he scrolled down to find someone had rewritten the email he’d drafted the other night and then sent it without his permission.
He was going to kill Finn. Finn must have done it while Will was in the bathroom.
Mentally plotting revenge, he went back to reread Leah’s response and finally seemed to register that she had agreed to meet him. Tonight.
He switched from wanting to kill Finn to wanting to kiss him. Sure, Finn’s changes to his email were exactly what he hadn’t wanted to say, but there was nothing for it now. And Leah hadn’t told him to take her purse and choke on it, so he figured he should just accept the positive turn of events and deal with Finn’s meddling later.
“I dislike the way you’re smiling now.”
He rolled his eyes at his boss. “How am I smiling?”
“Like Hannibal right before he eats someone. I’m planning on how to defend myself with my stapler.”
“You’re being melodramatic.”
“A little bit.”
Will wiped the smile from his face. “Better?”
“More stoic. I approve.”
“I’m glad. Excuse me for a minute.” Will retreated into the hall and pulled out his phone. He dialed Finn’s number.
“Did she answer?” Finn’s voice greeted him without the least bit of shame.
“Aye. We’re meeting tonight at Vitale’s.”
Finn laughed. “I’m amazing.”
“I’ll have to repay you for this. I might just drop by the theater sometime this week to chat with Kat.”
“No, you won’t!” Finn shouted. Will had to hold the phone away from his ear. “She’ll think I’m a loser who needs his friends to get me a date.”
Will opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again, talking through clenched teeth. “But you just did that to me with Leah.”
“Yeah, but you’re foreign,” he said. Will could picture him waving it off like it wasn’t a big deal. “Girls forgive guys with accents almost anything.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well you better hope it’s true when you meet Leah tonight.”
He had a point.
Chapter Thirty-One
In the restaurant, Leah was already having second thoughts (although by then, it was more like seventieth thoughts). It had taken Helena shoving her out the door with a threat to paint her room in neon purple stars to get her here, because even though she wanted to see him again, the anxiousness was making her sick.
What if things got out of hand again and she had sex with Will and ruined it all? What if Will realized she was as emotionally developed as a turnip and ran off screaming? What if one of her past one-nighters happened to be here, recognized her, and came over saying, ‘Hey! I know you! Didn’t we do it up against a wall behind the library?’
“You like him,” Helena had said. “He likes you. You said it yourself. He gets you. Now stop being chicken shit and go see him.”
Leah had resented her word choice, but she supposed it was still true.
However, the longer she sat, the less brave she felt. Just as she was getting up to leave, Will walked in.
Warmth flooded her stomach and filled her chest. She sank helplessly back into the chair. Glare at him, damn you! It was the only way to stop herself from instantly forgiving him the moment he turned those baby blues on her.
Now she was annoyed at the both of them all over again. She wasn’t a pushover, and she didn’t forgive easily. She wanted this to work out—needed this to work out—but she also had to know for sure if Will was sincere because if he was, if he wanted the same thing …
She would be entering new territory. Dangerous territory. But she was willing to do it if it was with him.
Will strolled through the restaurant toward her, looking unfairly attractive in dark jeans and an untucked, black button-up shirt. His sleeves were folded back, and there was something intensely hot about the bare skin of his forearms. To top it all off, his enormous smile trained solely on her took her breath away. In fact, she was pretty sure she just heard half the restaurant gasp and shield their eyes from the radiance. The other half were giving him wrinkled brows and confused smiles at the purse in his hand.
“You came,” he said as he sat, sounding as breathless as Leah felt.
She fixed a scowl on her face to avoid gawking and retorted quite loudly, “You blackmailed me.”
A few people at the neighboring table shifted noticeably away from them.
Will winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Right, um, sorry about that. Actually, Finn wrote that and sent it to you without my knowing.”
She absorbed this knowledge with a growing pit in her stomach. “So you didn’t actually mean to contact me.”
Apparently sensing the dark aura rising out of her, Will quickly clarified. “No,” he said, shaking his head. And then winced again and said, “I mean, aye, I meant to contact you, but just not in that way. I stopped by your parents’ house yesterday because I thought you lived there.”
She stopped fiddling with the edge of the table cloth and looked at him in surprise. “What? How do you even know where they live?”
He looked apologetic. “I had to look at your driver’s license to find your full name.”
“My driver’s … Crap.” She slapped her palm to her forehead. She’d completely forgotten that the address on her license was outdated. Idiot. This whole time, she’d been anticipating he might drop by her apartment when he didn’t have a clue where she even lived.
“I wanted to see you in person since I wasn’t sure how well an email would be received. You were pretty angry last week.”
She dropped her hand and resumed glaring. “And why would that be? You’ve only been lying to me since we met.”
“I know, I’m an arse. I promise I’ll make it up to you,” he said, looking for all the world like her forgiveness meant everything to him.
She sighed and called the waiter over. She ordered an appetizer, some fancy pasta she couldn’t pronounce, and a bottle of wine. Alcohol might dull the desperate ache in her stomach. She wouldn’t overdo it though or she might end up ignoring her better judgment and attempting to get into Will’s pants, which wasn’t the way she wanted things to go. Not yet anyway.
As it turned out it, Will might be the one who needed to moderate himself. He knocked back two glasses in quick succession before their appetizers even arrived. She decided
he must be nervous. It actually put her at ease knowing he was as anxious about this as she was, even though the quiet resolve in his face hadn’t wavered once.
“By the way,” she said, “can I have my purse?”
“Oh, of course,” he said with an embarrassed edge to his smile. He handed it across the table. Leah carefully avoided making skin contact as she took it. She wanted to keep a clear head.
Not that she was some animal who couldn’t control her hormones after making contact with a desirable mate. But you know. Might as well play it safe and proceed with caution.
“So you stopped by my parents’ house,” she said. “Did you meet them without me? This relationship is going out of order, I think.”
Will gave her a smile she grudgingly conceded was adorable. “No, they weren’t there. But I did get to see Elijah again. He’s a good wean. And he shared your cupcakes with me.”
“Wean?”
“Child. Sorry, I forget myself sometimes.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I like learning how you say things.”
After their main courses arrived, they spoke a bit more about Elijah and her unusual family circumstances, and she didn’t freak out about the fact they were talking, yet again, about her feelings. How did this keep happening?
Eventually, the conversation segued into Will’s family and his lack of desire to return to Scotland, despite that he loved his country quite a bit.
“It’d be cool to go there someday,” she said. And then realized what she had just implied and blushed. “I mean … you know. Alone. Or not.” She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
He grinned. “I’ll take you someday.”
It was presumptuous of him, but she didn’t correct him. It could happen. She hoped it would.
“So,” he said, leaning over the ice cream dessert they had agreed to split. “Since we’re taking this slow, how many dates should I take you on before I’m allowed to kiss you?”
Heat Up the Fall: New Adult Boxed Set (6 Book Bundle) Page 37
