by Abby Brooks
Willow spent her days in the studio with men who dedicated their lives to molding their bodies. Male dancers had some of the most beautiful musculature of all the athletes in the world and at this point, Willow would put Harry in the room next to any of them and choose him hands down. Without realizing it, she found herself walking towards him, running her hands through her ponytail to smooth back any of the fly-aways that the wind had set free to cling to the sweat on her forehead.
“Willow?” Harry slowed to a walk and squinted towards her. “What are you doing out here?”
“Complex math,” she answered without missing a beat and then laughed at the puckered look of confusion that creased his forehead. “Same as you, it looks like.” She flared her hands and looked down at her sports bra and running shorts. “Gotta stay in shape, vacation or not.”
She watched his eyes travel her body, noticed that they lingered on her thighs and then again on her breasts. Or, well, lack of breasts. In the studio, she was considered busty because she actually had boobs, tiny as they were. But she knew out in the real world, she was pretty flat-chested and for the first time in all her life, she actually regretted that.
“Do you happen to know what time it is?” she asked. “I’ve got a hot date in a few hours that I need to get ready for.”
A smile crinkled the corners of Harry’s eyes. “Oh yeah? I can only imagine that the guy getting ready to hang out with the likes of you is feeling a little nervous right about now. I mean, look at you. What could he possibly say to keep someone like you interested in him?”
“That’s funny because I’m busy wondering how I can manage to keep him interested in me. He’s smart and funny and all kinds of hot. What’s he gonna see in boring old me?”
“Boring! Ha!” Harry gave her the once over. “With a body like that? I can’t imagine anyone calling you boring. Ever.”
Harry totally got her self-deprecating humor and she totally got his. There weren’t any self-conscious moments where one of them didn't quite get the sarcasm. No awkward confusion between them. There were, however, nerves and excitement thrilling throughout her body. It was wonderful and she could only imagine that it would be as addictive as stepping out onto the stage while the audience erupted into thunderous applause.
“In all seriousness,” Harry said. “Do you have anything in particular you’d like to do today?”
Willow shrugged and wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead. “I was kind of hoping you’d show me around Bliss. Maybe help me figure out what was wonderful enough about this place to steal my best friend from me.” Looking at Harry and seeing the broad expanse of ocean beyond his handsome face and bare torso kind of gave Willow an idea of what might have gotten Juliet hooked on Bliss.
“I think you already met him, and you might just be staying in the guest room at his house.” Harry winked and put his hands on his hips and blew air out of his mouth, still trying to catch his breath. “I’ll definitely give you a tour, although that won’t take as much time as I’d like to spend with you. Maybe we could stop at Good Beginnings, Ellie and James’s cafe… ” Harry trailed off and shrugged.
“That sounds wonderful!” An idea popped into Willow’s head. “Hey. Do you think there’ll be time to run some errands before Good Beginnings closes?”
Harry crinkled his forehead. Apparently errands didn’t exactly rate on his scale of acceptable date destinations. “They don’t close until three…”
“Well, maybe, if you don’t mind, we could make some stops during my tour and I could make a gift basket of morning sickness cures for Ellie. Unless you think she’d think that was too weird. Getting a gift from a stranger.” Willow crossed her arms and started biting on her pinky nail.
A smile lit up Harry’s face. “That’s super cool of you. If you still think you’ll be ready to go at one o’clock, then we’ll have plenty of time to pick some things up and get to the cafe before they close down.”
The prospect of doing something nice for someone got Willow all extra excited about the afternoon and she could see that Harry felt the same way. “Well, that brings us to our original question,” she said. “Do you happen to know what time it is?”
Harry shrugged. “No clue. But you should definitely turn back now. From what I hear, this guy you’re meeting admires punctuality.”
“I get that about him. And I can totally respect that.”
With a little wave and a wide smile, Willow turned around and started the jog back to Juliet’s, the fatigue she had been fighting just moments ago completely gone.
5
The jog home was fast and easy. Willow might as well have been carried away by little fairies that kept her feet from striking the ground. By the time she got back, her stomach was gurgling, but she was way too excited to eat. She took a quick shower and dried her hair. Chose a floor length sundress and paired it with some sandals and a little sweater to cover the camisole straps. Added some chunky bracelets and long earrings and let her hair air dry so it would have some body.
She wandered downstairs around noon and found Juliet drinking coffee and pouring over papers strewn across the table, twirling a pen in her fingers.
“Oh man, is there any coffee left?” Willow’s stomach rumbled again, but if Harry was going to take her out to eat in just about an hour, then she was going to need to conserve her calories because who knew what kind of healthy options were on the menu at Good Beginnings?
“Just made a fresh pot.” Juliet gestured to the coffee pot on the counter. “Help yourself. There’s cream in fridge, all kinds of yummy flavors if you want, and sugar in the jar over there.”
“No thanks. If I’m going to drink my calories, I’ll do that with wine tonight at dinner.”
Juliet put her pen down and rolled her eyes. “Come on, Willie. Calories don’t cross state lines. You know that.”
Willow widened her eyes. “For real? You mean this whole time I’ve been worrying about getting down to stage weight for when I get back to New York and it was all for nothing?” She poured herself a cup of coffee—black of course—and had a seat next to Juliet.
“You look nice. What are you doing today?” Understanding dawned on Julz’s face. “Oh! That’s right! You’re going to spend the day with Harry.” A sly smile appeared out of nowhere. “He’s pretty sweet, isn’t he?”
Willow considered trying to pull off a noncommittal shrug and blasé attitude for all of half a second before she bit her lip and dropped her forehead onto the counter. “I don’t get it. He’s absolutely amazing,” she said, turning her head to the side and peering up at Juliet.
“Sounds like you get it just fine.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Willow sat up and took a drink of coffee. It was delicious and she had to take another before continuing. “I’m so completely drawn to him. Like, I’ve never felt so comfortable next to a stranger. Like…” She waved her hands around looking for the right word.
“Like he completes you?”
“Yes! Like I understand myself more because he’s around. Like he’s the answer to questions I didn’t even know I was asking.”
Juliet shook her head, a knowing smile flickering across her face. “I don’t have any idea what that’s like,” she said sarcastically and then gestured down at the seating chart for her wedding on the table in front of her.
“I so get how confused you must have been when you first met Ian. Falling for him so fast, knowing that it’s too fast. The Moore’s are just so charismatic.”
“They are definitely charismatic, although maybe, just maybe, you’ve just finally met your match.”
“Maybe he’s my Romeo!” Willow sat back and let her mouth drop open, actually considering the possibility that her statement might be true.
“Oh great. So you’re gonna fall madly in love with him, forsake your family, and then you’ll both be dead by the end of the week. Sounds lovely. Could you please just try to stick around long enough for my wedding? You know, since I schedul
ed it around your needs and all that.”
Willow pursed her lips and shoved Juliet’s shoulder. “Okay, so maybe he’s not my Romeo. Maybe he’s my Ian.”
Juliet went all googly-eyed and blushy, biting her lip and muttering nonsense towards the table. Finally, after a few moments of love induced idiocy, she looked up. “I couldn’t ask for anything better for you. I mean, if you find someone who makes you feel like Ian makes me feel, and he just happens to be Harry and he steals you away from ACB and you end up here with us … well ... I guess I’ll have just won some kind of karmic lottery or something, getting to marry the man of my dreams and then getting you down here in Bliss, too.”
Juliet’s words sobered Willow. Somehow, in all the heart-fluttering, stomach-twisting wonderfulness of meeting Harrison Moore, she forgot that she only had a handful of days here with him. She forgot that no matter how weak in the knees he made her feel, that this was just a temporary thing for her and then she would be back in the city, spending hours in the studio during the day and hours in the theater at night and that she didn’t really have time in her life to fall in love. Especially not with someone who lived almost a thousand miles away.
* * *
Despite her sobering realization, Willow’s heart was still yammering away at her as the minute hand made its tedious climb up towards one o’clock. When the doorbell rang at just a few minutes before the hour, Willow jumped up from her place at the bar and just about sprinted toward the door.
“Bye, love!” she called over her shoulder towards Juliet.
“Have fun! Don’t forget our dinner plans tonight!” Julz singsonged back.
She considered trying to come up with something witty in reply and decided against it, knowing she was too excited to come up with anything worth saying. She still wasn’t sure just exactly what she thought she was doing, spending the day with this guy when nothing could happen between them. Nothing real anyway. Not with her life in New York and his life here in Bliss. But when she pulled open the front door, all her worries and concerns flew right out the door.
Harry looked amazing, pulling off this understated elegance in well fitting slacks and v-necked t-shirt that clung to his trim frame and accentuated his height and easy grace. His eyes widened at the sight of her and he let out a low whistle. “For a woman who was a sandy, sweaty mess just a few hours ago, you clean up really nice.”
“You don’t look half bad yourself.” And by not half bad I mean you look like a fucking male model.
Harry offered Willow his elbow and she happily threaded her arm into his, all thoughts about New York and The Nutcracker and ACB disappearing under the much more important thoughts about how good he smelled and how hot he looked and how sweet it was that he offered her his arm.
Harry led her to a gorgeous old convertible car of some kind or another—candy apple red with white leather interior, and, from the looks of it, fully restored. “It’s warm enough for the top down,” he said, “As long as you’re not too concerned about your hair.”
Willow trailed her fingers across the gleaming paint. “This is gorgeous. And in such good condition!”
Harry ran a hand lovingly across the hood. “She didn’t come that way. Took a lot of work to get her to where she is.”
Willow furrowed her brow. Was he trying to say that he restored the car himself? “Expensive work or time consuming work?”
“A little of both. Some of the parts were hard to come by, so I had to spend a bit of cash to get them. But, it’s been a labor of love. You should have seen her. I found her in a barn, rusted all to hell and back. Her body was shot to shit, but her frame was good and I could tell she had soul.”
Willow widened her eyes in surprise. “You did this yourself?” There was no hiding the admiration in her voice.
Harry looked up. “Oh yeah. All of it. Body work. Rebuilt the engine. Paint job. You name it, I did it.”
Willow didn’t know what to say. She was too busy trying to make sense of a man who ran his own business and still found time to run on the beach and restore old cars into gleaming works of art. A man who managed to make her feel like everything was alright in the world just by standing near her. A man who had walked over to the passenger side of the car to open the door for her.
“You sure you’re okay with the top down?” Harry asked. “Your hair looks so nice…”
Willow smiled up at him as she lowered herself into the car. “I’ll fix my hair if I have to. There’s no way I’m turning down the chance to ride in a vintage…” She paused and bit her lip. “What kind of car is this?”
“She’s a ‘69 Pontiac GTO.” Harry couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice.
“Well, there’s no way I’m turning down a chance to ride in a vintage GTO with the top down. What kind of girl would choose hair over a convertible?”
Harry shrugged as he crossed in front of the car. “You’d be surprised,” he said and folded his long frame into the driver’s seat and brought the engine to life. Gave her a little smile before pulling out of the driveway and heading out onto the road. With the sun gleaming overhead and the ocean glittering off to her right. With Harry chattering away beside her, his voice so warm and comforting, the very timber of it making her feel like she had somehow found her way home, Willow relaxed, feeling her shoulders drop away from her ears and her breaths deepen. She hadn’t even realized how much tension she had been holding in her body until it started to evaporate.
He drove them onto a quaint little street with a row of shops and restaurants and found a place to park. “Welcome to downtown Bliss.”
Willow couldn’t help but smile. “It’s so cute!” A handful of people wandered the sidewalk. The shops had hand painted signs in the windows and little chalkboard signs on the sidewalk.
“It’s not New York, if that’s what you mean.” He hopped out of the car and closed the door almost reverently behind him. “Now. What the hell goes into a morning sickness cure basket?”
Willow laughed. “One of my friends really suffered from morning sickness last year and another dancer made her this basket filled with crackers and sour candies. Gatorade and these acupressure wrist bands. Pedialyte and suckers. All that stuff is supposed to help with the nausea.” Willow shrugged. “We don’t have to do it, if you have something else you’d like to do.”
Harry put his hand on her lower back and it took every ounce of self-control she had to keep from visibly shivering at the contact. “I honestly think it’s a lovely idea,” he said. “I’ll just lead you to the stores and you pick up what you need.”
They wandered through the shops, Willow grabbing anything she could find that might help Ellie with her nausea. They talked about their jobs. Their families. They made bad jokes about the stuff they found on the shelves and totally cracked each other up.
“Did you say it was a dancer who had the morning sickness,” he asked as they left their fifth store in search of the acupressure wrist bands.
Willow nodded and tried to put herself into the mind frame of a Bliss native. Surely one of the shops would have the bands.
Harry pointed across the street at one last store. “That really surprises me. I guess I thought having kids was kind of off limits for ballerinas.”
She laughed nervously and put a hand across her rumbling stomach as he led her into the crosswalk. “It’s getting more and more common. My mom was kind of a pioneer when she had me, but it’s not as big a deal as it used to be, now that we understand diet and nutrition so much more. Lots of female dancers are having babies and coming back to work.” Of course, not all of those who tried it were able to pull it off, but she didn’t feel like going into that right now. In fact, she didn’t feel like talking about dancing at all. She felt like talking about Harry.
They found the wristbands at the last store and she turned the focus to him as she paid. “So, explain this to me. How in the world does a guy manage to find time to go to culinary school, open a business, work out, and still know ho
w how to fully restore a car?”
Harry laughed and ran a hand up the back of his neck. “I’m driven and disciplined. Or obsessive and slightly crazy. Depends on the day and who you’re talking to, I guess.”
“I get that. I was lucky to grow up surrounded by other dancers. My obsession looks normal to them.” Damn it. Here she was, talking about dance again. Didn’t she have any other topics in her arsenal? Her stomach growled loudly and she pressed her palm against her stomach again, her fingers grazing her hip bones, the contact reminding her that she had been pretty good today with her calorie intake. Totally made up for yesterday.
“Wow,” said Harry. “Sounds like it’s a good thing we’re heading to the cafe next.” He smiled and Willow fought down a surge of panic. If there was one thing she had learned over the years it was that cafes rarely had the kind of foods she could eat. But that’s why you’ve been so good today, she reminded herself. So you could be a little relaxed this afternoon.
Harry had started to lead her towards the car, but he stopped and took her hand. The surge of feelings that overtook her as he made contact joined forces with the panic over the food, churned around in her empty belly and made her a little light headed. “Hey,” Harry said, his voice soft and intimate, his eyes gentle and searching her own. “What’s wrong? You okay?”
Willow forced a smile and thought as many happy thoughts as she could so that the smile reached her eyes and looked as genuine as possible. “Oh sure,” she said, giving his hand a little squeeze. “I think that run took more out of me than I thought it did. Not used to running on sand, I guess.” She shrugged apologetically and marveled at this man at her side.
Had he noticed the panic in her eyes over food or had he noticed the little wave of dizziness that overtook her? Either way, she had never, in all her life, had someone notice any of the things she hid on a daily basis. She wasn’t sure if she liked the feeling of being transparent to him or hated it, but one thing was for certain, being with Harrison Moore was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.
