A Will and a Way

by Maggie Wells

  “Not when you keep using it as bait,” Greg shot back, attacking the salad again.

  Will didn’t respond.

  When the silence dragged on, forty years of friendship paid off and Will’s friend looked up with a puzzled glance. “What?”

  “Point taken,” Will said gruffly. He waited until Greg nodded and turned his attention to cutting the chicken with the side of the flimsy fork. “Do you think they’re really talking about me?”

  “I’d stake everything I own on it.”

  He stared at his sandwich as if the layers of meat and cheese might prove to be some kind of oracle. “Good or bad?”

  “Two women are talking about your skills in the sack over salad and lemon water, and you think anything good is going to come out of it?”

  “Probably not.” Greg dropped the uneaten sandwich onto the wrapper. Biting the inside of his cheek, he considered a few different ways of asking the question foremost in his mind, but he wasn’t quite sure which one would keep him from being served a knuckle sandwich instead. “I, uh….” He paused and swallowed the nervous lump in his throat before lifting his head to meet Greg’s curious gaze. “Josie wouldn’t…After all, it’s not like things ended really badly between us,” he babbled. “I mean, she likes me, right?” When Greg’s eyebrows flew up, Will rushed full speed ahead. “I don’t mean likes me, likes me. Just likes me. She isn’t going to, uh…submarine me, right?”

  Greg dropped his fork into the salad container, his eyes widening with wonder. “You really like this woman.”

  “Betty.” The correction sprang to Will’s lips automatically, but something about the speculative gleam in his old friend’s eyes made him jumpy. Tossing the sandwich wrapper onto the desk, he jumped up. “I mean, yeah, I like her. I’m sleeping with her.”

  “I didn’t know that was a prerequisite.”

  “Bullshit.” He fixed his old pal with a penetrating glare. “I take a lot of crap from a lot of people because they don’t know any better, but I’m not taking that from you.”

  Greg’s expression sobered. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  Will shoved his hand through his hair and stalked over to the windows. Standing in the exact same spot where he’d stood when Betty walked through the door to their offices, he stared out at the old neighborhood. The silence that stretched between them hummed with the kind of unspoken understanding that only takes root in decades of friendship.

  “The first time I saw her,” Will said, “she was standing at a bus stop. She was wearing the ugliest coat. Pepto-pink.”

  “Eye catching,” Greg said quietly.

  “I couldn’t take my eyes off her.” He spoke the words quietly, but they seemed to bounce off the walls. “And then the bus came, and she was gone.”

  “I hate it when that happens.”

  Will smiled. There wasn’t so much as an ounce of sarcasm in Greg’s response. Only understanding.

  “Then she walked into The Pump. I thought it was….” Will trailed off, running his hand over his face in a gesture of weary surrender. “Fate.”

  Greg was quiet for so long, Will had to fight the urge to turn and outright ask his friend for the reassurance he needed. Then he heard the rustle of lettuce leaves and the squeak of a plastic fork scraping the bottom of the takeout container.

  “Josie loves you. God only knows why after the shitty way you treated her,” Greg added, gaining a little of their usual momentum back. “I don’t think you need to worry about torpedoes fired from that direction.”

  Will blew out a sigh and turned away from the window. He found Greg watching him through narrowed eyes, fork held aloft as he chewed thoughtfully. Holding his impatience in check, Will waited until his friend swallowed before biting off an annoyed, “What?”

  Greg shrugged and turned his attention back to the remains of the salad. “Nothing. I was just thinking Josie is the least of your worries. The one you need to watch out for is Sister Laurent. For a nun, she’s pretty territorial about you.” Impaling another forkful, he pursed his lips as he studied his next bite. “I don’t suppose anyone has ever told you that you look like Richard Chamberlain, have they?”

  * * * *

  Betty had barely settled the napkin in her lap when Josie pounced.

  “So…you and Will. Please tell me you made him chase you around the desk a few times before you succumbed.”

  The woman’s ballsy attitude left Betty a little breathless. “Is small talk illegal in this state or something?”

  “Beautiful weather we’re having. How are you liking living in the city? Does Will still do that thing where he pulls the sheet down over your naked body inch by inch? God, that felt almost as good as sex.”

  This time the blush didn’t bother creeping or climbing. Heat simply exploded inside Betty. She knew exactly what Josie was asking. And though she should be horrified by the thought of discussing something so intimate with a woman who’d been intimate with the man she was currently being intimate with, well…who better to ask for insight?

  “I jumped him in a bar.” Betty was gratified by the stupefied expression on the other woman’s face, but it didn’t last long. She spotted skepticism creeping in and rushed into the breach as Josie’s eyes narrowed. “You can ask him. I did.”

  Josie fell back in her seat, a smile of pure feminine admiration curving her lush lips. “Fabulous. We already have something in common.”

  Ignoring the twinge of jealousy, Betty touched a fingertip to the condensation forming on her water glass. “So he’s always been easy?”

  “And breathtakingly hard,” Josie agreed with a nod. “At least, he was in those days. We’re not as young as we once were.”

  Josie’s smile was so open and friendly, Betty found the urge to indulge in a little girl talk irresistible. After all, with her being Caroline Stallings’s daughter and the mayor’s wife and all, she’d never really been able to dish before. “He still is.”

  Eyes alight, Josie moved in again. “Will is a great guy—better than he gives himself credit for being—but you know he thinks he’s not the long-haul type, right?”

  Betty forced a smile as she lifted the water goblet, but something about Josie’s word choice bothered her. “I’ve done the long-haul. Never again. I’m just using him for sex.”

  Josie propped her elbow on the table and dropped her chin into her palm. “Do tell.”

  Their waiter chose that moment to appear. Betty ordered a Cobb salad and stuck to water, having learned that what these people considered iced tea was little more than dingy water. Josie ordered the same, but warned the waiter that the kitchen had better be prepared to serve up the gooiest, chocolatiest dessert they had if they were going to be eating like bunnies.

  “You could have ordered something else,” Betty said as the boy hustled away.

  “I order a burger and you get to sit there being all holier-than-thou with your vinaigrette on the side? Not hardly.”

  “I’m only eating salad because I’m sure I’ll be stuffed full of pasta or burritos or steak later tonight.”

  “And I’ll bet that’s not all he’ll be trying to stuff you with,” Josie said with a sly smile. “Though the man does like his food. There are times when I wish Greg was a little more…indulgent, but I have to admit, I love the results of his fitness fetish.”

  “He has a fitness fetish?”

  Josie gave an exaggerated shudder. “The man runs. Long distances. Even when there’s no fire or shoe sale.”

  Betty pressed her hand to her throat, fingers curling around imaginary pearls. “Heavens! Even when no one is chasing him?”

  Josie threw her head back and laughed. Not just any laugh, but a full-bodied, unapologetic laugh that let everyone around them know she was having a good time and damn proud of it. A prickle of pleasure warmed Betty’s cheeks as she basked in that laugh, proud to be the one who spurred it.

  “Can you imagine?” Josie grinned ove
r the rim of her glass. “Of course, he does wear the sexiest little shorts.”

  Getting into the spirit of the conversation, Betty folded her arms on the table and leaned in. “Do you have pictures?”

  “I may.”

  The smug smile that tipped the corners of her companion’s mouth told Betty there had certainly been at least one snapshot of buttoned-up Gregory Stark in his skimpy running shorts. Trailing her finger down the side of her glass, Betty glanced up from under her lashes. “Will is also in excellent shape.”

  Josie sobered slightly. “He works hard. Not just supervising things, but gets in there and does the job.”

  “God loves a man who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty,” Betty said with an appreciative sigh.

  “And so do we.”

  Betty smiled, suddenly high on this new life she was somehow forming out of bad judgment, good luck, and a smidge of happenstance. It seemed like everything might turn out all right after all. Donnie had certainly been more reasonable once she’d walked away from him. So had Will. Maybe she was getting the hang of this taking a stand thing. Her impulse control might be slipping, but so far her gut instincts were dead-on. It was time she learned to trust them more. That meant asking the questions that niggled at her.

  “What did you mean Will thinks he’s not cut out for the long-haul?”

  Josie shrugged then frowned at the paper-thin slice of lemon floating in her glass. “Well, you know….” Her pert little nose wrinkled. “Just that it’s almost like it’s easier for him to buy into the whole bad boy reputation thing.”

  Betty blinked. “Buy into it? From what I’ve heard, he’s earned it.”

  “Oh, he has,” Josie agreed quickly enough to make Betty grimace. “But the thing is, he’s never really been a dog about it. I used to know some guys….” She gave her head a sad shake. “…Total garbage dicks.” Her shoulders rose and fell as if she were literally shrugging the memory of those men away. “But Will has always been more of a…searcher.”

  “A searcher?”

  “He’s actually quite the romantic, you know. Hides it pretty well, but it comes seeping out of him every once in a while. I think he was waiting for something that seemed meant to be.”

  “You think he’s never settled down because he was waiting for The One?”

  “Exactly.” Josie smiled and a flattering blush pinkened her cheeks. “You know, the night I met Greg was the first time I’d laid eyes on Will Tarrant in nearly sixteen years. I think we both wondered if maybe… for about a half a second.” She laughed and shook her head. “Well, then there was Greg, and that was that.”

  “That was that,” Betty repeated, a wistful note creeping into her voice. “Fate.”

  “Yes, Fate!” Josie beamed and reached for her water glass. “And now here we are.” Josie held it out in a toast. “Here’s to new friends.”

  Touched by the other woman’s open acceptance, Betty clinked glasses. “To new friends.”

  Josie took a quick sip and set the glass aside with a grimace. “We should have at least ordered wine.”

  Betty glanced up when the busboy topped off both glasses, barely even breaking his stride. “We’ll get some with dessert,” she announced. “That’ll be our reward for being good.”

  Josie let loose another rich, rolling laugh. “Oh, honey, no. I just got my bad back. I don’t plan on ever being a good girl again.”

  Fascinated by her bold new friend and drunk with the idea that she could be every bit as blunt and brazen if she put her mind to it, Betty cocked her head and shot straight from the hip. “Will tells me you were a bit of a tramp back in the day.”

  “A bit of a tramp,” Josie mimicked. “It sounds so delightful when you say it in that Miss Magnolia Blossom drawl.” Her gaze remained steady, almost challenging. “I was no more of a tramp than he was. Hell, at the time, we were pretty much a matched set.” She sighed. “Will has always had that sexy balls-to-the-wall confidence that makes a woman’s clothes just kind of…fall off.”

  “I noticed.”

  Josie’s tinkling laugh made heads turn, but she didn’t bother giving the gawkers the time of day. “Greg has the same kind of thing, but it’s quieter. More subtle.” Her smile turned oddly shy as she fiddled with her flatware. “I guess it just suits me more now. Will and I were like…fireworks. All flash and lots of bang. With Greg it’s more bonfire. Just as spectacular, but the heat is more…sustained?” She wrinkled her nose. “Was that as cheesy as it sounded in my head?”

  Betty swallowed the knot of pure envy that lodged in her throat. “No. Not cheesy. Perfect.” Suddenly self-conscious, she straightened her own place setting. “Will said your mother became ill?”

  “Alzheimer’s. God-awful disease.”

  The succinct response was an answer in itself. “I’m so sorry.” She fiddled with her napkin. “I lost both of my parents and my husband rather suddenly. It doesn’t feel like a blessing at the time, but…”

  “There’s no good way,” Josie finished for her. She smiled, but this time it was too bright and more than a little brittle. “Mom getting sick pretty much put an end to my free-wheeling days.” Propping her chin in her hand, she rolled expressive dark eyes. “So much...nothing happened after the last time I saw Will Tarrant naked. I closed my business and nearly had my soul sucked out by a leech of a corporation. Crocheted blankets for everyone else’s babies. Remained blissfully unaware as termites attempted to eat my childhood home out from under me,” she said with a rueful laugh.

  Betty’s heart ached, but Josie just tossed off that metric ton of heartache with a shrug.

  “Then, after over a decade and a half of perfecting my maiden aunt act, I blew it all by getting the father of the groom drunk at my niece’s wedding and blowing him in a bathroom stall.” Her lips curved into a cunning smile. “That was Greg, by the way. There’s nothing I like more than sparking that man’s match.”

  Betty gasped, but it dissolved into a helpless giggle. Casting a glance over her shoulder to be sure no one could overhear, she stretched across the table to speak in a whisper. “Will and I…we didn’t even make it into the bathroom.”

  Josie blinked then made a sharp buzzer noise. “Errrrgh. I’m sorry, that’s not quite enough information. You didn’t make it to the bathroom before you did what, exactly?”

  Taking a deep breath, Betty tried to gather the courage to equal her new friend’s tantalizing bluntness, but she just didn’t have it in her. “We just fooled around in a dark hallway.”

  A gusty sigh stirred her hair and Josie fixed her with the same stare Betty used to use on Donnie when she had to do the nightly homework probe. “How much fooling around? First base?”

  Without conscious thought, Betty nodded and kept nodding as Josie motioned her through to second base, her dark eyebrows lifting with impressed encouragement as she kept on bobbing her head.

  “Third? Home?”

  “Third,” Betty answered firmly. “Not home.”

  “So we do have things in common.” Josie snickered. “Were you at bat or fielding?”

  She started to answer then realized she wasn’t exactly sure which would be the correct answer. “I was…the recipient,” she replied. “That would be fielding, right? He would have been running the bases.”

  “Very nice.”

  Josie beamed as the server appeared with their salads. Betty couldn’t help but marvel at the way she masked the salacious nature of their conversation with nothing more than that brilliant smile. The dazzled young man wandered off and the smile melted into a saucy grin. “Just scrumptious,” she cooed, picking up her salad fork as Betty reached for her water once more. “Tell me, did he gorge himself on the buffet or were there only finger foods?”

  Betty sputtered and coughed, hurriedly covering her mouth with the heavy linen napkin as Josie looked on in wide-eyed concern.

  “Oh, dear. Go down the wrong pipe?” she asked, all innocence.
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br />   Shaking her head, Betty coughed and laughed, but speech was out of the question. She watched in awe as Josie took a dainty bite of salad and chewed as if they’d discussed nothing more than swapping crochet patterns. Another full minute passed before she recovered enough to drop the napkin back to her lap and pick up her own fork. “Good gravy, how did the two of you not end up together?”

  “Good gravy,” Josie murmured as if she’d said something worth committing to memory. Apparently satisfied that she had it filed away, she shrugged and went after her salad again. “Of course we couldn’t end up together. We’re too much alike.”

  “Well, there is that,” Betty said dryly.

  “That’s why Greg and I work together. He needs someone to loosen him up, and he keeps me grounded without tying me down.”

  “Without tying you down? I thought you two just got married.”

  “We did.” Josie grinned and wigged her ring finger to show off a glittering wedding set. “I mean, he’s helped me be me again, and I sow my wild oats with only him. Of course, I think his being friends with Will for so long kind of greased the wheels, if you know what I mean. His ex-wife was even more straight-laced than Greg, so you can imagine how tightly wound that guy was when I dragged him into that bathroom.”

  Betty didn’t have to imagine. She knew exactly how hard up Greg must have been. She had been. And now look at Josie. Her skin glowed with contentment. The roses in her cheeks didn’t come from a swipe of blusher. Watching this new friend go after her salad like an assassin on a tight schedule got the wheels in Betty’s head turning at a slow grind.

  What if she could convince Will to be a one-woman man for just a little while? Lord knows she didn’t want to ever get married again, but maybe if she could stop worrying about the end of the relationship so much, things could take their natural course. It was entirely possible that by the time Will grew tired of her, she might be done with him, too. After all, she wasn’t twenty anymore. She’d given up girlish dreams of a forever kind of love years ago.

  She’d been raised in the land of Frito pie and football. No one knew better than a Southern woman the power of using a strong offense as a defense. But perhaps they could talk it out. Set some kind of timeline more concrete than ‘for as long as it’s working’, but less legal than ‘till death or dissolution us do part’. A month. Surely they could get the lust out of their system and start to get on each other’s nerves within a month. They could set a date, and then she wouldn’t have to fret about which of them would strike first. Still, one didn’t simply toss a lifetime of turning the tables away over Cobb salad.