Practice Makes Perfect (When in Rome, #2)(70)
I laugh and then wince when my ears, head, and throat all scream. I set down the soup and then rub my temples to ease some of the never-ending pressure. It’s quite possible that a pathetic whine also escapes my mouth.
“Come here,” Will says, not waiting for my response before he sets my feet on the ground and starts adjusting me around. He puts a pillow in his lap and then eases my head down on it. And then he gently runs his fingers over my scalp and my neck in soft massaging strokes. His hands are warm and secure as he moves them over me—but it’s more the fact that he seems to care so much that is making my heart squirm.
“Were your parents affectionate too? Is that where you got it from?”
His fingers pause in my hair, and I think maybe I scared him off. There’s going to be a Will-shaped hole in my front door any minute now.
“Only as affectionate as wolves can be, you know?” he says, trying for levity and coming up short.
I look up at him. “No more jokes. Please tell me.”
He sighs and his hands move through my hair again. “I don’t like talking about my childhood, Annie. In fact, I’ve worked really hard to block it out.”
“I get it. And if you really don’t want to, I’ll drop it. But if there is some part of you that wants to tell me, I promise to be a good listener and not bring it up ever again if you don’t want me to.”
A soft smile touches the corner of his mouth. “No one would ever accuse you of not being a good listener. In fact, I think you’re made to listen too much.”
I reach up and pinch the fabric of his soft T-shirt near his chest and tug lightly. “Tell me. Come on, I have a sick card. Let me use it.”
Will opens his palm faceup. “Let me see it.”
I sigh dramatically and pretend to pull it out of my pajama bottoms. I slap it against his palm. Will holds it up to the light for inspection and then takes an imaginary hole punch and makes a clamping sound with his mouth. He hands the card back. “Yours is only a day pass. Expires at midnight.”
“Deal.”
He casts his eyes to the ceiling like he’s looking for inspiration on where to begin. “Uh—okay, well. In a nutshell, I grew up in a dysfunctional home. There was a lot of fighting and cheating happening between my parents. My dad slept on my floor a lot and openly spilled their baggage when he really should have shut the hell up about it.” Will’s tone is hard as granite on that last sentence, and before I realize what I’m doing, I roll over to face his abdomen. Maybe it’s because he gave me permission, maybe it’s because something about me feels free with Will—I don’t know—but I don’t hesitate before looping my arms around him.
He doesn’t stop brushing his fingers through my hair and across my neck. Doesn’t make me feel like this is anything out of the ordinary. My arms around him feel as natural as breathing.
“Go on,” I urge.
“If you saw me back then—in high school and before—you wouldn’t recognize me,” he says with a sad sort of smile. “I wore polo shirts, Annie. And glasses. And I never socialized, ever.”
“Wait…” I squint up at him. “Do you ever wear glasses now?”
“Only at night after I take my contacts out.”
My ovaries quake at this news. It’s too much to handle, so I swallow, make a noncommittal hmm sound, and then wait for him to continue.
“I busted my ass all through school because I thought”—he adds one short laugh—“I thought it would help. I hoped that if I could be the perfect son for them, if I could help take care of my brother and make sure that we never added additional stress, then…”
“Then they’d be happy.”
“Exactly.”
Our eyes connect and his words resonate somewhere deep inside me. “I relate. Although in a slightly different way. Because for me, it was that I was trying to keep life stress-free for my grieving siblings.” My gaze moves to Will’s shirt as I feel painful tugs of my past against my heart. I’m not sure I’ve ever said that out loud before—or even realized that it was true. But now I feel almost outside of myself, as I watch a younger Annie try to pick up the pieces for her siblings. Cutting her hands in the process and never telling anyone she’s bleeding.
I don’t realize I’m frowning until I feel Will’s thumb brush against my brows, relaxing them.
“It sounds like we both put our needs in the back seat during critical times in our lives.”
And yet we’re both seeking different paths to soothe ourselves. He doesn’t want anything to do with relationships, and I want the ultimate one.
I blink back up at him. “So did it work? Did your perfection pay off?”
His jaw flexes against memories. “No,” he says quietly. “I graduated as valedictorian and got into MIT, but Dale and Nina were still toxic, surprise, surprise. They couldn’t do anything right in each other’s eyes, and as a result, Ethan and I couldn’t do anything right either. I think they deeply resented their lives. So to answer your question, no, they were not affectionate.”
“I’m sorry, Will. You didn’t deserve that from them.”
“Yeah…well, it all worked out, so it’s fine. After my graduation ceremony, I came home, and my mom was crying because my dad found out she’d cheated again, and then”—he frowns at the wall—“she screamed at me for not taking out the damn trash that morning. So I snapped. I packed a bag and I left. I just couldn’t do it anymore. Instead, I stayed in a hotel for a week and then joined the military. I felt awful for leaving my brother behind like that, but I needed to get out, and the Air Force was giving away free Tshirts outside the grocery store.” He smiles self-deprecatingly.