For her part, she knew she was plain. She didn’t make herself up or pay a whole lot of attention to how she looked. It didn’t seem worth her time. After all, she had no real interest in dating. Maddie said she only dated “placeholders,” and Lauren thought maybe she had a point. After all, her main criteria for going out with someone was knowing that she was in no danger of falling for them.
She had Will to thank for that.
“I’m waiting.” He raised his eyebrows to make his point.
She straightened her shoulders and leveled her gaze. “Okay. Here goes. You love the attention. You want women to like you, and when they notice you, you kick it up a notch. But none of them really means anything; it’s just a game to you. See how many women you can string along. Never mind how they feel, as long as you get what you want.”
As she talked, she wanted to stop. She read on his face how her words affected him. But she didn’t stop, and she didn’t know why.
Will Sinclair had feelings?
He slowly sat back in his chair, looking down and away. He glanced up for a moment, chuckled a small laugh, then looked away again.
“I, uh…I guess you nailed me there, Lo.” Then he quickly held up both hands in apology, “I mean, Lauren.”
Something niggled at her conscience. She’d been too harsh. In her effort to protect herself from falling back under the Will Sinclair spell, she’d acted like a jerk.
“Will, I’m sorry, I—”
But Melinda was back with a refill for Will. She topped off Lauren’s cup as an afterthought and didn’t look at her once. But Will barely thanked her. Just asked for the check.
“You ready?” He stood and set his tip money on the table.
“I can pay my half.” She reached for her purse.
“I got it,” he said, his tone clipped.
She’d struck a nerve, and she felt terrible. He walked toward the cash register, toward Melinda, toward someone who was a lot nicer to him than Lauren. She watched the easy way he interacted with her, and jealousy heated her face and furrowed her brow again.
Why did I do that?
Will glanced at her, and she looked away. Why did she care who he flirted with—or who he didn’t flirt with? She had her own life. She was an adult—a successful adult at that. On her way to a promotion. And she hadn’t so much as thought about Will, at all, for years.
It wasn’t like she was dwelling on her silly little crush. She’d moved on.
Why linger? Why care? Why not remain wholly indifferent to him?
She used the restroom and met Will in the car, expecting an icy reception. But he waited for her to buckle her seatbelt, then flashed her a smile. A genuine one. “You ready?”
She nodded.
“Thanks for indulging me,” he said. “I hope your burger was good.”
Wow, he forgives quick.
He drove through the parking lot, back toward the road they’d come in on, and Lauren felt ashamed.
It wasn’t a fair fight when your opponent didn’t even know he was in the ring.
Chapter 6
The rest of day one was fairly uneventful. They rode mostly in silence, which didn’t bother Lauren—she listened to her audiobook and stared out the window. They stopped off at three different spots, which oddly Will seemed to have planned for. There was a little roadside gas station with vintage pumps, a “bottle tree ranch” which looked like an art installation of hundreds of colorful glass bottle trees sticking up out of the ground and the first ever McDonald’s, which was now a museum that thankfully, they didn’t take time to walk through.
She did learn, though, that Grimace is actually a giant taste bud. Who knew?
It was strange to see Will excitedly interested in something other than alcohol or women. It disrupted her impression of him.
Now, as evening approached, Lauren’s stomach growled mortifyingly loud enough to upset the silence in the car. Will laughed.
“Okay, I hear you. Good timing, too, because we’re stopping up here for the night.” He pointed to her stomach. “We can grab food for that beast.”
She glanced at the clock. It was barely evening. They had several more hours of daylight and could easily keep going.
“Is that okay? Does that work?” he asked.
After treating him like she did, he was still considering the way she felt.
Still, she didn’t know how to keep what she was thinking to herself.
“We could drive a few more hours,” she said. “If you’re tired, my offer to take a turn still stands.”