She reaches forward for her beer, and as she does, she places a palm on my thigh to catch her balance, and all those lines blur in my mind. Because all I can see is how petite her hand is on my leg. And all I can feel is the roil of heat seeping into my muscles. The slow swell in my pants.
Suddenly I’m not measuring time. I’m measuring inches, because her hand is mere inches away from feeling just how much I don’t dislike her. Not even one bit.
Then her hand is gone and I’m stuck staring at her lips. The way her throat works as she takes a deep swallow of beer.
With a sigh, she leans back, appraising the bar before her, and announces, “This place is fun.”
I clear my throat, grasping for something to talk about. “Is this like the bar you work at?”
She smiles so easily. It just rolls off her like she doesn’t even think about it. It’s incredible. “No. Not at all. I actually manage my brother’s business. It’s this old theater that he turned into a live music venue downtown. Cleared out the seats. Spring loaded the dance floor. And we book in all sorts of awesome bands. If there’s no show, it’s just a regular bar—a quiet night for the regulars.”
I can one hundred percent see Willa in a setting like that. “And why aren’t you working there now?”
She rolls her eyes. “Brother blew up. He started a record label and picked some good nobodies. Turned them into somebodies. So he decided to renovate the venue even though he’s never there anymore.”
“That doesn’t mean he gets to stop paying you.”
She waves a hand and takes another sip. “Oh, nah. He didn’t. I’d pull his pretty-boy hair if he did. But that place is also basically my social life. Truthfully, I was lonely in the city. It’s nice to be around people—your family.”
It’s fascinating to me, listening to someone so uninhibited talk. Someone who says what’s on her mind without concern, who laughs so freely.
It’s addictive having her attention on me. I wonder if Luke feels like this too?
“Yeah. They’re alright.” I look over at my brothers, watching Beau and Rhett and Jasper joke together, like they have since they were teenagers. I’m always sad when Beau leaves on tour, even though I don’t tell him. He always says it will be his mission—that he’ll leave the military when he he’s back.
And then he goes again.
I think that’s his addiction.
“I’m close with my family,” Willa says. “Closer than lots of people. But we all live parallel lives now that my brother and I are adults, whereas you guys are all up in each other’s business. It’s charming. I can see why Summer loves it out here.”
“Yeah. She fits in. That’s for sure.” We both glance over. Summer is in Rhett’s lap, and everyone is listening to Beau tell a story, his hands moving animatedly as he does. Everyone except Jasper, who to the average onlooker might seem like he’s listening, but I know better.
He’s slipped into the past. Eyes and head somewhere else entirely. Sometimes he still looks like the devastated little boy we took in. I wonder if he relives that day as often as I relive our mother’s death?
My head steers in Luke’s direction, and I wonder what he’s doing. If he’s happy. If he’s warm. I know he’s with my dad, but the anxiety around keeping him safe is real for me. I often ponder whether he worries I’ll abandon him like his mom did.
I worry I’ll leave him the way our mom left us. Suddenly. Tragically.
Now I don’t feel like being out at all. I want to be home, with him tucked in safely in the room next to me or—as still often happens on weekends—in the same bed as me. Because for all his wildness, Luke is a cuddler. Softhearted beneath it all.
“I think I’m gonna head out,” I say to Willa. “You okay to catch a ride with the others?”
She starts at my change of subject, but she also doesn’t miss a beat and slides her pint glass onto the table, this time touching my knee as she does. “Nah. I’d rather go with you.”
I know she doesn’t mean it the way I’m thinking. That she’d literally rather spend time with me than out with everyone else.
But it’s kind of nice to dream about all the same.
The ride back to the ranch is quiet. Willa watches out the window like the dark, flat fields are super interesting. She went from boisterous and social at the bar to silent and introspective as soon as we got in the truck.
I wish I had the balls to ask her what she’s thinking. But I don’t.