“Sure.”
“Is there something between you and James?”
A startled punctuated laugh jumps from my throat. “Me and James?” I’m sure my eyes are bugging from my head. “No way. That would be like me falling in love with Noah. Gross.”
“Really?” he asks, looking a little skeptical.
“Really. I can’t think of anything less appealing. No offense to James.” I smile as Will nods. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugs. “No reason. Just thought it would be good to get the whole picture. If we were trying to specifically help you snag James, then we could tailor our lessons.”
Makes sense. But no—James may not be my brother by blood, but he’s my brother all the same.
I pull my legs up in the booth, crossing one over the other. “Okay, speaking of lessons. After I’ve learned to bask in silence confidently, then what? What about when I need to talk? I don’t think my sexy flowers are as interesting to other people as they are to you.”
He laughs and grabs a napkin. “Do you have a pen?”
After digging through my purse, I find one and hand it to him. Will then writes a series of sentences on the napkin and hands it to me. “These are the questions I have memorized that I ask on every single date. Questions about family are always awkward and have too many potential pitfalls, and no one really wants to talk about their job. So I like to ask fun icebreakers instead. Works every time.”
I read the napkin out loud. “What was your favorite TV show to watch as a kid? What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to do it? Would you rather skydive or read a book?” I lower the napkin. “You have these memorized?”
He nods.
“And they really work?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he tilts his head and watches me like there’s a question that’s been nagging at him for years. “Annie, what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to?”
Immediately the answer comes to mind. One that I can’t voice. One that he can’t know.
Instead, I nibble on a fry and make a thinking noise. And then my eyes rest on his forearm and a more appropriate answer surfaces. “I’ve actually always wanted to get a tattoo.”
He sits forward, looking excited and a little pleased. “Really? Why haven’t you?” He asks like it would be as simple as just getting a haircut.
“I don’t know. A combination of being afraid it will hurt and not sure what I’d get.” And because I just can’t. I’m Annie—it would be shocking. It would be so out of character for me. It would be…fun.
Suddenly Will’s words from the other day ram into my memory: “It seems to me, Annie, that you are just waiting for someone to give you permission to be yourself out loud.” I’m afraid to admit how right he was. How much I haven’t been able to get our conversation out of my head no matter how hard I’ve tried. How the more I think of it, the more fear I have that the future I described to him won’t be enough. That marriage isn’t going to give me my happily ever after. And if that’s true, what in the world is causing this hollow feeling?
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” he says before taking a big bite of pancakes. “I’m sure you can handle it.”
My eyes trace his arm all the way down to the butterfly. “How did you decide on your flowers?”
He answers too quickly for me to believe him. “I don’t know—I’ve just always liked them.”
“If I lift my chin when I lie, looking a little too nonchalant is your tell. What’s the truth, Will Griffin?” I ask, mirroring his leaned forward position so we’re eye to eye.
He stares at me, his expression never changing. And then he shocks me with an honest answer. “In my yard growing up…we had a magnolia tree out back. I used to hide out there a lot. When I needed to get away. It was sort of a haven for me.”
Oh.
Something in Will’s eyes and thoughtful tone tells me that he visited that tree often. And it wasn’t just a haven but a safe haven. A place he needed too often. As I picture a younger version of this man hiding up in a magnolia tree all by himself, my heart bleeds. I want to climb up there with him and hold his hand. I want to know every reason that drove him up those branches—and I want to make all that pain go away.
He sits back abruptly and smiles. “Of course that was before I found my wolf family. After that I was too busy roaming the land and hunting to climb trees.”