Will looks down at me over his shoulder and his gaze holds mine. “I’m sorry, Annie.”
I shrug. “It was a long time ago.”
“But I’m sure it still hurts.”
I breathe in—trying to push away the sudden rush of emotions his words rip from me. I don’t want to cry in front of him. Actually, I don’t cry in front of anyone. So I blink, and blink some more until the threat is gone. “Sometimes.”
He sets the frame down and looks at me. I’m scared he’s going to ask if I’m okay, which I really hope he doesn’t because I will absolutely cry. I’m usually the one who provides comfort in my family—which is, honestly, fine because it’s a role I chose when I was very young and my siblings were all falling apart and I didn’t quite understand why. They knew my parents better than I did—so it became my self-appointed job to lessen their pain. I could hug them. I could make them feel better. I could make sure that I never did anything to add to their worry. And then that, in turn, made me feel better. But a side effect of being the one who listens and comforts is that people rarely offer to listen or comfort me. I’ve been living this way for so long now that I’m not sure I’d be any good at expressing myself even if I were asked to.
Just when I think Will is going to make me talk through my feelings, he lightly grasps my bicep, pulling me into his chest. And that’s it. No prodding questions. He wraps his big arms around me and holds me here in my room until my body melts against his. It feels so good to be held by him. To breathe him in and feel his heart beating against my chest. Too good.
And then he presses his lips to my forehead and my entire heart wrenches.
“What are you doing here, Will?” I ask when I can’t take the sweetness of this anymore. It’s too confusing.
He releases me. “I’m going out of town for a few days with Amelia for work.” I’m surprised at how disappointed I feel by this news. Which is ridiculous. Absolutely absurd.
He continues, “And I realized I don’t have your phone number.”
“Oh.”
“And I thought I should have it…”
“You did?”
He nods, still watching me. “In case…you have any tutor-related questions.”
“Right.” I give a firm nod. Makes sense. Perfect sense. “Where’s your phone? I’ll put my number in it.”
He fishes it from the back pocket of his jeans and hands it to me. Something about holding Will’s phone just feels so…personal. More personal than anything he’s ever let me see before. His lock screen is a photo of a mountaintop view, and his background is a photo of an ocean. They’re obviously pictures he’s taken on his adventures—and suddenly I’m overcome with desire to know everything about these trips. To see him standing there in those places and witness the smile on his face when he reached his final destination. Maybe even go with him on one.
Instead, I create a new contact and type my number in and quickly hand his phone back. He frowns lightly at the contact name and deletes Annie Walker and replaces it with Annabell. We’re not even going to acknowledge the obscene surge of butterflies that rushes through my stomach when he does.
In an attempt to make myself feel normal and not buzzing with physical awareness, I walk back toward the window and open it again. “Okay, well now that you have my number, feel free to…” my words trail off when I turn around and find Will toeing off his shoes and sitting on my bed “…stay.”
Will leans up against my headboard, shoes kicked off, long legs stretched out, and one ankle crossed over the other. Will is in my bed.
In. My. Bed!
“Is that all right? If I stay?” he says with the confidence of a man who already knows the answer.
I would love to surprise him and kick him out. No, you may not stay! Out you go!
Yeah, not happening. I want him here more than I’ve wanted anything before.
“Of course. But…why?”
He came here for my phone number, and he got it. Task accomplished. He should be on his way.
Will smiles at me—bemused. “To hang out with you.”
“I repeat, why?”
“Because you’re fun to hang out with.”
I have to press my lips together and divert my gaze, so I pull out the chair from my desk and sit so that he doesn’t see the way my soul beams from that response.
“Are you going to stay all the way over there?” he asks.
I look up into his playful sparking eyes. “It’s not way over here. You make it sound like I need a map.”