Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

I turned around, wrapping my arms around myself against the chill. Will’s jaw was tensed, his eyebrows drawn together, and the pale skin of his chest mottled with a flush. He’d put his pants on again too.

“Wait, are you… are you mad at me?” I asked.

Will gave an uncertain shrug, a gesture so at odds with his usual surety that it distracted me.

“Why are you mad?”

He shook his head in irritation but said nothing, just moved around the kitchen, picking things up and putting them back down again.

“Will.” I put a hand on his shoulder, and he shrugged it off. “Will, come on.”

“Fine! What do you want me to say, Leo? I thought you were different, okay? I didn’t think you saw me that way. The way everyone else does.”

Was I imagining it, or did his mouth tremble slightly?

“What do you mean? How does everyone see you?”

Will glared at me. “You know how—you’ve seen them. Like I’m… like they just care about how I look. They just want to… to fuck me.” He spat the word out, making sex sound filthy for the first time since I’d met him.

“Uh, okay, I know what you mean, but the idea that you would lump me in with those people is… it’s fucked-up, man.”

He set his jaw. “Is it?”

“Will.” I put my hand on his arm and this time he didn’t shrug me off. “You’re totally beautiful. You are.” His eyes flew to mine, narrowed, and angry. “Hang on. Jesus. Yeah, you’re super hot. But… like, a lot of people are. Give me a little credit for not being some mindless… sex zombie or something, would you? I’m not like totally powerless in the face of your beauty.”

This was almost completely true. Will’s looks did still take me by surprise sometimes, his beauty rendered something separate from him. A thing he possessed rather than a thing he was. But it definitely wasn’t the moment for that shade of distinction to be meaningful to Will.

“Especially not now that I know you.”

Will snorted at this though I hadn’t actually meant it as an insult. Then he lifted himself up to sit on the counter, leaned back against the cabinet, and stared moodily out the window.

“You seriously think that I just want to… to fuck you because you’re pretty and that’s all? How could you possibly think that?”

He shook his head, and his expression was confused, like he honestly couldn’t quite figure out if I meant what I said.

“I just get tired of not knowing.” Will’s voice had a darkness to it that was completely different from his pissed-off tone of a minute before. But he shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Never mind.”

“What?” I followed him with my body, standing between his knees and putting my hands on his thighs.

“Would you even have liked me when we first met if you hadn’t thought I was hot? You totally wouldn’t have. I was just some asshole your friend’s boyfriend used to date. I made fun of you, gave you shit. Why would you have wanted to spend time with me if you didn’t want to fuck me?”

His intonation was flat, like these weren’t even questions, but stories he’d told himself for so long he already believed they were true.

And I wasn’t sure what to say. Because the truth was that, sure, the first thing I’d noticed about Will was how he looked. And could I honestly separate that from who he was? Not with any certainty.

“Well, okay,” I said. “But, attraction’s… mysterious, right? At some level that happens whenever people are attracted to each other. Like, someone says something that would one hundred percent annoy you if someone else had said it, but because it’s that person it’s charming or funny or whatever. And in case you forgot, we aren’t fucking, and I basically want to hang out with you all the time.”

“Yeah, but you want to. Wanted to.”

“So… I was supposed to—what?—prove that I was different, that I care about you, by not being attracted to you? Now who’s being the romantic?” I squeezed his knee to soften my words. “Besides, you wanted to, too, right? At least a little bit?”

He shrugged. And even though I didn’t exactly think he meant it, it cut kind of deep.

“Seriously? You have no interest in sleeping with me, but you said okay totally out of pity? Damn, Will, that’s kinda cold.”

“No, no, fine, yes, I want to, I guess.”

“Wow, that’s so incredibly flattering.”

Will grabbed my chin so I had to look up at him. He looked intense, but he was biting his lip in this maddening way that made him look kind of lost at the same time.

“You’re probably my best friend,” he said. “And I’ve been honest with you about not wanting a relationship. So I can’t help but wonder.”