Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

Also—and this was so simple I almost dismissed it the way I had Rex’s question earlier—what if Will was just… wrong. Not lying, just… what if he’d spent so long believing he couldn’t be in relationships for x, y, and z reasons that he hadn’t stopped to reevaluate when a new variable was added to the equation. I actually snorted at myself. Like: NEWSFLASH, it has been suggested that there is the possibility Will Highland is occasionally wrong. Paging everyone everywhere.

So maybe I should just… what? Wait and watch? Look, as Rex had said, for the other ways that Will might express how he felt.

That was that, then. I would watch, keeping in mind my two new laws of Will dynamics: 1. It was possible Will was scared and uncertain, and 2. I had to look at what Will did in addition to what he said. Easy enough, right?

Chapter 16

April

I WATCHED for a month. And all the while, Will’s presence glowed like a lantern in the heart of my life, even when he wasn’t around.

School was a whirlwind of busy and Will was up to his ears in all the work it took for him and Gus to launch the business, so I didn’t see him as much as I’d have liked. But when we did get a chance to see each other I paid attention in a way I never had.

One afternoon when the subway got delayed on my way up to Will’s apartment it hit me with a startling clarity. This was the problem with scripting romances in your head. When someone doesn’t hit the beats, you expect of them you have no idea what their actual behavior means. Will had tried to tell me. So had Gretchen. Even Layne, in her way, had told me. That this was what being a romantic looked like: paying more attention to your own expectations than to the very real person in front of you.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

“I know, right?” replied the guy to my left, looking up from his crossword. “I should just get out and walk. Be faster.”

I nodded in sympathy, but he didn’t make a move to go anywhere.

THE SEX between us had been intense ever since we got back from Michigan, and tonight I was drawing it out, taking the whirlwind that Will began with and harnessing it, amping us both up, then backing off, keeping Will on the edge as long as I could. At first he threatened to push me away and finish himself off. But he didn’t. He looked up at me, and I saw the moment when he accepted that I’d make it good for him if he was patient. He kind of rolled his eyes and groaned, like he was giving in to me, but really I think he was giving in to himself.

More and more, I’d noticed a kind of restlessness in him, a desire to be distracted. He’d wander around the apartment, picking things up and putting them down like he was confused as to what they did. I’d ask him to help me with something, and he’d transfer his attention to it gratefully. Or I’d start something and he’d grab my clothes and my hair as if reminding himself that he could. Because we’d both been so busy lately, usually we’d fall asleep right after sex. It had taken a few times of this happening for me to realize that I was staying over. And Will was letting me.

Tonight, though, after I finally let Will come, I pressed him onto his stomach in his soft bed and rubbed the tension from his shoulders and back, kissing up his spine until I could lay myself down over him. I kissed his neck, his ear, the curve of his jaw, then I buried my face in the crook of his neck. He let out a soft groan and mumbled something into the pillow that I didn’t catch.

I rolled him toward me, sliding an arm under his neck.

“What’d you say?”

“I said, are you staying?”

I smiled into his hair.

“’Kay.”

He fumbled for the bedside lamp, couldn’t reach it, and let his arm drop onto the bed. I leaned over him and flicked it off, lying down on my back next to him.

“Hey, Will?”

He grunted.

There were a hundred things I wanted to say to him. That I loved him and I wanted to be with him and I thought maybe he felt different about me now than he had before Michigan. I wanted to tell him that if he needed to still sleep with other people, I was willing to talk about it if it meant we could… I dunno, have something more.

But the words stuck in my throat. It was too much and not enough.

He’d never asked me to stay before. It felt like a step in the right direction, and I wanted to just let it happen, to enjoy that it was happening right now and not scuttle it by picking it apart or making him self-conscious.