“No, it’s not that…” He pauses. “You wouldn’t get it, okay?”
He tilts his beer back to take a sip.
“Do you want her with someone else?”
He stops moving.
Finally, he puts the glass bottle down and meets my eyes.
“Do you want her to move on from you? Is that what you want, Will?”
His eyes drop to the bar.
“It’s clear she still has feelings for you for now, but it won’t last forever. Sooner or later, you’ll lose her. For good. Some other dude will realize how great she is. She’ll meet some nice lawyer guy at college, fall deeply in love with him, and forget all about you. I don’t know why you left that day, or why you didn’t go back to Kass, but keep this up and you might just have to live the rest of your life wishing you’d had the balls to get the girl.”
I anticipate the rising of his walls but get the complete opposite. His barriers unravel before my eyes, falling to oblivion and leaving him unguarded.
“Okay, fine,” he gives in. “I’m going completely insane, but what the fuck am I supposed to do? I left. She probably hates me.”
“Did you try talking to her? Explaining?”
He nibbles on his lip. “I figured she’d moved on. She’s been icing the hell out of me. You really think she still cares?”
Boys are so stupid.
“I think you won’t know unless you try.”
He gets up, doesn’t say a word, and begins to walk away.
“Go get her, tiger!” I cheer, and he turns his head one second before the crowd sucks him in.
“Winter?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for being a stubborn pain in the ass.”
“No problem.” My smile wavers. “Wait, what?”
He’s already gone.
“How much did you have to drink?” Allie leans forward and screams through the E
BM music. The dance floor is packed, the kind of packed that would usually suffocate me, but I’m way too drunk to care.
“Just one drink.” I lift my glass to her eyes. “That I filled up multiple times.”
Allie breaks into laughter, circling my shoulders with her arm as we dance. It’s been an hour since I talked Will up. No sign of either him or Kass since then. Allie and I have been dancing by ourselves for a good thirty minutes while the guys took part in a chugging contest with strangers. When Kendrick and Alex push their way to us on the dance floor, Allie flings her arms around her boyfriend’s neck. They kiss, grope—the whole package—and for the first time since they got together, I have to look away. I focus on the blinking lights, the dizzying bass, everything but the happy couple next to me. I keep dancing, finishing my drink in one gulp, and by the time I turn around…
Everybody’s gone.
How long have I been dancing alone?
I get off the dance floor, stumbling my way toward the entrance of the pub for much-needed fresh air. My phone rings, and I pull it out, expecting it to be Allie calling to ask where I am. It’s not.
Haze Adams is calling.
My heart sinks.