I sniffed the arrangement of lilies and hydrangeas. “I’m good. Thank you so much for these.”
“Well, this is a pretty big occasion, finally getting to see your apartment.” He looked around. “Nice place.”
“Thank you.” I walked over to my sink and pulled a vase from under it.
Will leaned against the counter as I arranged the flowers. “You said your roommate recently left, right?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Will obviously never knew my mystery male roommate and Declan were one and the same. I hated lying to him, but I couldn’t risk admitting everything now.
“Yeah… He left, and now I have to find someone else. But he paid the rent through the end of his original commitment, so I still have a couple of months before I have to find someone.”
“Well, this will be a nice break from having to share your space,” Will said as he continued to scope out the place.
“I definitely prefer living alone, but finances mandate that I have a roommate.”
Will flashed a sympathetic look. “I get it. It’s expensive to live in the city, and this is a nice place in a great neighborhood. Before I paid off my student loans, I always had to have roommates, too.” He smiled. “In any case, I’m happy to have you all to myself tonight.” He reached out to draw me close. “Come here.”
I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he flipped me around and placed his hands on my shoulders.
“What are you doing?”
“You seem tense. I want to help.” He began to massage.
I closed my eyes and relished the feel of his strong hands on my neck and then my back. I thought about how lucky I was to have these hands on me; they brought life into the world almost every day, and now they were taking a break from that just to make me feel good.
“You know what sucks?” he asked as he continued to rub my shoulders.
“What?”
“I really wish I could cook. I have this urge to make you dinner tonight—to take care of you—but I can’t cook to save my life.” He lowered his hands and circled his knuckles against my lower back.
It felt damn good. I closed my eyes again. “You have so much going for you as it is. If you were a great cook on top of everything else, that would almost make you too good to be true.”
He laughed. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.”
“I have an idea,” he said, turning me around to hold me. “How about we order from that great Italian place down the street, and I’ll pretend I made it? I’ll serve it to you.”
My face felt momentarily hot. Food from Nonna’s reminded me of my remote dinner with Declan. Not sure why I felt guilty, but I did. But that was silly. I needed to just enjoy this moment.
“I think that sounds amazing,” I finally said.
When Will left to go pick up the takeout, I used the bathroom and refreshed my makeup. I put on some of Will’s favorite jazz music, and as the minutes passed, I began to feel excited about his return.
After he got back, Will plated our takeout, insisting that I let him cater to me while I sat at the table.
“Why are you being so nice to me tonight?” I asked.
“Because I know you’re under a lot of stress, and I want to take your mind off it,” he said as he used tongs to scoop out linguini. “I work so much, and our schedules don’t always match up, so I need to take advantage of any opportunity I get to show you how much you’re starting to mean to me.”
That made me feel warm inside. “You’re starting to mean a lot to me, too.”
Will brought our plates over to the table. “Wine with dinner, right?”
“I would love some.” I stood. “I can open it.”
He held out his hand. “No, I’m serving you, remember? Let me.”
He walked over to the counter and took two bottles of wine he’d purchased out of a paper bag.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be in the mood for red or white. So I bought a sauvignon blanc and a cabernet.”
“White is great.”
“You got it.” He winked.
I pointed. “Opener is in the second drawer to the left.”
Will grabbed the opener and took out two of my nicer wine glasses. Those were the ones I reserved for guests, so I supposed it was fitting to use them tonight.
“Huh,” he said, examining the glass.
“What?”
“There’s a pink M&M in one of these glasses.”
My heart clenched. Declan had showed up to say hello—or maybe fuck you to Will. This evening was probably the longest I’d gone without thinking of him.
Will put the M&M in his mouth and chomped it. That seemed wrong, symbolic in some way, like he was eating the last of my lingering feelings for another man.