His apparent surprise and mysterious mumblings were throwing off the nice, sensible conclusions Abbie had drawn for herself, so she decided to ignore them. “The trouble is,” she ploughed on, “you and I have different approaches to romance. You like your relationships simple and light and temporary—”
“Do I?” he murmured, apparently to himself, as he chose a space at the edge of the car park.
“—while I … am different,” she said, ignoring the catch in her own voice. “You are the sort of man who can, er, like someone and have a good time with them, then stop liking them and be done. But I don’t think that sort of arrangement would suit our familial circumstances, and anyway, I’m … not interested.” There. That was nice and neat and clinical and very handily avoided any examination of her feelings toward or about Will Reid. Perfect. Now he’d flinch away from her psychoanalysis, realise she was right after all, and move the fuck on from whatever this mental/emotional blip had been. Which was exactly what she wanted. Obviously. Definitely.
Okay, maybe not exactly what she wanted, but it was the safest outcome she could possibly get.
Unfortunately for her, Will had never been safe.
He switched off the engine, undid his seatbelt, and turned to face her. “You’re high,” he said plainly. Then he got out of the car.
A bolt of annoyance crackled through her. She undid her belt and hopped out after him. “I’m clearly not, William,” she snapped, wrapping her arms around herself to battle the cold.
“Then why are you being ridiculous, Abigail?” The snow, though light and insubstantial, swirled between them like a barrier. He collected their shopping bags from the car boot, then caught her cold hand in his and pulled her toward the supermarket. Little white flakes smeared on her glasses. His palm was warm and tough, and even though Abbie had fairly big hands herself, she felt like his enveloped hers. It didn’t, not really, not technically. But it felt like it did.
Will tugged her, not into the bright lights of the supermarket’s entrance, but to the hidden brick alcove where employee bikes were chained up and the light dusting of snow struggled to spread. There, in the icy shadows, he turned to face her. Something about the play of light and dark across his face made him look like a slightly different man.
“If you’re not interested in me,” he said tightly, “that’s fine. But don’t tell me how I feel about you. Don’t ever.”
“Stop growling at me,” she bit back, “and get a grip.”
“Oh, fuck off, Abbie. Get a grip? Seriously? I can’t believe you’d be so—” He cut himself off with this anguished, frustrated sort of groan, dragging a hand through his hair. The image hit her like a slap. She’d spent the last hour panicking and furious, cursing him for dragging her blithely into chaos. It hadn’t ever occurred to her that Will—perfect, golden, effortless Will—might be feeling something like discomfort over this.
He couldn’t be. Because that would suggest he was serious, and Will was never serious, and he certainly, after all these years, couldn’t suddenly be serious about her. The very idea had the power to upend everything she’d ever told herself, every protective barrier she’d ever built between them.
Yet the hurt on his face, the deep furrow between his brows, and the way he rolled his lips inward suggested he really fucking was.
“Will,” she choked out, her stomach dropping like lead. “Will … you … you really don’t care this much.”
He looked up at her, incredulous. “And you really believe that, don’t you?”
Shit.
Okay. Okay. Some sort of monumental fuck-up had just occurred, because she could practically see him papering over his sadness. Her body began to hum with anxiety, like an electric generator kicking in.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, only realising how true that was once the words hovered between them. “Sorry. That was … rude.” Understatement. Had she really just explained away his feelings to him like he was five?
More shocking: did he really have feelings to explain away? Because that … did not compute. Not after all this time. Years and years ago, she might’ve allowed herself to tentatively hope for it—but then she’d grown up enough to figure out that best friends didn’t seamlessly become lovers, much like dead dogs didn’t come back to life and fairies didn’t exist. So she’d left. She’d fallen for someone else, she’d gotten married, she’d gotten divorced. She was an adult, but she was also vibrating with uncertainty and confusion and—and—
Things with Will weren’t supposed to be complicated. That was a truth she’d trusted in her entire life, a truth she’d worked hard to uphold, and now it was shifting beneath her feet.
But here was another truth: he didn’t hurt her, and she sure as shit tried not to hurt him. She didn’t always succeed, since she was practically made of spikes, but she tried.
“I really am sorry,” she repeated, her tongue like lead and her words inadequate as ever. She wished she was better at saying sweet things. If this were the other way around, Will would give her the best apology of all time. “That was—a dick move. You caught me by surprise, and I overreacted. Shouldn’t have done it. Sorry. Won’t happen again.”
Something in his expression shifted, his gaze sparking, his lips parting. “Is that right?”
Abbie suddenly felt very hot and very closely observed. “Um.”
“It won’t happen again?” He took a step toward her. She took a step back and found herself pressed against cold brick. “So if I say it again—if I tell you I have feelings for you—you’ll give me an honest reaction instead of freaking the fuck out?” He was looking at her like he couldn’t see anything else—like, if he tried to shift his gaze even a half inch to the right to stare at the brick, it physically wouldn’t work. Like she was a black hole and he couldn’t escape. Which wasn’t that far off how Abbie had always seen her own hunger for this man, except she’d never imagined he’d look so eager at the prospect of being swallowed. He was supposed to flinch away from this kind of intensity. Everyone else always had, and Will was the lightest, brightest person she’d ever known.
She cleared her dry throat and pressed her palms against the icy, rough brick to keep herself in the here and now when she felt like floating away. “Er … maybe?” She sounded so uncertain, and she hated it. But when she searched for her favourite unconcerned, ironic mask, she couldn’t find it. “I—just—Will. This whole thing is entirely out of the blue, and it doesn’t make sense.”
“There we go,” he said, and took another step toward her. “That’s what’s really bothering you, yeah? So say that, Abs. Just say that.” He took one final step, and they were chest to chest. She was trapped between the wall and his searching eyes, perfectly aware that she could push him away and he would go quite easily.