“You’re welcome,” Will said calmly. He was always extra extra William when he was drunk, going from laid-back to literal god levels of not-giving-a-fuck. “Anyway. What I’m trying to say is, if marriage is supposed to be love, he kind of killed your marriage the first time he hurt you.”
Abbie stiffened. “I—you—” Her throat was tight. “I didn’t realise you, er … knew about that.” Or rather, she had logically realised he must, but had decided to ignore it for her own good.
“Yeah, I knew,” Will said gently. “Why’d you think he wouldn’t come to Christmas the last couple of years? Harlan went to his job and threatened to kill him.”
Abbie wheezed. “Did he?”
“Of course,” Will said, like that was obvious and ordinary. Which she supposed it was. Or rather, it was exactly what she would do if some demon threw a book at her brother’s face and gave him a black eye.
Abbie supposed it rarely occurred to her that the people around her loved her as hard as she loved them.
There was something in that thought, but Will was still talking, still turning her upside down, heedless of all the feelings falling out of her pockets. “So I don’t think you should feel bad for kissing me, Abbie. I never meant that. I just meant—I always wondered—” Why was the last word, but Will sort of shook his head and decided not to say it. “Never mind,” he said instead. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter, Abbie.”
“I kissed you,” she blurted out, “because I knew it wouldn’t hurt. I knew it would be—good.” She stumbled over the words, but suddenly it seemed imperative to be honest about this one fucking thing. “I knew if I kissed you, it could only be good.”
Will released a slow, shuddering breath, juniper and frost. His hands settled at her hips, and it felt as if she’d been shifting slightly out of her own body, but he’d just anchored her again. “That,” he whispered, “is the best thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Somehow, her own hands were pressed against his chest, and she knew she should move them, but this felt like the greatest possible place for them to be. “That can’t be true.”
“It is.”
“Didn’t I ever tell you that joke about the interrupting cow?”
“Way better than that.”
“Well,” she whispered, her gaze caught on his mouth, “now I’m kind of insulted. I thought you loved that joke.”
“It’s terrible,” he replied. “I only laugh because you’re so bad at telling jokes.” She was halfway between a smile and a gasp of outrage when he added, “I’ve been a bad friend to you, Abbie.”
Which was so ridiculous, it wiped the amusement right off her face. “What?”
He stared at her, solemn and sad. “When you’re hurting, you’re like a porcupine. You’re all … rolled up,” he said. “You want to be left on your own. So I tried to leave you on your own. I thought that was what you needed. But I think I was wrong. I think I should’ve been with you this whole time. Because you’re hurting still.”
Those words were so simple and yet revealed so much—he’d noticed a lot, even when she’d thought she was getting away with it, hiding herself and her vulnerabilities from the ones she loved. She should’ve known she could never hide from Will. She suspected she’d never done a great job hiding from anyone. Her whole family had given her space, and she’d thought it was because she seemed fine, but maybe they’d heard her asking for it beneath her careful words.
That possibility was a little embarrassing—but also surprisingly lovely. It wrapped around her with unexpected warmth, as sweet and sunny as the man standing before her. The man who was sorely mistaken. “You’ve always been a good friend to me, Will.”
“I’ve been halfway around the world,” he replied. “I send you pictures, and I don’t call too much because I know you hate it. I’ve been letting you push me away, push us all away, and I shouldn’t have.”
“That’s not true,” she insisted, and it seemed urgent that he believe her. That he see who he really was to her, what he’d done for her. “You’re the kind of friend who respects me enough to give me the space I need, and loves me enough to stay present at the same time. You didn’t overwhelm me, didn’t put all your worry on me when I had enough of my own—but you spoke to me every day. You sent me sunshine through the phone. You made it your mission to keep me smiling, and I have to tell you, Will—there have been days, over the years, when your messages were the only thing that kept me smiling. Don’t dismiss that. Don’t belittle it. Because it—it meant the world to me.”
Her words grew quieter as she trailed off, her breaths cold and unsteady. She was kind of shocked by how much she’d just said, but the thing was, she couldn’t ever let him think badly of himself, not when it was in her power to disagree. Not even if it meant speaking with the kind of emotional honesty that usually made her want to crawl into the ground.
Right now, she felt as if she might say almost anything to keep this look on Will’s face—this dawning pleasure, this aching affection. This. Fucking. Look.
He gazed down at her the way he had this morning, as if he’d give her the moon if she could bring herself to ask for it. Then he said, raising his voice over the wind, “Abbie. Tell me not to kiss you right now.”
She found she had conveniently lost the power of speech.
* * *
A sober little voice in the back of Will’s head told him that standing so close to Abbie, wanting her so obviously, wasn’t right at all. But that voice was very, very quiet under the roar of alcohol and adoration.
She looked so pretty in the cold, with her cheeks and her nose gleaming, and her glasses dotted with moisture. And she sounded so perfect, telling him their kiss wasn’t a mistake, that she’d meant it, that she’d had a reason—
The very best reason.
“I kissed you because I knew it wouldn’t hurt.”
He was only going to hurt himself, courting rejection like this, but still, he said the words. “Abbie. Tell me not to kiss you right now.”
She didn’t. She didn’t. Instead, she released this shaky little breath and then oh dear fucking God she closed her eyes.
So he kissed her, and it was like a firework show in his gut.
It wasn’t the first time they’d done this, not technically, but oh God, it was. Because two years ago, when they’d touched almost by accident, she’d looked immediately horrified, and Will—Will had been fucking furious. Abbie was black-and-white, Abbie was loyal, Abbie kept her word and was a stickler for the rules—so if she’d kissed him while she was married, even the teeniest tiniest bit, it had meant things were worse than he’d thought.