Chapter Eleven

· Eleven ·

Juliet

“Good night!” I call out the door. Toni and Hamza, the last to leave besides Bea and Jamie, wave as they start down the stairs.

Bea pulls me in for a hug and whispers in my ear, “He’s really cute!”

“Don’t know who you’re talking about!” I whisper back. I try to pull out of the hug, but she keeps me pinned to her.

“Will,” she hisses in my ear again. “I can tell he likes you, you goofalloo.”

“Banana,” I hiss, our old code word from childhood when we wanted the other sister to cease and desist whatever they were doing, and “stop” meant nothing.

Bea lets me go, but she’s grumbly about it.

Jamie offers Will a handshake. “Your first game night in the books. What do you think?”

“I think you guys know how to have fun,” Will tells him. “It was great.”

“Glad to hear it.” Jamie grins. “Hope we’ll see you around for another one soon?”

Will nods. “I hope so, too.”

Bea’s been watching the interaction with a smile on her face, but now she turns to me and says, “You sure we can’t stay to help clean up?”

“Nope.” I nudge her across the threshold. “I’ve got this. Thanks, though!”

“I’ll stay and help clean up,” Will says.

Bea’s eyebrows lift. She turns to me and smiles, then smiles up at Will. “That’s nice of you.”

Will shrugs. “Happy to.”

Bea gives me a meaningful look that says We’re not done talking about this guy! I telepathically beam back an I said “banana.” She turns again to Will. “Great to meet you. See you around!”

“Night!” Jamie calls, before they head down the stairs, hand in hand.

I watch them until they’re out of the vestibule before I shut the apartment door. Then I round on Will. “Bea’s picked up on it.”

“Picked up on what?” he asks.

I walk past him, my stomach knotting with anxiety. I start gathering up snack bowls because when I’m stressed, tidying helps me feel in control. “On…us.”

Will follows me and starts to pick up bowls, too. “I don’t know what that means. We didn’t do anything.”

I walk past him into the kitchen and nearly drop the bowls in the sink, despite trying to set them down carefully. I’m all shook up, like a bottle of soda whose bubbles are screaming for the lid to crack so they can be let out.

I bite my cheek as I start to run water over the bowls, trying to hold back the words, to keep them inside me, but I’m tired and anxious and something about Will makes me want to pour it all out, to confess that I feel a tug between us that’s impossible to ignore.

“From where I’m standing, at least,” I tell him quietly, eyes down on the water. “We don’t have to do anything; some people just have that spark, that chemistry—it just…”

Slowly, Will walks toward me, setting the bowls on the counter. “It just is ,” he says.

I stare up at him. “So you…do you feel it, too? If I’m reading this wrong, tell me, and I’ll drop it for good, I swear—”

“Juliet.” An empty laugh, a huff of air, gusts out of him. “Of course I feel it. I’ve felt it since the first moment I saw you.”

Heat rushes through me. I curl my hands around the edge of the sink. “Me, too.”

He takes a step closer, his hand sliding along the counter. “I am wildly attracted to you.”

“I, um…” I list toward him as he reaches past me and turns off the water, which was about to flood the sink. “I am very, very attracted to you, too.”

“I know,” he says quietly.

I narrow my eyes up at him. “Very sure of ourselves, are we?”

His gaze holds mine. “When talking doesn’t come easily with women, you learn to read other signs. Physical signs. That’s all.”

I sigh miserably, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “What do we do?”

“Well,” he says quietly, his gaze on my mouth. “There’s what I think we should do. Then there’s what I want us to do.”

My heart’s flying as I peer back up at him. “Care to elaborate?” My voice comes out breathy and faint.

He hesitates for a beat, then says, “I think we should keep our hands to ourselves. And our mouths.” He swallows thickly. “But I really don’t want to do that.”

I nod, then shake my head, a bundle of raw nerves and aching want. “Me, neither.”

His hand comes to my face and cups it. “Our plan is to help each other,” he says quietly, his thumb grazing my cheek. “I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”

My eyes fall shut at the pleasure of his touch, the weight of his words. He’s right, I know he is. “I don’t, either.”

“We haven’t talked about it, though, if this is something you need,” he says quietly. “Practicing this way, too. We can. If you want that.”

I shake my head. For me, getting emotionally comfortable and at ease in romance again will lead right into comfort and ease with romantic physical intimacy. But as I stare at him, I’m realizing, even if I did want to directly practice the physical aspect, I wouldn’t want practice to be the reason for his touch. I would want it to happen because he wanted me and I wanted him and nothing else. And that is exactly what I can’t admit or act on, because it would jeopardize all of this, lead me down the path I’ve told myself I will not go.

Finally, I whisper, “I don’t want to practice this way, no.”

It’s quiet for a beat, and I keep my eyes shut, let myself draw out this moment in which Will is close, touching me tenderly, the fact of our desire heavy in the air between us.

His hand slips gently from my face. “Then let’s do some dishes.”

—

There’s a lot to be said for a guy who knows how to clean up from a party, and Will is one of them. Another green flag added to the tally.

We’ve worked in quiet for the past half hour, which, given we just admitted our mutual attraction to each other and established a clear boundary that it’s not going to be a part of our romance practice, is pretty comfortable. After I turn on the dishwasher, I glance up and watch Will as he finishes wiping down the table with one last spritz of cleaner and two swift circles of the cloth in his hand.

“Thanks,” I tell him, readjusting the claw clip I put in my hair when I started the dishes. “For helping with all this. It made a big difference.”

He peers up, his mouth lifting at the corner. “Of course.”

I smile. “I’m glad you had fun at game night. Spider trauma aside.”

“Spider trauma aside, it was a good time.” He gathers up the rag in one hand, spray cleaner in the other, and walks back my way, into the kitchen. “You were right. Your friends are weird. In the best way.”

“Yeah.” I take the rag from him and drape it over the sink’s edge. “They’re great.”

Will leans a hip against the counter. “Very competitive, though. I thought when I beat Sula at Guess Who, she was gonna throw her game board.”

I grimace. “Yeah. Sula doesn’t like to lose. She’s pretty intense.”

“ Sula is intense?” he asks, folding his arms across his chest. “Says the most competitive woman in the room.”

I gape. “What?”

“You did a victory lap around the table when you beat me.”

“It was a tight match,” I say primly, turning back to the sink. I turn on the water, press the water nozzle’s button to make it a power-washing spray, and start rinsing out the sink basin. “Can you blame me for celebrating my win?”

“A win,” he says, leaning in, “that you clinched because you referenced my fear of pigeons.”

“That was a fair play!”

He shrugs. “If you say so.”

“Sore loser!” Impulsively, I lift the spray nozzle and nail him in the chest.

Will’s mouth drops open. His eyes are wide.

As soon as I realize what I’ve done, my face does the same thing. “Oh, Will. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

Will yanks the nozzle from me and nails me in the same spot.

I gasp. “Will Orsino!”

He laughs—laughs!—and it’s glorious, rich and deep, right from his belly. “Take that!” he crows.

I rip the nozzle back out of his hand and spray him in the face.

“Ack!” He wipes his eyes, then lunges for the nozzle.

Knowing I’m done for, I dart away as fast as my body can move, rounding the island. Will’s too fast, though. He leans over the counter and beans me, water spraying into my hair and down my neck.

“You turd!” I holler.

“Says the turd who started it!” he yells back.

I reach for the nozzle, but this time Will holds tight. My grip is weaker than it used to be, but even in my heyday, I would have been no match for him. Grunting with effort, I still try, attempting to pry his fingers from the nozzle. Will doesn’t budge, but he’s grunting, too. At least I’m making him work for it.

“Woman,” he yells, his voice breaking with a laugh. “Stop it! No more!”

The absurdity of the moment hits me, and I double over in laughter.

Will drops the nozzle as another belly laugh leaves him, too. I clasp his arm as I laugh harder, bent over and gasping for breath. “I’m sorry,” I wheeze. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

He snorts, wiping more water from his face with his free hand. “Ah, no harm. I got you back.”

I stand, finally able to breathe, my laughter dying. I stare down at myself. “Blech.” I shake my hands, sending water droplets flying. “I’m so wet. I need to change.”

“Funny,” Will says. “I find myself in a similar predicament. Except I have nothing dry to change into.”

“Not true,” I tell him, starting down the hall toward the bedrooms. “Come on. I’ve got you covered.”

Will doesn’t immediately follow me, but a few seconds later, I hear his footfall not too far behind. I open the door to the room that used to be Bea’s, which I’ve now converted to an office. Bea’s old dresser is still here. She didn’t need it when she and Jamie moved into their place together—they bought a new one that fit all of their clothes.

Bending over, I drag open a drawer and riffle around for one of Christopher’s T-shirts. I find a soft white undershirt, then shove the drawer shut. When I stand and try to hand it to Will, he doesn’t take it. He just stands there, his brow furrowed.

“What?” I ask.

He clears his throat. His face looks tense. “You have…men’s clothes here?”

I tip my head, curious. “Yes. Christopher’s.”

The tension leaves him. Slowly, he takes the shirt from my hands. “Ah. Gotcha.”

I lean a hip on the edge of the dresser. “Christopher keeps some stuff here, has for years. Casual clothes mostly, for when he comes over after a day in the office and wants to dress down. He also plays in a pickup basketball league at the court right behind the apartment on Sunday mornings. Then he’ll come up to the apartment afterward, shower off, and change.”

“Got it.” Will nods. “Makes sense.”

I stare up at Will, smiling, though I’m trying not to. I’ve got a little suspicion, and it makes me inordinately happy when I shouldn’t be. “Did the sight of another man’s clothes in my apartment make you jealous, Will?”

He shakes his head.

“Pinkie promise,” I remind him. “Be honest.”

Will clasps the shirt tight in his hands. “It wasn’t my finest moment. We’re…we’re just friends. What we’re doing, it’s only practice. I have no grounds to ask about whose clothes you keep at your place.”

I search his eyes. “That’s true.” Pushing off the dresser, I walk past him, toward the door. “For the record, romantically speaking, I don’t think a little jealousy is the worst thing. So long as you don’t get toxic about it.”

“Wasn’t jealous,” he calls.

I shut the door behind me, smiling to myself, and cross the hall to my room.

Walking around my bedroom, I start to tug my crochet sweater over my head, and my tank top, all in one, up as far as my elbows, before I feel the sweater resist my efforts to take it over my head. I feel around awkwardly, trying to figure out what’s caught, and deduce that it’s snagged on my claw clip. Sighing, I try to lower the sweater down on my head, hoping it disentangles it from the claw clip. But when I do, the sweater sticks even more. Now I can’t even get it back down.

I swear under my breath and plop onto my bed. Maybe if I’m sitting, this will be easier.

It is not easier. I wrestle some more with the sweater, trying unsuccessfully, with my arms pinned up in the sweater, to reach for the claw clip.

“Argghhh!” I yell, kicking my legs in frustration.

“Juliet?” Will’s voice is right outside my door. “You okay?”

“No!” I yell. “I’m having a wet wardrobe crisis.”

There’s a beat of silence, then he says, “Do you, uh…need some help?”

I moan in frustration. “Yes. But fair warning, you’re going to see my bra.”

Another beat of silence. “Uh, okay.”

“Come on in, then.”

The door swings open. Will walks in, both hands held like a visor over his bent head. He walks in, shuffling carefully, but he still manages to knock his hip into my dresser and catch his foot on my slipper lying in the middle of the floor.

“Will, you can lose the blinders. You’re going to have to look eventually. This is a two-eyes, two-hands problem.”

Hesitantly, Will lowers his hands. His gaze immediately snaps to my chest and widens. He peers up at the ceiling. His cheeks are bright red. “Sorry. I—” He swallows roughly. “Really sorry.”

I’m too sore, too uncomfortable, to care that he just got an eyeful. “Just get me out of this, please.”

“Right.” Will steps closer, reaching over me. I shut my eyes, wincing as he reaches inside my sweater, his hands working quickly. I feel the claw clip loosen in my hair, the sweater slip back down my body. My arms drop and I shake them out, relieved not to have to hold them up anymore.

I tug my tank top back down and drag off the sweater, flinging it in the corner. “Thank God.”

“Will’s fine,” he says.

A laugh jumps out of me, so hard I wheeze. It’s the last thing I expected him to say. “Will Orsino, what am I going to do with you?”

Our eyes meet. Will’s expression is intense, unblinking.

I feel myself blush, self-conscious under his scrutinizing stare. “What is it?”

“You just…” His gaze dances over my face. “You gave the best damn laugh.”

My heart jolts and clatters, like it missed a step and went tumbling down the stairs. “I’ve been told it’s loud.”

“Oh, it’s loud all right. But it’s…right, how it should be. Like…fireworks. When you’re staring up at the sky, watching them light up the night, all sparkle and glitter, there’s nothing else that should follow that beauty but an epic boom . That’s…what your laugh feels like, like it should be—as loud as it is pretty.”

“Oh boy.” A shaky exhale leaves me. “That was a great compliment. Ten out of ten, no notes.”

“I wasn’t…” He swallows thickly. “I wasn’t practicing compliments, there.”

“I know,” I whisper. “But if I tell myself you were, then…then I won’t want to kiss you so much.”

Will’s gaze darkens. He takes a step closer to me. I grip the hem of his shirt, anchoring myself, trying hopelessly to pin myself to reality.

“What if I want to kiss you , too?” he whispers.

I lick my lips, my body listing toward his. “We agreed we shouldn’t.”

“We did.” He brushes back wet hair from my temple.

“Because it wouldn’t be for practice,” I tell him. “And practicing is the only reason we’re ever supposed to act romantic.”

“True,” he says quietly.

“Then again…” I stare at his mouth. “Friends kiss sometimes. We’re friends.”

A low hmmm rumbles in his throat.

I’m full of shit, and we both know it. We wouldn’t kiss like friends. We’d kiss like people who want to tear each other’s clothes off.

I should pull away. He should, too. But we don’t. We stare at each other, chests rising and falling as we breathe.

And then Will’s hand slips into my hair, fingers sinking deep. His gaze searches mine, then he whispers, “Fuck it,” and wrenches me against him.

I whimper in relief, throwing my arms around him, clumsy, desperate.

Our foreheads meet, breath sawing out of our lungs. Our noses brush. I cup his neck, my fingers sinking into his hair, too.

And then finally, finally , his mouth brushes mine, faint for just a moment, then more, pressing deeper, longer. Warm, soft, so impossibly good. Air rushes out of Will as I open my mouth, as his tongue strokes mine. Another whimper leaks out of me, fire racing through my veins, pooling deep in my belly, as he sinks his hand deep into my hair while the other cradles my face. I lick into his mouth and he groans, then deepens our kiss, so deep it feels like sex, the kind that makes you feel taken, consumed, shattered, and put back together.

I whine as he draws back, tenderly kissing the corners of my mouth, my cupid’s bow, my bottom lip, which he tugs gently between his teeth. Clutching at his shirt, I draw him closer, desperate not to lose him, to lose this. I never want it to end.

I’m practically scaling him like a tree, pressing up on tiptoes, yanking him toward me. I need more—more of his body against mine, his weight and heat and strength.

Will wraps me in his arms, crushing me to his chest, and my knees nearly give out. The moment our mouths meet, our tongues flick and dance, building to a slow, sensual rhythm—hot, deep strokes that grow hotter, wetter, faster, until each breath is a gasp against each other’s mouth. Will’s hands are warm and strong, the faintest tremor running through them as he glides them up and down my arms, along my throat, into my hair, cradling my face again, then down my body until they’re wrapping around my back again to draw me into him.

I arch up as he presses me closer, my breasts brushing his chest, his fingertips grazing my ribs. “Will,” I gasp against our kiss. I cup his cheeks and take his mouth with mine.

“Juliet,” he whispers.

Slowly, we break our kiss. I think it’s because we both know that if we keep kissing, it’s not going to stop there.

And it has to. Because this is not what friends do—at least, not friends who are helping each other find their way to a path of happiness that doesn’t end with each other.

Our foreheads meet, chests heaving. We stand in silence for a few breaths, heads pressed together.

Until gently, Will draws back. His eyes meet mine. His face is flushed, his pupils blown wide. He looks wildly turned on and mildly panicked. That makes two of us.

My smile is wobbly, but I manage it, even though I’m still flushed, still winded from what we did. I search his eyes, relieved that I don’t see regret but still worried. I don’t want to lose what we’ve just begun to build—this space we share that’s kind and safe and playful.

I swallow to wet my throat. I’m still not sure of my voice, but I force the words anyway. “You kiss all your friends like that, Will Orsino?”

He stares down at me and shakes his head. “Absolutely not.”

I clasp his hand, stroking his palm softly. “Lucky me, then,” I whisper.

“Juliet,” he mutters, shaking his head again. “That was…”

I nod. “Yeah, it was.”

His eyes search mine. “We did what we said we wouldn’t.”

I nod again. “Yeah, we did.” I squeeze his hand, trying to reassure him. “But…maybe that’s what we needed. To, you know, get it out of our system. Now the air is cleared.”

The air is not cleared. The air is thick with unslaked lust and raw longing. Will’s body is still half-pressed to mine, and I feel him, thick in his jeans, his pulse pounding in his wrist that I hold. I feel how wet I am between my thighs, how my heart thunders in my chest. This did nothing to get it out of our system.

But that’s just going to have to be okay.

Because we’re not quitting on this. I feel his resolve and mine in our locked gaze, in some unspoken understanding as we pull apart.

Will rakes a hand through his hair, a bewildered expression on his face as he makes a quarter turn toward the door. “I should get on the road.” He turns back, searching my face. “Are you…are you okay?”

I nod, smiling. I know what we did was a logistical disaster. But God, did it feel good. “I’m okay,” I tell him, and I mean it. “Are you?”

He blinks rapidly. “I mean, I’m a little light-headed, but I’ll get there.”

A soft laugh jumps out of me. I thread my arm through his and walk him toward the hallway. “Can’t have you driving home light-headed. Come on, big guy. I’ll get you a juice box for the road.”