Chapter Fourteen

· Fourteen ·

Will

Juliet has somehow beaten me to the bar, even though it’s only 5:55 and my journey to our destination involved coming down a flight of stairs. I’m staying in Fee’s old studio above the pub, which is cozy and surprisingly quiet for having a rowdy pub beneath it. I pocket the key I used to let myself into the pub from the studio’s first-floor landing and walk toward Juliet, trying to slow my heart rate.

Ripped light-wash jeans, another pair of flower sneakers like the ones she wore to our coffee shop date— practice date—except these are covered in tiny blue flowers with green leaves. Another one of those crochet tops, like her sweater last week, but a tank top, its midnight-blue color striking against her pale skin. She looks incredible.

Worse, I’m not just knocked sideways by how beautiful she is. I realize, as this awful ache settles in my chest…I missed her. I missed her arm hooked around mine, missed her wide, sunny smile, missed the way she wrinkles her nose when she’s thinking hard.

Off-limits, off-limits, off-limits! my brain chants.

My heart thrashes against my ribs in protest. My body’s tight and hot, drawn like a magnet toward her.

I am so fucked.

I weave through the crowd, going slow to buy myself time, to try to cool off. I mentally run through the bullet points from meeting with our tax consultant lady this week, hoping that’ll help.

It doesn’t help.

Juliet leans her elbows farther on the bar, laughing as Fee says something to her. I watch the two of them interacting. It seems like…they know each other.

Carefully, I ease onto the stool beside Juliet. “This seat taken?”

Juliet spins toward me, wide-eyed, spine straight, looking like I’ve startled her. When she sees me, her expression brightens, and a smile lifts her lush mouth. “Saved it just for you.”

I told myself I wouldn’t hug her, that I would keep our touches to an absolute minimum. But that resolution goes right out the window when she sets her hand on my knee and squeezes. “Hey,” she says quietly. “Good to see you.”

I stretch an arm across the back of her chair and pull her against me, her shoulder to my chest, my chin resting on her head. “Good to see you, too.”

I feel her melt into me, her cheek nuzzle my button-up. God, it feels good.

We pull away and she smiles up at me, but her gaze is searching. “Is this…Are we okay?”

I’ve always found reading people hard, discerning the subtext of vague statements, sarcasm, difficult, at least until I get to know people well. Then I learn their pattern, their nuances, of how they communicate. I learn to read them.

It does something to me, to feel like I’ve learned Juliet at lightning speed, that I can already read between the lines of what she means. At least, I think so. I think she isn’t just asking if this moment is okay right now. She’s asking about all of this, all of what we’re doing.

I brush a strand of hair back from her face and nod. “ I am. Are you?”

She smiles faintly. “Yeah. I am.”

“Now, this is precious,” Fee says.

Juliet and I snap apart, facing her. Fee’s leaning on the bar, her gray hair held back by her usual red bandana. Her brown eyes twinkle as she looks at us.

Juliet clears her throat. “Um, Fee, this is my friend Will. Will, this is—”

A wheezing laugh jumps out of Fee. She slaps her hands on the bar. “Sweetheart, I know who this is. I’ve known him since he was in diapers. No, even earlier. In fact, I’d say I’m responsible for his existence.” She smiles smugly. “I matched up his parents. It’s a bit of a skill of mine.”

Juliet’s eyes widen. She swivels on her barstool toward me. “Seriously?”

I shrug. “It’s true.” Glancing between Fee and Juliet, I ask, “So…how do you two know each other?” I turn to Juliet, “Are you a regular here or something?”

Fee laughs again.

Juliet’s still got a stunned look on her face. “Fee’s known me since I was in diapers. She matched up my parents.”

Fee leans in and says, “Indeed I did, and you’re welcome.” She straightens, dragging a couple of empties off the bar beside me. “In the same summer, no less. Trying to think. I hadn’t yet introduced your parents to each other at my pub, Juliet. That came later on. August, I want to say? Your mother and I were still roommates, living over the pub, single as could be. When I told her I was headed upstate for a networking event—really, it was more of a giant party of like-minded folks, but it was organized by a bunch of hippies in the area wanting to commit to sustainable land cultivation, so hardly surprising—she decided to tag along, enjoy a weekend out of the city.

“I was planning to poke around at the event, see if I could form some connections with local farmers to source the pub, and I was going to meet up with a friend from college—Will’s mother, Isla—who had just moved there after inheriting a pretty piece of land she had dreams of using for sustainable farming. Her land was right up against a distillery, owned by the man I introduced her to at the event, Grant Orsino.”

Juliet glances my way, then back to Fee. “So our moms met, then?”

She nods. “Maureen and I stayed with Isla in the place she was renting in town—there wasn’t a property to stay at on her land.” She sighs wistfully. “We had a hell of a weekend, the three of us.”

“Isla.” Juliet frowns, thinking. “I don’t think Mom’s ever mentioned her. Why is that?”

“They got on great,” Fee says, “but then Maureen came back to the city and met your dad shortly after, fell into her whirlwind romance with him; Isla and Grant were upstate, busy putting their lands and lives together.” She shrugs. “Wasn’t really a reason for your mothers to stay in touch outside of spending time with me. They’re both my friends, primarily. But I’ve rounded them up every once in a while over the years, when I want to get together with my gal pals. They still get on great. The three of us met up in Ireland, just a few months ago, actually.”

Juliet’s mouth drops open. “Wait, when Mom went on her girls’ trip, Will’s mom was with you?”

“She was.” Fee grins. “So, you see, it’s quite a delightfully small-world moment, seeing you two here. Now, let’s have an Orsino whiskey to celebrate this serendipity, shall we?” She winks. “On the house, of course.”

—

Juliet sits back in her seat and smiles. “My belly is a happy place.”

I make a noise of agreement into my glass of ice water. I keep chugging it, hoping it’ll cool me down. Fee’s refilled my glass so many times, she told me after the last round to just grab the damn water gun and handle it myself.

The ice water isn’t working. I’m burning up. And not because it’s warm in the pub. My body’s been on fire the whole meal, while I’ve been listening to Juliet’s sweet little noises of pleasure in the back of her throat between bites, the breathy sigh of satisfaction after she sips my family’s whiskey, my favorite batch our distillery’s ever made.

I set down my water glass and catch her watching me. “What is it?”

She shrugs, a soft smile on her face as she twists her whiskey glass on its coaster, back and forth. “I just can’t get over this. Our moms knew each other. Our parents met the same summer, all because of this battle-axe—”

“I heard that!” Fee calls.

Juliet ducks her head, grinning sheepishly. “A term of endearment!” she calls back.

She swivels her barstool chair back toward me. I turn mine to face her, too. Our knees brush. Her ankle nudges mine. I’m half-hard already in my jeans, and these incidental touches are not helping, but I’m too greedy for how good they feel to be sensible.

“And then,” she says, “you and I meet on the other side of the world, then again in my backyard. Right at a moment when we both…”

“Needed to,” I say quietly.

She nods, shaking her head. “Isn’t it just…incredible? It’s incredible, right?”

I nod slowly. “Yeah. It is.”

She smiles up at me and shrugs again, a happy little jump of her shoulders, then drags the menu toward us and flips it open. “I think I want dessert. I need something sweet in my mouth.”

“Me, too.” It comes out rough and suggestive.

Juliet does a double take, eyes wide.

I shut my eyes and groan. “That was a—”

“Thinking thought,” she says, snapping the menu shut. “That became a talking thought.”

I hazard opening one eye. My cheeks are beet red. “Sorry ’bout that.”

“I’ll allow the occasional innuendo,” she says, sitting back in her seat. “ If you try to flirt with me, too.”

Nerves tighten my stomach. “Must I?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Come on, workout buddy, this is me adding…” She frowns. “One of those disc thingies on your bar to make it heavier.”

I grin. “A weight plate.”

“Right. This is me adding a weight plate. Well, hold on. You need one on each side, don’t you, so you’re balanced? In that case, we need two things. So…I want you to try flirting…and compliments.” She mimes picking up a heavy weight plate, sliding it onto one end of an imaginary bar, before she strains with an imaginary second plate and barely slides that one on the other end. “Phew. Okay.” She wipes her forehead and mimes flicking away sweat. “Now you’re all set to go. Flirting. Compliments.” She slugs me playfully on the shoulder. “Time to level up.”

Her whole act, it’s so fucking cute, a laugh rumbles in my chest. My mouth lifts in a smile so wide, it makes my face ache.

Juliet leans close, her eyes sparkling. “Finally.” She slaps her hands on my knees and squeezes them. “I finally made you smile.”

“ Finally? Juliet, all you’ve got to do is walk into a room, and I’m grinning like a fool.”

Her cheeks pink. “Well.” She clears her throat, fidgeting with the tiny gold stud in her right ear. “That was good. Kind of a two for one—a compliment and flirtation.”

That wasn’t practice , I think. That was just the simple truth.

But thankfully, I keep that thinking thought where it belongs, inside my head. And I lean in to her, because I’m warming up to seeing how my words impact Juliet, how they make her cheeks flush and her eyes glitter.

“What else have you got?” she asks, leaning in toward me, too.

I set my arm on her chair, bringing us closer, not so close that I’m invading her space, but close enough that I can smell her soft, flowery perfume mingling with the warmth of her skin, see her chest rising and falling faster than it was a moment ago. “If you were a veggie,” I tell her, “you’d be a cute-cumber.”

Juliet rolls her eyes and groans, “Willllll.”

I grin, fighting the heat that roars through me at hearing her groan my name like that. I know she’s exasperated, but damn, it still does it for me.

“Come onnnn,” she whines, landing a halfhearted punch to my thigh. “A good one. The one that’ll sweep your future wifey right off her feet. Let’s hear it.”

“Okay, okay.” I take a moment as the words gather in my thoughts, and graze my fingers along her shoulder. My heart pounds as I meet her eyes. “When I spend time with you, I forget everything else that ever made me happy—the perfect night of games and food and laughter with my family, the unbeatable line in my favorite song, the most breathtaking sunset, the best whiskey I’ve ever made. And when I’m not with you, when everything else that brings me happiness is all that’s left, the only thing I can think is just how much I want to share that with you, how much I want you to share with me what makes you happy, too.”

Juliet stares up at me, eyes wide, her mouth softly parted. Then she reaches for her whiskey and drains it. “That…will most certainly do.”

“Yeah?”

She blows out a slow breath. “Oh yeah.” Tipping her head, she peers at me, her gaze dancing over my face. “Now my turn.”

My hand clamps down on the back of her chair. “Here?”

Her brow furrows. “Where else? We’re practicing, right?”

Practicing. Right.

I groan and scrub at my neck. “Yeah, it’s just that…I’m going to blush. I always blush at compliments. They feel weird.”

Juliet bites her lip against a smile. “I think it’s cute when you blush.”

My heart jumps in my chest. And dammit, a blush heats my cheeks. “So much for you being rusty.”

“I wasn’t practicing yet!” She leans in, her expression earnest. “And I am rusty, okay? Maybe I don’t seem like it to you, but I feel it.”

I peer down at her and nod. “Okay. I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to be dismissive.”

“I know.” She gently squeezes my knee, her gaze fixed on mine. “ Now I’m going to practice.”

“Okay.” I focus on my breathing, trying to cool my body, but her hand’s weight and warmth seep through my jeans, my skin, and it feels like it’s a match that’s caught tinder, a fire racing through my veins. Her soft, flowery perfume drifts toward me. Her hair slips forward, its dark ends sweeping along the edge of her cleavage. I scrunch my eyes shut.

Her touch moves from my knee to my hand, her fingers tracing up my wrist. “So many freckles—”

“Gee, thanks.”

She squeezes my wrist. “Give me a second.”

I feel a pinch of regret. She said she feels rusty, and I probably just made her feel rustier, responding that way. “Sorry,” I mutter.

“No, that’s on me,” she says softly. “I didn’t lead with what I meant to.” She pauses, then says, her fingers tracing up my arm now, “I love these freckles. I love how many there are.”

My eyes snap open and narrow on her. “You’re joking.”

Her eyes narrow, too. She leans in. “I’m practicing. Do you mind?”

I’m skeptical, but I keep quiet.

Juliet peers at my arm, watching her fingers trace a meandering line from freckle to freckle. “I could spend an entire day doing this, tracing your freckles, finding constellations, hidden stories.” Her eyes meet mine. “Connecting the dots.”

A rough swallow works down my throat. “An entire day?”

“At least,” she says quietly, heat in her gaze.

“As you noticed, I have a lot of freckles. Might take longer than that.”

A loud belly laugh jumps out of her. “Will, you are the funniest person I know.”

“Come on,” I tell her flatly.

She slugs my thigh with her fist. “Dammit, Orsino! Stop it!”

“Stop what?” I frown, rubbing at my thigh.

“Stop crushing my compliments. Stop fighting my flirting.” She sets both hands on my knees and leans in, pressing our faces so close, she’s almost a blur. “I promised you I’d be honest, remember? I’m not joking or bullshitting you. I’m not flattering you. I’m flirting with you.” Her gaze dips down to my mouth. “I’m complimenting you. And I damn well mean what I say.”

My racing heart is tight and aching, like my sides are when I push myself on a run to the point that I can barely breathe, when I’m reaching for a new depth of speed, endurance, capability. Maybe my heart feels like this because it’s doing that same thing—digging deeper, stretching toward a capacity it hasn’t had before.

“I know I haven’t known you very long,” she says quietly, “but you really are the funniest person I know.” Her eyes dart up to mine again. “Because when you share your humor, it’s always unexpected, and I love the element of surprise; because I can tell you’re being genuine and what you say is never at someone else’s expense, when most people’s humor comes with that cost.”

I stare down at her. My throat feels thick. “Thank you.”

She beams up at me. “You’re welcome.” After a beat, she says, “So…how did I do? I mean, I know I had my false start there, but once I got going?”

I cock an eyebrow. “Let’s just say, if this is you being rusty, I don’t know if I can take what you’re capable of with the romantic equivalent of WD-40.”

“I bet you could take it just fine,” she says, leaning close. “Lube does serve that purpose.”

I turn bright red. “I walked right into that, didn’t I?”

Juliet’s cheeks are pink, her eyes bright. “You did, and I appreciate the opportunity to practice a bit of innuendo myself.” A soft laugh leaves her as she smiles up at me. “That blush.” Her hands come to my face as she holds my eyes. “Is a dazzling, dangerous thing.”

Oh hell. I’m going to kiss her again.

I can’t kiss her again.

I swallow roughly as I stare down at her. And I let myself hover on that glorious, torturous edge of desire and acting on it. I won’t cross that line again, I’ve promised myself. But I will toe that line and savor every minute of it.

I bring my hands gently to hers and draw them down from my face, my thumbs sweeping over her skin. All I want is to keep touching her, for her to keep touching me, but if we keep this up, I’m not going to be able to toe that line well at all.

I don’t want the night to end just because it’s hard for me to resist her, to not act on this wildly intense attraction. I want to give Juliet what she needs, in practicing romance—time to get comfortable with it again, a safe space to flirt and compliment and find her footing.

Nodding toward the dartboard in the corner of the pub, I ask her, “What do you say I kick your ass at darts?”

Her gaze follows mine and she laughs, loud and long, music to my ears. “Oh, Will. Challenge accepted.”