Chapter Twenty-Four

· Twenty-Four ·

Will

Juliet doesn’t want me to give her a ride to the hidden desires party that starts in just under an hour. She promised she’d catch a ride with some of the friend group and wouldn’t be taking the train to the event on her own, so I have peace of mind.

At least, for now. Until I see her dressed up like a dominatrix.

“Can’t think about that,” I mutter to myself, tugging off my suit jacket and tossing it onto the bed.

I tug down my suit pants next, remembering too late that my phone is in one of the front pockets. It clatters to the floor, and I scoop it up, relieved to see the message I’ve been waiting for.

Fest: Made it into the city, but this traffic! Finally started moving at least. Be there in 10, so says Google Maps, but who the hell knows.

The message was sent fifteen minutes ago. I frown at the screen, not sure how I missed his text, when I had my phone connected to my truck. Then again, I drove back from Juliet’s place to Fee’s in a distracted daze.

Because I’m spiraling.

Our dinner date tonight didn’t feel one bit like practice. I didn’t talk about practice. Juliet didn’t, either. And it felt so right, so good, even when it was awkward and clumsy at first, when my nerves got the best of me—but really, can I be blamed, when she looked like a goddess? I’m lucky I could form complete sentences.

Over shared meals, forks dipping from one plate to another, nudging each other, to try this bite right here, we talked so easily. Juliet asking about how I found Hector, my favorite music, about my parents, the distillery, the farm; wanting to know about my sisters, their birth order, their names, what they do for work; begging to see pictures of my niece and nephew; peppering me with questions about my agricultural studies in college, my trips to Scotland for work. My endless questions about her life growing up in the city, why she studied public relations and corporate communications in college, how her work has changed since she shifted to freelance business writing, her relationship with her sisters and parents, what romance novels are her favorite, where she wants to travel to, what flowers she’d grow if she had a garden all to herself.

Every moment of it…flowed.

That want for her that began weeks ago—hell, who am I kidding, it began when I saw her across a Scottish pub last December, and the work trip I’d taken in place of Mom, who was hurting too bad to travel, became infinitely more worth it—at first, it was simply lust. But ever since we started these practice dates, it’s been snowballing, growing bigger, denser, packed with everything I’ve learned about her past, what she wants from her future, what I’ve figured out makes her smile and earns her laugh, what makes her feel safe and seen.

Unbuttoning my shirt, I stare down at the floor and try to calm my racing heart.

I told her, at dinner tonight, that I was going to be brave and order my meal, knowing there was still a very good chance I’d fuck it up—which I did—that I wanted to try anyway, to take a chance again and hope it might work out this time, when I haven’t hoped that way for so long. And I realized, as I said it to her, that I wasn’t just talking about swallowing my pride at the restaurant. I was talking about pushing myself, hoping for myself, in a much bigger arena—in my heart.

What if I held out hope for the kind of love with my future wife that Juliet believes in and wants for herself? What if I took a chance, trusted that I could give and receive what Juliet wants from a partner and that it wouldn’t lead to hurt and rejection again? I still don’t know if I believe that it’s possible.

But…I think I want to.

And yet.

I know it’s unfair to read into what Juliet did after I confessed that, the way she drew back her hand and breezily carried the conversation forward in that effortless way she has. Of course she couldn’t read my mind, couldn’t possibly know what I was really saying. I, of all people, as someone who struggles mightily to read between the lines of what others say and has experienced plenty of times how shitty it is to be resented for that, shouldn’t expect it of her, shouldn’t hold against her how she responded or endow it with some grander significance.

But my fear, my uncertainty, clings to what she did. And I can’t help but feel in my gut that she pulled back because somehow she sensed what I really meant and it wasn’t something she wanted from me.

Or worse, something she didn’t think she could want from me, something she didn’t think I could do any more than I could order a damn pasta dish off the menu without making an ass of myself.

“Yoo-hoo!”

Fest’s voice from the other side of the apartment door makes me jump. I set a hand on my racing heart and breathe out slowly as I walk toward the door.

I open it a crack and hold out my hand. “Thanks, Fest. You can hand them over.”

“Now, hold on,” he says. The door smacks into my shoulder as he pushes against it. “Let me in.”

I shove back. “Fest. Just hand over the clothes. I’m in my boxers.”

“What do I care?” He shoves harder. Dammit, he’s strong for a wiry man who’s half a foot shorter than me.

“ I care.”

“Then put some pants on and let me in! This is how I’m repaid for being your errand boy? Sneaking around your parents’ attic, stealing family heirlooms from right under their noses? Driving two hours on my Saturday night and suffering through godforsaken city traffic?”

Growling, I let the door fly open. Fest comes stumbling in, his hands full of garment bags holding the clothes I need for my costume.

I yank them from his arms. “Thank you very much,” I tell him. “You can leave now.”

He stares at me, blue eyes wide, wearing an obnoxiously large grin. He’s got one of his usual loud ball caps on—this one is a neon rainbow watercolor print so bright, it hurts to look at it.

Tugging the ball cap off his head and revealing his mussed black hair threaded with silver, he fans his face. His eyes go straight to my barely there beard. “My goodness. Look at you .”

I spin on the pretense of hanging up the clothing he brought, my back to him.

“I need to get ready now,” I tell him, unzipping the first garment bag, “or I’m going to be late.”

“Ready yourself, then,” he says, his boots clomping across the floorboards. I hear the mattress creak and a contended sigh. “I’m in no rush.”

“Fest,” I snap, glancing over my shoulder. “Get the hell out of here.”

He stretches his arms out wide, his face the portrait of martyrdom. “Can’t an old man rest his weary bones for a few minutes?”

“You’re five years older than me, not fifty. And you sat on your ass for two hours driving here,” I tell him, turning back to the next garment bag, unzipping that, too. “What could you possibly need to rest for?”

“Your parents’ attic,” he tells me, “is so crammed full of shit, it was like spelunking, fighting my way to that storage chest. I barely made it out alive.”

I roll my eyes. The dramatics with this man.

“Fine,” I grumble. “But if I hear a word from you about—”

“About what?” he says, setting his hands behind his head. He kicks off his boots, then stretches his legs out onto the bed. “That you haven’t shaved your face that close in over a decade? That getting dressed up tonight in this…attire is only something you’d do if there was someone who very much wanted to see you dressed up that way?”

I glare at him. “Yes. All of that.”

“My, oh my,” he says, clucking his tongue. “Willy’s got himself a woman.”

“Fest, I swear to God, shut your mouth, or I’ll throw you out of this room.”

He rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t lay a hand on me. I’ve been much more obnoxious before—”

“That’s the damn truth,” I mutter, pulling out the shirt, hanging it on one of the hooks mounted to the wall.

“—and you’ve never so much as laid a finger on me.”

“Lovely to see you respecting my self-control, rather than exploiting it.”

“Ah, c’mon,” he says. “Talk to old Festy. Tell me all about her! She has to be special if you finally let her wrap you around her finger. And that is the only thing I can assume has happened, given what I’m seeing here. The getup, the urgency to acquire said getup.” He pauses meaningfully, and I know what’s coming next. “The shaving .”

I glance up at the ceiling, praying that portion over my bed will drop down and knock Fest out. I can’t handle this.

“Fest,” I mutter. “Ease up on me, okay? I’m…I’m trying to keep it together, and it’s not going great.”

I peer at my reflection in the mirror over the dresser, the battle I’m waging inside myself written all over my face.

I’ve shaved, when I’ve otherwise kept my big beard to hide because I didn’t want to be seen by others but I’ve decided it’s worth it to be seen by anyone, if only for the chance to be seen by her.

I’ve pulled this costume together, because, after noticing the books on her shelves, their spines creased and cracked, the ones she loves best, I knew seeing me in this outfit would make Juliet light up like she’d swallowed sunshine and earn that snorting belly laugh that I live for.

The Old Will would have done none of this. But the New Will has, and I don’t regret a second of it. And that’s how I know I’m in trouble. Because if I had my feelings for Juliet under control, I wouldn’t have gone this far.

I’m wrenched from my thoughts when I hear the bed squeak, Fest’s socked feet crossing the floor. Fest peers up at me, his expression somber, so rare for this man who’s always happy, always joking and flippant. “Oh hell.” He searches my eyes. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

I glance between the costume I’m about to put on and my unfamiliar reflection. The Old Will wouldn’t be caught dead with his beard shaved down to only a faint scruff or wearing an outfit like the one he’s about to put on. But the Old Will hadn’t met Juliet.

None of this would be, if it weren’t for Juliet. This time with Juliet hasn’t changed me, but it’s challenged me, and rather than dig in and double down, like I would have in the past, I’ve reached and grown in ways I was so sure I would never want to, ways that are turning my preconceived notions, my sensible plans for my future, right on their head.

I turn back to the clothes hanging on their hooks and reach for the shirt.

“Yeah, Fest,” I mutter. “It is.”