Chapter Three

· Three ·

Juliet

My stomach’s doing somersaults. Will holds the heavy back door open for me with just his fingertips, and it makes his arm muscles do obscene things. I swallow thickly and force my smile wider, then spin and rush out onto Christopher’s back porch before my horny thoughts are projected on my face.

Will’s steps are steady behind mine as I cross the small back porch. There’s no furniture back here, and I think about where we could sit and talk. We could park it on the steps, but as I glance out across the yard, dappled in buttery morning light, a warm July breeze swaying the trees above us, I know where we should go.

I head down the steps to the backyard as the wind picks up, swaying the swings hanging from the elaborate playground structure that Christopher’s and my parents went in on together decades ago, built so it straddles our two yards. It’s solid wood and sturdy, in surprisingly good condition for how old it is, though I do know it’s been given a little love the past few years, since my mother started dropping casual comments about its future use for whenever we “see fit to give her grandbabies (no pressure, of course).”

Kate, who’s two years younger than me and skeptical she’ll ever want kids, snort-laughs every time Mom talks about grandkids. Bea, my twin, just grins up at her fiancé, Jamie, who never fails to blush when he smiles right back.

For months, after I broke up with my awful fiancé, every time I caught a glimpse of the playground, my stomach twisted. Because I’d been planning to give my mom those grandbabies, and soon. With him.

I smile to myself now, feeling no twist in my stomach, no pang of sadness. Just peace. Tiny moments like this, when I recognize how far I’ve come, how much I’ve healed, they are small but sweet victories.

The wind sways the swings again, and my smile deepens.

Glancing over my shoulder at Will, I ask him, “How’s a morning swing sound? I mean, I know we’ve got full cups of coffee, so nothing wild. Just to sit on and…have a chat?”

He eyes up the swing set branching off the main playground structure, skepticism written all over his face. “Pretty sure,” he says, “I exceed that thing’s weight limits.”

Taking a sip of coffee, I allow my gaze to travel him. He might be onto something. Good grief, he really is big. And beautifully built. Tall and, while not bulky, definitely muscly. Muscle is heavy, so he might be pushing the weight limit. But Dad’s done maintenance, ensuring its structural integrity so Mom’s future grandbabies won’t get hurt when having fun at Grandma’s. Plus, Christopher, who’s similar in size to Will, maybe an inch or two shorter, a smidge stockier, sometimes sits on the swings with me and my sisters when we wander out here after Sunday family dinners, nightcaps in hand, talking, gazing up at the stars. Nothing’s ever happened.

“I think you’ll be fine,” I tell him, taking a few more steps, then turning and easing onto a swing. “Christopher sits on these and hasn’t broken anything. But if you don’t feel comfortable here, we can sit on the back steps, or head around to the front porch.”

Will scratches at his neck. “Nah. That’s okay.”

I watch him walk toward the swing beside me, closing the distance between us as I curl my arms around the swing’s rubber-wrapped chains. Planting my feet on the ground, I rock just barely on the swing, then take a sip of coffee from my mug.

Will lowers onto the swing beside me gingerly, his shoulders dropping with relief when it doesn’t fall out from under him. Boots planted on the ground, he rocks back, too, sipping his coffee carefully. He glances my way as he rocks forward.

I take him in, a smile lifting my mouth. I’m not sure what I’m doing, what he’s doing, either. I just know that while I was so sure he was shutting me down last night, when I spotted him this morning, standing in Christopher’s kitchen, I had this gut feeling that whatever happened last night was more complicated than my wounded pride wanted to believe.

Not a big talker , I remember him saying that night in the pub last December. Maybe he has social anxiety. Maybe he’s shy. Maybe he needs time to find the words he wants.

While trusting my gut has been hard since that gut instinct led me into such a horrible person’s arms not so long ago, this morning, trusting that gut instinct to give Will another chance, to offer help, felt…well, it felt easier. Except now here we are and it doesn’t feel so easy anymore.

But maybe that’s okay. Maybe this is just what it is, to be rusty since I went through a breakup that made me question my romantic outlook, since I’ve completely avoided any kind of romantic…well, anything, for more than half a year.

The wind swirls around us, rustling the trees overhead. I let myself simply gaze at Will, who’s peering at me intensely, the same way he was when we danced at the pub in Scotland, when he plucked that leaf from my hair last night. It makes warmth bloom inside me, desire curl like vines through my veins.

“So,” I say quietly. “Tell me about yourself, Will—” I hesitate, remembering what he said when I had him at trowel point yesterday. “Or, um, do you prefer to go by Orsino?”

His brow furrows, then it smooths. “Will is just fine, Viola.”

My stomach drops. Oh God. Of course, he still thinks that’s my name. I didn’t clear it up last night. I ran off before I could.

“Actually…” A nervous laugh teeters out of me. “About that. Well, truth is, I go by Juliet.”

His eyebrows lift. “So…Viola’s not your name?”

“Oh, no, it is.”

He frowns.

Lord, I’m rusty on more than flirting with a hot guy. I’m not even communicating well. I take a gulp of coffee, then spin my swing so that I’m facing him fully, the rubber-wrapped chains crossing over my head. “Viola is my first name. But I don’t go by my first name. I go by my middle name, Juliet, actually Jules, most often.”

His expression clears. “Ah. I see.”

“Sorry about that,” I say sheepishly. “I wasn’t trying to hold out on you this morning. I would have said something right when I came over to Christopher’s, but honestly, I’d forgotten all about it. I was too focused on getting your coffee situation sorted out.”

He’s quiet for a beat, as he sips from his mug, then spins back so he’s facing forward again. “What’s next?” he says, pushing back in his swing, then drifting forward. “The cat’s real name isn’t Puck, either?”

A belly laugh bursts out of me. I’m delightfully surprised by his deadpan playfulness. “I’m sorry, okay!”

“You don’t need to be sorry.” He peers my way. “I probably weirded you out, back in Scotland, when I walked up to you out of nowhere and nonverbally asked for a dance. I’d give me a not-real name, too.”

I swing back, then drift forward, a bit bolder in my swinging now that I’ve drained half my coffee. “You didn’t weird me out.”

“But it was awkward.” He glances my way, his brow drawn tight. “ I was awkward.”

“I mean, it was a smidge awkward, yes. All first meetings are, at least a little. And sure, you could have thrown a few more words my way at first, but…” My stomach swoops as I remember him stepping closer to me, his touch warm and gentle, his gorgeous, intense gaze dancing over me as we swayed to the music. How tenderly he held me, how he told me when I was rambling that he liked how much I talk.

Will might have been awkward that night, but he didn’t let that keep him from trying, from coming up to me, asking me to dance in his own sweet way. Back at that pub, he was something I wasn’t ready to be.

He was brave.

And now, finally, I’m ready to be brave, too.

Inside me, something like a door that’s been locked swings open, and out rushes what at first I think is a sliver of the old Juliet. But no, it’s not that simple. It’s not who I used to be, showing up again. It’s who I’ve been becoming , finally showing her face. Someone who’s been hurt and who’s healed. Someone who still wants to hope, even knowing it could get her hurt again. Someone who can go through hard shit and survive it, maybe a little roughed up, a bit battered and scarred, but also braver and stronger.

And that’s when I see it. This is that first move I’ve been waiting for, the first grinding shift into a new gear for my idling-engine life: once again wrapping my arms around the part of myself that desires and delights in others and has no qualms about telling them how much, that has fun flirting and savors time spent with someone she’s attracted to. I’m not ready for romantic love, to hand someone my heart again, but I am ready for this. And that’s okay. This is enough, this first step.

“You weren’t the reason I told you my name was Viola and then left the pub so abruptly. I did it because I was in a bad place and I was being self-protective. You were painfully cute, and I was attracted to you, and I knew I wasn’t in any place to handle that. Any other season of my adult life, you bet your butt I would have thrown myself at you.”

He falters on the swing and barely avoids slopping coffee all over his jeans, holding it away from him. Dark liquid sloshes over the edge of his mug onto the grass. He looks like I’ve stunned him. “What?”

I roll my eyes as I sip my coffee. “Please, don’t act like you don’t know you’re hot. You’ve got the strong and silent, gentle giant thing going for you, and I’d bet my right leg—which is my better one—that you’re more than aware of it.”

Will blinks at me, looking genuinely shocked. “I…” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, you think the fact that I—how I acted, I mean…” He clears his throat. “You didn’t think I was…weird?”

I smile at him, tipping my head as I take him in. It’s ridiculously cute, him sidestepping entirely the question of how aware he is that he’s a hottie. Which means he knows he’s a hottie, and he’s too humble to admit it. Swoon.

“I didn’t say that,” I tell him. “You were definitely weird. I said you didn’t weird me out.”

He groans, hanging his head. “I knew it.”

I reach my toe out and poke his hip. “I like weird. The world needs more weirdos.”

Will stares down at his coffee. A gust of air leaves him, an empty laugh. “Not in my world, it doesn’t.”

“What world is that?”

“It’s…” He’s silent for a beat, his eyes still fixed on his coffee mug. He sighs heavily. His throat works in a swallow.

I let my swing twirl so that I’m facing forward. Maybe it’ll help if he doesn’t feel like I’m staring him down, waiting for him to talk.

Tipping back my mug, I drain the last of my coffee and set it beside me in the grass. Then I push back on the swing in earnest.

Will’s gaze tracks me as I sway forward on the swing, then drift backward, the wind whipping my hair. He lifts his mug to his mouth and tips it back, his eyes holding me as he does.

I watch him rest his mug beside him in the grass, like I did, settle straight on the swing, then push off.

“My world is…” he starts, but the swing set groans as he sways forward, cutting him off. Will glances up, frowning. “I’m gonna bust this thing.”

“No way,” I tell him. “That’s the sound it always makes when we use it.”

Will’s got his swings in time with mine already, his ankles crossed as he sways forward, then rushes back. He’s still staring up worriedly at the beam overhead. “If you say so.”

I smile his way. “I promise. It’s fine!”

And that’s when Will’s swing snaps from the beam overhead and drops to the ground.