Round 22

W ith William in his pajamas, and me in formal beige pants and white blouse, we must have looked like quite the pair walking into the café.

I set my laptop on my regular table, and William’s brows drew close.

“I want to check my emails,” I said.

“You can work. I’ll play.” He smiled his teasing smile that always gave my stomach tingles.

I expected a kiss or a wandering hand, but William always surprised me. Instead of acting on the mischief I’d noted in his words, he walked up to the arcade machines and started playing Puzzle Bobble .

Technically, I should have asked Mr. Markham for permission to take sick leave, or at the very least made him aware I was leaving. So I opened a new email and typed in his address, but my fingers froze over each key.

I didn’t want to.

Ahead of me, William stood looking too large beside the kid playing on the machine next to him. I left my laptop on the table and ordered both our coffees before joining him.

He lowered his glance beneath his long dark lashes. “Are you coming to see my strategy?”

“How? How is your score so incredibly high? I was number one for years, William. Years.”

He only chuckled, making me want to growl. He exited the game and stepped aside, gesturing for me to play. “Let’s see how you do it.”

I took my place and rested the fingers of one hand over bright red and yellow buttons, while I held the joystick with my other.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much strategy to the game—only patience and a fairly good aim. But with each falling bubble, each flash of additional points, my body found peace and the adrenaline of the day’s events seeped out of me.

“Mr. Markham called me beautiful,” I said as a new round pixelated onto the screen. My throat was tight as I spoke, feeling stupid saying it out loud. “But it’s just a compliment, and I can’t figure out why it makes me feel the way it does. You’ve complimented me, and it’s different. Even before this, before… us…”

The words fell from my mouth as they often did when I was playing a game. I think it stemmed from my early years when my mother gave me a toy before asking a series of questions she worried would make me uncomfortable.

“Maybe I’m the problem,” I continued. “I overthink. I overdo. I’m a lot. I’m too much. I know that, and maybe this is one of those moments.”

A deep and almost animalistic huff pushed out of William. “Rose,” he started, and when he used my name, it jolted something strong in me. “You are a lot. And you do overthink, and overdo, and the rest of it, but you are never too much. And you are never a problem. I will happily tell anyone who thinks, or dares insinuate it, that they’re wrong.”

I kept my focus on the game, even though I could feel my heartbeat in the palm of my hand as it shifted the joystick to the left.

“Compliments are meant to make someone feel good, and when I compliment you, Rose, I mean it. You are beautiful. That is a fact, rather than someone’s opinion. But if it’s leaving you feeling the way you do now, then it wasn’t just a compliment. It was said with an underlying motive—a hope of something coming from it—and that is not okay.”

I dropped the game and wrapped my arms around his waist, pushing my face into the soft T-shirt he wore. His strong and sure hand slid to the back of my neck as he leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

I stayed there for a few deep breaths, and his grip never wavered. I released him after taking one last inhale of his scent, making a mental note to buy lavender and pine essential oils, shampoos, conditioners, soaps, laundry detergents, et cetera.

“Have you considered resigning?”

“I can’t afford to leave my job. Not only because of finances, but it would make me so far behind on my Life Goals.”

I grumbled as I lost my last life, and the machine flashed GAME OVER .

“What are your life goals?” William asked.

“Oh, you know what, I’m not going to explain. You don’t need to know that part of me.”

Tilting my chin upward, he let his gaze focus for several seconds on each part of my face. He stared into my brown eyes as if they were something to marvel at. His soft gaze dipped to my cheeks, slid down the sharp slope of my nose, and ended on my full lips, where it usually lingered. Eventually, he said, “I plan on knowing all parts of you, and for what it’s worth…” He took a deep breath and glanced back at the game. “I didn’t achieve that score. It’s impossible. I tried, and I got damn near your score but couldn’t beat it. So…” He scrunched his nose.

I pinched his arm, and he chuckled. “You cheated? You said you never cheat!”

“I was going to tell you, but it was so easy to frustrate you.”

I pinched him again. “William. You absolute scoundrel!”

He flinched and then his hand slid up my arm, leaving goose bumps in its wake. “I’ll delete my score. I… I liked that we had our own… thing. Without anyone else.”

My face heated again. William romanced me in my own language.

I pulled him back to the table at the same time my favorite waiter dropped off the cups of coffee I’d ordered and offered William the same large, lovely smile that I was usually on the receiving end of.

“My favorite customer,” Mac said.

“I thought I was your favorite customer,” I said, sharing a competitive glance with William.

“You’re a delight, honey,” Mac said with a gentle touch on my shoulder. “But this one helps me with my IT issues, and he fixed the arcade machines.”

I narrowed my eyes at William, who only laughed.

“Call me if you need anything else,” he said as he left.

William slid his chair next to mine and peered over my shoulder as I opened my laptop. “So, life goals.”

Reluctantly, I opened my spreadsheet. “You’re going to think I’m ridiculous. Everyone does.”

“I like that you’re ridiculous.”

Tilting the screen so he could see, I handed him my mouse and shut my eyes. I didn’t want to see his reaction. I was already regretting this.

“Okay,” he said, his tone holding a repressed laugh. “This is more ridiculous than I’d thought.”

I snapped the screen closed. “Now you know.”

“Why do you do this?” he asked in the gentlest tone.

His face was so close, and his expression so soft, that it sucked the truth out of me.

“It makes me feel like I have some control over my life. I like having a plan. I thought everyone did this. Don’t you think about your next step?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“So, you don’t think of promotions, or what you’d like to achieve?” I took a sip of my coffee.

“Nope, I like my job.” He shrugged, taking a sip from his own mug. “It’s fun, and it’s pretty hard to ruin anything big.”

“Those are really strange requirements for a job. You’re not worried in a few years they’ll replace you with someone younger and cheaper?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. But I am hoping to have developed another game or two by then anyway.”

The nonchalant way he said it confused me.

“I am terrible with the whole ‘go with the flow’ thing,” I admitted. “Shaun always tells me that. He goes with the flow quite easily. Must be genetic.”

William glanced away. “I don’t like to think of the genes that bond us.”

“Oh.”

When he turned back to me, the smirky, cocky William I was accustomed to was gone. In his place was a troubled boy. Instinctively, my hand searched for his.

“My, uh…” He cleared his throat. “My relationship with our shared parent isn’t very good.”

“How so?” I entwined our fingers.

“It’s nonexistent.” He blew out a long breath and then scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. “I’m the bastard son who showed up and inconvenienced his otherwise perfect life with his perfect wife and his perfect son.”

A shudder traveled down my spine. I couldn’t find any words. None. I simply stared at the side of his face while his gaze stayed firmly fixed on his steaming coffee.

He continued. “I don’t think of the future because, as a kid, I didn’t think I’d have a very good one.”

“Shaun never mentioned—”

“He wouldn’t.” William gave my hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it. “It makes him pretty uncomfortable.”

Opening my screen again, he took another moment to read my spreadsheet. Releasing another heavy breath, he mumbled something I didn’t hear.

“What?” I asked, trying to analyze his frown.

The disdain I’d once seen on his face returned.

William shook his head and offered me a halfhearted smile. “Nothing.”

He looked away from the spreadsheet, the lines of his frown still visible.

I closed my laptop and shoved it into my bag. “I find it impossible to be spontaneous or let life take me wherever it may because I spent a lifetime literally doing that.” I inhaled deeply. “I like checking things off. I feel good about it.”

His charming smile returned. “Yeah, because it’s like rounds in a game with little side quests in between for the smaller goals.”

No one had ever explained it to me that way.

“Except now I don’t know where to go next. I’m questioning the entire life I’ve built. So yes,” I said, my heart hammering against my chest, “I’m stressed out, and I would really like it if you’d kiss me hard enough that I could forget about it, even just for a moment.”

William gulped down the last of his coffee. “Well then, let’s get you home. If I need to kiss you like that, I’m going to have to do it with no kids around.”