Chapter Seventeen
They drove in silence to The Slice Is Right. There were too many things running around in his head and he needed to get a handle on something before he pushed her further.
That’s what it would take. Pushing it, because there was so much here. In both of them—pushed down and hidden.
Maybe if he wasn’t the same, he might not have understood it. But he understood her. He pushed away with charm and pretending like things didn’t matter, and she pushed away with anger while pretending things didn’t matter.
Underneath it all, it was the same. Which meant, deep down, she was hurting the same way he hurt. Was probably, though he was loath to admit it about himself, lonely.
He’d always figured he was supposed to be lonely, or something, but if he thought that, then she thought that and...
He couldn’t work it all out quite yet, but it was twisting around in his head.
Tori was stiff in the passenger seat, clearly vibrating with repressed energy as they got out of the Jeep and walked into the pizza place. Doing her own version of working through it.
Well, more likely pushing it down, but it wouldn’t be that easy. He wouldn’t let it be that easy.
As the night went on, and they sat with Sam, Hayley, Brandon, Lilly, Cora, and Micah, Will relaxed. Every time he glanced at Tori, she seemed as though she had too. He saw it in the set of her shoulders and the way she laughed at Cora, or teased Brandon.
This was the thing he’d always taken for granted. Any night he wanted, he could surround himself with people who cared. Tori might not realize that, she might not admit it, but this relaxed her. He had to wonder where she’d been for seven years, and if she’d had any of this.
He doubted it, and it was a little shameful to realize he always had. His parents were shit, sure, but he’d always had Brandon. For so long he’d had friends who could mean something even if he didn’t give over his whole self to them. Brandon, then Sam and Lilly and Hayley, were a soft place to land, to heal, to center himself.
Tori wouldn’t let him drive her home. She’d go with Cora and Micah as it made the most sense. He should probably give her space anyway. She needed time to deal with telling him about her brother.
She’d never told anybody about that. Not a soul. Her brother had locked her in a room and threatened to kill her, and she hadn’t told anyone because she’d been so certain her parents wouldn’t take her side.
It was unfathomable. Even if his parents hadn’t loved him, Will had never experienced danger as a child. He’d been safe. Wholly.
Will glanced around as shuffling began, people standing up and making their good-byes. He didn’t miss when Tori shot him a glance, because he’d been watching.
She quickly glanced away, some of that tension returning to her shoulders. He could feel bad about it, but mostly he knew it wasn’t as simple as that.
She wasn’t angry with him anyway. She was uncomfortable that he’d seen some piece of her she didn’t particularly want people to see. She never wanted anyone to see her cry, and he understood it so deeply. He was never comfortable with people seeing him hurt because it showed too much. It hurt to have someone else care because what did you do with sympathy when it only made you feel worse?
So he understood. He got it. The more he understood and the more he got, the more he realized this wasn’t so simple as friendship. It wasn’t even as simple as friendship with some attraction underneath. Everything about Tori and who she was and who she was to him was complicated, and doing anything with that was only going to be hard. It was only going to be everything he’d shied away from his entire life.
Which was why he was becoming more and more certain he needed to go for it.
He’d talked about changing, and he meant it. He wanted to change, which meant doing hard things. Not half-assed things.
So he walked with everyone to their lineup of cars saying nothing. He watched as Brandon and Lilly got in Brandon’s truck, Sam and Hayley drove away in Hayley’s car. Tori, Cora, and Micah piled into Cora’s.
Will sat in his Jeep and once everyone drove off, he didn’t. He started his car and drove, but not to Mile High and not to the cabin. Because that wasn’t going to solve anything, and it wasn’t going to get him any answers.
He drove around Gracely. Well past nine, most of the town was dark and tucked away in the faintly glowing dusk. He could almost pretend it was as it had been, because even when he’d partied through this town in high school, the town had closed down well before ten.
Back then, the only lights would have been the occasional house and the Evans Mining Company lights up in the mountains. A shining beacon of all the town had to bow down to.
But Evans Mining Company was gone and so was the past. The future and the present were all that mattered.
After meandering around town for a while, giving Tori plenty of time to be dropped off and Cora and Micah to have settled in at their house, Will pulled his Jeep up to the corner of Hope and Aspen.
He parked his car and stepped out. It was a clear night, the stars winking above. The moon was half hidden behind a row of houses on the street, but it would rise soon enough. So many things would rise.
He walked across the yard, glancing once at Cora’s house. Everything was dark except for a light upstairs. Which was a good sign.
He stepped onto Tori’s stoop and steadied himself before knocking on the door. He knocked, firmly and determined.
It took a few minutes before Tori answered, and based on the wary look on her face, she’d already looked out the window to make sure it was him.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” She didn’t invite him in. In fact, she stood defiantly in front of the door, blocking any sort of entry.
“I thought maybe we should finish our conversation.”
“Boy, did you think wrong.”
She started closing the door, but he put his hand out to block its progress. “Let me in.”
“No. I’m going to bed.” She hesitated for a second. “I’d take a ride up to Mile High in the morning though.”
He should be gratified she was asking him for a favor. But he knew what it was. A distraction.
“I’ll give you a ride in the morning, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave now.”
She sighed heavily. “I don’t want to talk about anything.”
He stepped closer to her, swallowing against all the panic inside of him. All the things he usually listened to, telling him not to do something. He was good at listening to those voices that insisted nothing would end well if he went after something he wanted. Nothing ended well when he tried to do something for someone.
But this was different. It had to start being different.
“You have two choices,” he stated, his voice barely recognizable to his own ears. Low, determined, sure.
She scoffed. “Oh, do I?”
He stepped closer still, their toes touching and only the fact that she leaned away—though he noted she didn’t step away—kept their bodies from touching.
“You can invite me in to talk . . .”
“Or you can leave. So, bye,” she snapped.
“No. Or I can come in for this.” He didn’t grab her like he’d done when he’d kissed her in the yard, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. He lowered his mouth to hers, but he stopped a breath from touching his lips to hers.
Her eyes were wide and she still leaned away, her back curving over his arm, but she didn’t push him. She didn’t fight him.
“So which is it going to be?” he asked, looking her right in the eye and keeping her pressed firmly against him. Her compact body trembling in his arms, as she sucked in a breath and then another.
God, he wanted her.
He watched her swallow, her neck moving with it. She moved her hand to his chest, and though she clearly wanted to push him away, the strength behind the palm against his heart was minimal at best. It just felt like she was pressing her hand to him.
“We’re not doing this.” But her voice was shaky and her eyes were so wide, and she didn’t fight him off. She could, too, she could if she wanted to.
“Then what are we doing?” he asked, because he wasn’t backing down. Not anymore.
* * *
Tori had to say something. No. Go away. Anything. Yet none of the words would come out. Everything was all backed up and stuck in her lungs—her breath, her heavy heartbeat, apparently her brain.
He was holding her against him, looming over her like some sort of . . . She didn’t know. She didn’t know what he was trying to do or prove, and she had to fight it. She had to fight it. She had to fight it.
She couldn’t seem to do anything but stand there and absorb the heat of him, the strength of him. Her hand was on his chest and she could feel his heart beating just as heavily as hers. His eyes never left hers, not for a second, and they were nearly green. Every second was overwhelming.
She couldn’t let him kiss her, good Lord. She couldn’t let him make her talk. She had to stop this somehow. His mouth was so close to hers, and his breath mingled with hers, and everything felt somehow fated.
You’re being ridiculous. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to wiggle out of his grasp. She took a few halting steps away from him, but that only gave him the chance to step inside her house and close the door behind him.
He stood there, tall and broad and bearded and gorgeous and . . .
“What are you doing?” she managed to ask him, breathless and furious. Yes, fury, that was the thing galloping through her chest. “And why?”
“I’m tired of this bullshit. This dancing-around-each-other bullshit. You have to give me something. I gave you something. You have to give me something.”
“Because that’s how life works, huh? You offer someone some part of yourself and they have to give it back.”
He sucked in a deep breath, but he didn’t yield or back off. He stood there, if anything more certain. What was that? Did Gracely just imbue people with it, but not her, because she wasn’t certain about shit.
Except that they were standing on some precipice. She knew she had to jump, but there was no sensible jump to take. If only she could find the jump she’d survive, the one she’d be able to climb back up the wall.
But how did she? When it came to people, she always chose that wrong spot. Wanting something or someone was always the wrong spot. Depending on someone else was always the wrong spot. Wanting someone to choose her and her alone was always the wrong thing.
“There’s something here,” Will said, certain and sure. “Something has to break. Or it just keeps building. If you let it build for long enough, when the break comes it’s . . .”
“What happened before,” she realized aloud. She’d let things with Will build for years back then, and then she’d convinced herself that he had to feel it back. She’d been crushed when she’d been so very wrong.
But this was only a few weeks in the making, this new thing between them, and maybe . . . Maybe he was right. Maybe if they broke things now, there was the hope of getting over it instead of another crash in six years.
“I’m not having sex with you.” Because that would kill her.
His mouth curved, sexy and dangerous. “There’s a lot of room between a kiss and sex.”
Oh God. “We could talk,” she blurted, because that was less scary. Maybe.
He lifted his hands in the air. “I gave you the choice.”
She took a few steps away again. She needed space. Time to think. But he was staring at her with intent in his eyes and sex in his smile. A smile he’d never, ever used on her before.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him smile this way before. Edgy and threatening, but somehow kind with it.
She was losing her mind.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, still edging to get more space between them. Sarge had trotted in and lay helpfully between them.
“You told me about why you ran away. I want to hear why you came here. Why seven years later, you finally showed up.”
Which would require rehashing Toby and all the ways she was pathetic.
Which was worse: letting herself think he was actually sexually attracted to her or rehashing the whole Toby situation? Which had less likelihood of blowing up in her face?
She honestly didn’t know.
“You don’t actually want to have sex with me, or any of those in-betweens. I am so not your type.”
“I hate to break it to you, but men aren’t that discerning. Sex with a woman they like is sex. You’re gorgeous and you always have been. Huh.” He rubbed a hand over his beard as if he was giving something deep consideration. “Isn’t it interesting that I always gravitated toward the opposite of you?”
“Yeah, so interesting that you don’t like me in that way. No matter how hard up a guy is, he has a type he’d prefer.”
“Everything about you is everything I avoided back then. That’s worth thinking about.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“But here I am. Thinking about it.”
She supposed that was the scariest thing. She couldn’t fight what he thought, what idiotic ideas he was spinning in his head.
How did she fight him when he was offering what she’d always wanted?
Will moved behind her, gently putting his hands on her shoulders. It shouldn’t comfort her, not when he was the source of all her panic, but something about his easy presence and putting a hand on her shoulder and standing behind her . . .
“I don’t want to make things harder on you,” he said quietly, close to her ear. Close to her heart. “But I don’t know how else we move on from this. I can’t pretend I’m not attracted to you, and I can’t pretend I don’t want to know more about you.”
“I can’t go down this road again with you,” she whispered, staring blindly into her kitchen. Hers. She was building her own damn life.
“This isn’t the same though, Tori. It’s a brand-new road. All those years ago we both hid everything from each other and from ourselves. I’m not content to be that guy anymore. So I’m being straight with you. All you have to do is the same.”
His hands tensed on her shoulders just briefly, and she realized then that he wasn’t quite so certain. He wasn’t quite so sure. This was a step for him, and he was trying to figure things out.
He was using her to figure his shit out. Using her. That was it. Maybe she should be angry about it, but . . . She could also just let him.
And she would use him to feel something again. The comfort of someone to share a bed with or to ask if she was okay.
It was twisted and fucked up, but if she knew going in he was just using her as some sort of pawn in his attempt to figure his life out, well, she wouldn’t get hurt this time. She didn’t have to give him anything back. She didn’t have to be straight with him, and she could get some old shit out of her system.
She wouldn’t depend on him. She wouldn’t love him.
She would use him right back. She just had to find the courage to take that leap.