Yes. I’ve been up close and personal with Wilder’s wardrobe for the past half a decade. I know for certain he isn’t a snakeskin, red leather, plaid person. Certainly not all three together.
It shouldn’t, but my body goes from shivery to pinchy, specifically in the chest and eye area. A small whimper escapes the confines of my throat.
Wilder’s eyes widen. He shucks the glasses, and his eyes get unbelievably soft. He peels away the beard, gathering it up in his hand, then uses the other to shed the wig. Then he slips thejacket off, toes off the boots, and makes a pile right there on the floor.
I gulp, swallow, and wrap my arms around myself in one last-ditch effort to ward him off. He shouldn’t be here. Our association was strictly professional. I have a whole smattering of printed-out job applications on my kitchen counter that I was poring over. We no longer have a working relationship.
Bonus, baby! You’re free to do what you want. Let your hair down. Whip those panties off. It’s go time.
Even if the whole boss thing is no longer a thing, Wilder is still Wilder. Still famous. Still beloved by the world. Still five years younger than me.
Cougars are the new twenty.
I maintain he’s still wildly famous and will be for the rest of his life.
Maybe he’s here to tell you that he’s ready to give it all up, grow his hair and beard out for real, and live out his hot lumberjack dreams in an off-grid cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
Is that his dream or your dream?
Wilder rakes his hand through his real hair, freeing it from the sweaty hair skull mass the wig had pressed it into.
He does this thing, not intentionally, but it’s key to why the world loves him. I call it hisI’m going to cry without crying and wear my heart on my sleeve, and it’s all heart all the time with melook. His eyes get huge and a little wet, very luminous, incredibly fathomless, and ultra bottomless. They’re like forest pine or ivy crawling up the side of a house, dark green and so innocent and guileless that it makes a person want to hug him.
Hard.
My heart squeezes, and I nearly let out a frustrated whimper.
Sensing my inner turmoil, Woof Woof Dog whines for me. Then sneezes. And farts again. My mom has taken this dog to thevet no less than six times for suspected gastric issues, but he’s all good. Just farty.
I get another set of soulful eyes on me, velvet-soft brown ones this time.
A small whimper tears loose.
Wilder’s voice comes out hoarse. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Carissa. I never meant to hurt you. But I did, though. And I get that.” He slides his hand down his pants, curses when he misses the front pocket, tries again, misses again, curses again, then finally gets a finger in. With some work, he wedges in another and then, miracle of miracles, he exhumes a folded piece of paper. “I couldn’t let this be the last thing you remembered.”
My heart doesn’t just clench. After all these years of telling myself that this man can’t be mine in any world and under any circumstances, it’s more than waves of longing. It’s sheer frustration at the world for having me fall in love with the exact wrong man, who is so damn right, all at the wrong time. Always, always the wrong time. Loving from a distance, in secret, is such a hard thing to do.
You’d think my heart would grow a thick skin after the first while, but it hasn’t. Sadly, no reptilian scale shield for me.
“If you wanted to apologize, you could have just called.” I have to resort to protection methods like making myself appear completely indifferent.
It’s the only way I’m going to get through this.
I’d set myself against never seeing Wilder again except for the way the rest of the world sees him. On stage. From a distance. In the periphery. When his songs come on the radio faster than I can change the station. Or when he pops up on my social media feeds the odd time I go on there, just because he’s so thoroughly implanted in my algorithm that I can’t dig him out.
He’s like a weed in my life.
Okay, he’s more like a surprise plant that pops up with surprising medicinal benefits and shockingly gorgeous flowers. Just with deep, deep roots.
Damn it.
It’s been almost long enough that I got my brain on board with my heartsick, aching, mopey body, but now it’s immediately back online in full brain mode, braining away, and I. Am. Spiraling.
“I couldn’t have,” he reasons.
He’s right. This isn’t the kind of thing you call about. If he had, I wouldn’t have answered. I would rather have thrown my phone off a cliff. Or just changed my number like a rational, logical person.
I make a croaking sound that has Woof Woof Dog tilting his head before he scampers off into the living room at the sound of something crashing. We don’t keep many breakable things around here anymore, mostly because they’ve all been destroyed by the furry feline menaces, so it’s probably one of the TV remotes.
