“Itriedto accomplish what you want from me. Itriednot to be attracted to you. It doesn’t work. Never has. Not last night, not today. I want you just the same.”
“It doesn’t work for me either,” I say spitefully.
His eyes darken. Sapphire blue.
“I would have you,” he says, voice hoarse, “like this, just as quickly as I would if you were in a ball gown. I think I might prefer this, to be honest.”
His words sink in, then pulse through me, concentrating in my core. The aloneness of us, in this very private bedroom, is erasing my “reasons.” I resist the urge to thrust myself against his body and let him lift me off the ground, like I know he could.Would.
We breathe too heavily, lean too close.
“Josie,” Will mutters, sounding wounded.
His hand moves toward me, but I grab him by the wrist.
I repeat his words back from Andalo: “It’s not that I don’t want to.”
He repeats mine: “Want to what?”
I release his wrist. “A shower first,” I say.
Will wets his lips. “You or us?”
“Me.”
“I’ll leave.”
“No,” I say. Last night when Will offered to leave me alone, I couldn’t look him in the eye when I asked him not to, but I do now. He looks as lost as I feel.
“I want to talk,” I explain. “I just need to be clean first.”
He nods. “Take your time.”
I close the door to the bathroom and turn on the shower, stepping under the spray. All the while I strategize how to explain myself to Will. He already occupies too many of my thoughts. Everything lately has been recontextualized around him. If I go to New York for work, would he want to see me? Would Zoe? If he likes Austin so much, why doesn’t he just…
Move here?
Stop. I have to stop this. It isn’t fair to him. I’m not beingfairto him, making these internal assumptions that he could change his life to accommodate mine. That’s no way to build a relationship.
I wash my hair, my body, quickly change into the spare clothes I brought, and dab sunscreen on my face. When I open the door and steam from the shower pours into the bedroom, I find Will sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees. He stands when he sees me.
“Feeling better?” he asks.
“In a sense.”
Will scratches at his arm as he studies me. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”
“The price of tea in China.”
He smirks, stepping toward me. “You wanted me with you last night, Josie. You told me to stay the weekend, to come to this party today. I was doing my best to respect your boundaries, but now I’m just really confused.”
Be fair to him,my brain whispers to my heart.
I sigh wistfully. “I had this whole scheme.”
He asks, “What scheme?”
“To be a huge turnoff all night long.”
