He sighs, exasperated. “Not everything has to be fair, Josie. Most things aren’t.”
“Spoken like a true Jordan Belfort apologist.”
Will glares, which makes me laugh. I grab a blueberry muffin I’mreallyhoping doesn’t contain garlic and top my plate with it.
Aside from Camila and David, who are at the chef table up front, the rest of my friends are seated already. I lead Will toward their table and introduce him to Leonie. She and Gio inspect him with friendly suspicion.
As soon as I sit down, Leonie says, “So, J, I hear you bought a two-thousand-dollar vacuum cleaner from a door-to-door salesperson last week.”
I glare at Gio. “I told you that in embarrassed confidence.”
Gio shrugs, smirking as she dips her chicken taco into a pool of salsa. “It was too funny not to share.”
I grip my halfway depleted sangria. The liquid is sloshing around in my belly. “She had eleven brothers and sisters, left home at seventeen and emancipated herself so she wouldn’t follow in her parents’ footsteps of addiction, and was saving up to buy a car so she didn’t have to take the bus. She was interested in getting a cosmetology education and—look, it was areally impressivevacuum cleaner.”
When my eyes cut to Will beside me, he looks delighted by this information. “Elaborate,” he says simply.
“It has one million functions. There’s an entire bag of attachments.Itmops.It shampoos the carpet! She had these little cotton pads, where you could see the dirt getting sucked up. Did you know—” I pause, remembering the saleswoman’s pitch. “Did you know there are dust mites on our mattresses?! This vacuum has an attachment for mattresses!”
Gio and Leonie burst into a cackle of laughter. I don’t think they’re taking the issue of dust mites seriously enough, but at least Will isn’t laughing at me. He’s resting both of his elbows on the table, shoulders leaning in my direction. I feel the barest graze of hair on his forearm brushing against mine.
“Dust mites on mattresses are alegitimateconcern,” I say. “I googled it.”
“I believe you,” he says.
“It’s worth the money, in my opinion,” I add.
“You led with the seventeen-year-old who needed a car,” Will says. “Which means you were always going to buy that two-thousand-dollar vacuum cleaner, even if it only vacuumed.”
After a lot of cajoling, I promise to send a picture of the vacuum with all its attachments to everyone once I get home. Leonie tops off my sangria. I eat my plate of food, including the single shrimp, and am duly informed by Josue when he swings by our table that thereisactually chicken schmaltz in the rice, sorry about that. Will and I split the blueberry muffin (no traceable garlic). We drink a little more, talk about everything, about nothing.
“I need to get going,” Will says eventually. “One of my other clients found out I stayed in town and wants to go on an early bike ride tomorrow.”
“Where are you riding?” Gio asks.
“Decker Lake.”
“Great spot,” Leonie says, nodding her approval.
“I still owe you four more worst things about me,” Will whispers, right into my ear. Goose bumps form in that spot and expand everywhere.
“I’ll walk you out,” I whisper back.
A heaviness falls over me as Will says his goodbyes, making a point to hug Camila and shake David’s hand. Though he isn’t necessarily a “charmer,” I’d still call him charming.
Charming on request, maybe.
By the time he meets me at the gate that leads to the front of the house, something in my gut has shifted.
“Did you have fun?” he asks.
“I did. Thank you for… making it fun,” I say.
I unlatch the gate. Will and I pass through. Theclickof the latch securing back in place pulls me into the moment. The scent of grass cooling in the night air. The hum of music blending with voices, the dull noise of crickets.
I’m expecting Will to head toward the street, but instead he keeps to the edge of the tall fence line until he makes it past the next corner. I follow him.
When I turn, he’s leaning one shoulder against the wood slats. I step toward him and lean my shoulder against the fence, too. A mere six inches separates our chests, which are breathing in and out, in and out. Coming close, then retracting in a steady pattern.
