Lizzy shrugged. “I was just bored.”
“So bored you walked home?” Jane asked, skeptical.
“It’s not that far.”
“Lizzy. Charlie’s is a lot further away than the Lodge.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I wasn’t alone.”
Jane blinked. “Someone walked you home?”
“Technically, he didn’twalk.”
“I’m very confused right now.”
You’re not the only one, Lizzy thought. Then she scowled. “Will followed me home in his car. Or Charlie’s car. He was in somebody’s car.”
“Will… Darcy?”
Lizzy nodded.
Jane shook her head slightly, as if it would help organize her thoughts. “Why didn’t he just drive you?”
“Oh, trust me, he tried. Even after I explained to himnumeroustimes that I didn’t want a ride and I was fine to walk. Then he still went and got in his car and drove behind me at like five miles per hour the entire way.”
“Really? How long did that take?”
Lizzy thought for a second. “Probably like forty-five minutes.”
Jane’s eyes widened.
“It’s not like I asked him to!” Lizzy continued, suddenly feeling defensive. “Did Charlie put him up to it or something?”
“Doesn’t sound like he had to.”
Lizzy scrunched up her nose. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe Will was genuinely concerned about you.”
The memory of Will’s face as he stared at her on the front drive, how it changed from annoyance to concern so quickly. How his deep voice softened as he asked,Are you okay?
But Lizzy pushed the thought away. “Or he’s a control freak.”
“Or he’s a good person.”
Tristan’s full account of Will’s moral code was right there on the tip of her tongue, but Lizzy swallowed it down. Telling Jane would mean dissecting it, looking too closely at its motivations, at the men involved. And the last thing she wanted to do was linger too long on the memory of Will Darcy.
“Or he’s a serial killer and I just narrowly escaped death.”
“Or helikesyou.”
Something in Lizzy’s stomach tumbled. She ignored it. “I know you and Charlie have been trying to get us together, but it’s not happening. The guy can’t stand me.”
“Isn’t that how all the classic love stories start?”
“This isn’t a classic love story, Jane,” Lizzy groaned. “No one is wandering over the moors at dawn to propose. This is a guy who has never smiled in his life and wears oxford shirts to the Lodge. He’s probably a psychopath.”
Jane sighed, leaning her head on Lizzy’s shoulder. “I can’t see Charlie being best friends with a psychopath.”
