“Are you still afraid?”
If Will is surprised by my question, he doesn’t show it, only cocks his head and thinks about it while giving the rest of our party an assessing glance, much in the same way I just did. No one seems to be paying us any mind.
“Honestly?” He starts, biting his lip and giving me his version of a sheepish smile. “I’m terrified. But Ezra has helped me come to terms with a lot of the thoughts and feelings that I’ve been wrestling with for a long time, and?—”
Will is cut off by the return of the cute waiter, who said his name was Kai. Kai passes out a round of drinks, stretching his lithe little body over the table to reach me and Will at the back of the booth, letting us know that he mixed our drinks himself and he would besohappy to get usabsolutely anything elsewe need. I don’t think anyone at the table missed the way he looked directly at Will when he said it.
Will grins and thanks him by name, of course.
“It’s my pleasure,” Kai assures him. “I’m a big fan.”
Of course he is. Honestly, who wouldn’t be? I’m a big fan myself, which is why I can’t really blame him for trying. So instead of trying to chase him off like I might have in the past, I busy myself with my drink and watching the dance floor below. It’s packed down there, and it’s dark. Dark enough that I wonder if we might get away with getting lost in the crowd.
Kai ends up leaving to get me a second drink when mine disappears much quicker than I intended. When he drops it off, he doesn’t linger, allowing me to encourage Will to keep talking.
“You were saying?”
Will shakes his head and chuckles, taking a long swig of his vodka soda. He watches Naz and Scott get up, Naz gesturing to the dance floor. Will holds up his drink, indicating that we’ll join them when he’s finished.
“Yes, I’m afraid. But not enough to deny it any longer.”
“What does that mean?”
“I…” He sighs, searching for the right words. “For a long time, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted you, or if I just felt possessive of you.”
Ouch. Okay, truth bomb.
“But when I lost you, I knew differently. I knew unequivocally that it was deeper than that. I felt possessive—I still do, if I’m being honest—but watching you be with someone else was a hard realization that I didn’t just want you. I wanted to be him. Be in his place. I wanted to be the one holding your hand and kissing you and taking you to bed. The one to have the chance at a future with you that wasn’t just as your friend or brother. And watching him live out the life I want was too much for me.”
“And what about the rest of it?” I ask. “What about all the reasons you said we can’t be together?”
“I still don’t know how to reconcile all of that,” he says, and I can tell by the worry in his eyes that his honesty is costing him. But he’s determined not to hold back the truth, even at the expense of losing me—because he thinks I am worth trusting with the truth. My fingers brush over the words etched on the inside of my wrist.
Worthy.
I am worthy of honesty. I am worthy of love. I am worthy of this chance we’re taking.
And he is worthy of knowing what he’s worth to me.
“It kind of feels like we’ve done a one-eighty in the blink of an eye,” I say, chuckling at how nervous I was to even see him when I got off the plane yesterday. Knowing now that he was feeling the same way, that he was gearing up to make all these confessions and beg me not to hate him—as if I ever could—puts into perspective just how much of his pride and fear he had to swallow.
The man in front of me is not the same man I walked away from in New Orleans. He’s someone who has turned himself inside out to be a better version of himself. For me, but for himself too.
“It’s okay to not know what this is yet,” I say, gesturing between us. “We can take it slow.”
“Can we?” Will asks, humor lacing his tone.
“Okay, we definitely jumped into the deep end,” I say, laughing. “But there are no rules that say we can’t walk it back a little. We can set some boundaries so you can explore without worrying that you’ll get in too deep.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Will says, cutting me off with a hand on my knee. He bends his neck to bring himself to eye level with me. “I’ve been in the deep end this whole time. I was just too afraid to do more than tread water.” He sighs deeply. “That’s a stupid metaphor. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t have any questions about you and me. I know what I feel and what I want.”
He pauses for a second, fingers flexing over the soft material of my skinny jeans, the heat from his hand radiating through my skin and directly to my core. “What I’m afraid of is other people. Not so much what they think of us, but what it could do to us, and Naz and Jesse, if it got out.”
“We don’t have to tell anyone.”
Will’s eyebrow raises. “We already got caught.”
My nose scrunches. “Okay, so we’ll definitely have to be more careful.”
