“Trust me. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“Trust me. You’re wrong. Jamie loves the resort,” I say, trying to convince myself as much as Will. “Anyway, the hiatus has more to do with taking a pause from relationships.”
“Ah,” he says. “How much of a pause have you taken?”
“About two years.”
“Two years,” he repeats. “Was it serious—the relationship before the hiatus?”
I chew on my cheek. I have to think about this. Philippe and I exchanged I love yous. Met each other’s families. I thought of his pug as my own—I still take care of Mocha when Philippe’s out of town. But I never pictured us as a couple forever.
“We were together for a year and a half and worked together for a long time before that.”
“So why the breakup?”
I let out a breath.
I didn’t use to think I had a type, though Whitney maintains that I have two: The person who is perfectly fine, but not even close to perfect for me (almost everyone I’ve dated). And dickheads (Philippe).
I’ve never been ready for the sharing of keys and consolidating of furniture, but it wasn’t until Philippe that I started thinking Whitney might be right, that maybe a part of me was picking the wrong people on purpose. I guess there’s nothing like seeing your boyfriend with his pants around his ankles behind another woman to make you question your choices.
“Sorry,” Will says. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No?” I ask with a little laugh. It’s so strange, talking like this to him again, but I find myself wanting to share. It was always like that with Will. “It’s okay. I guess it’s a bit embarrassing. He cheated. I found them together. We broke up.”
“Why would that be embarrassing?” Will asks, his voice cold enough that I peer over at him. He’s staring out at the lake, jaw tight.
I shrug. I don’t want to tell him what a knock to my pride Philippe’s infidelity was. I reach for a subject change. “So what’s your story?”
Will’s forehead wrinkles.
“This isn’t exactly how you imagined yourself.” I think of what I wrote on his plan.
“No, it’s not,” he agrees. I suspect this will be all he says on the subject, but he adds, “It’s not a short story.”
“I’ve got time.”
He leans forward, twisting his ring.
“You do that a lot,” I say.
Will assesses me from the corner of his eye.
“Who gave it to you?”
“My grandmother,” he says after a moment. “It was my grandfather’s.”
“You were close.”
“With my grandmother, yeah. You remember?” A hint of a smile graces his lips, and I want to hook my thumbs on the corners of his mouth and pull the edges up higher.
“Of course,” I say quietly. “I remember everything.”
He hums and looks at the water. “My grandfather died when I was four. I don’t remember much about him, but my grandmother was around a lot. She was a tough lady. Dottie. You would have liked her, I think.”
I find this oddly pleasing. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. She was a real straight shooter. Very independent. My sister and I used to sleep over at her house almost every weekend when we were little. We had our own bedrooms there. She taught me how to use a screwdriver and change the oil in a car. When my mother left, she gave me this ring and a long talk about responsibility and looking out for my sister.” He looks over to me. I nod. I remember that part, too. I think about tracing my finger over the scar on his chin, but I stay still.
“She was funny, but her sense of humor was bone-dry. I could never tell if she was being serious or not. When I got older, I realized she was almost always joking. She died about a year ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was ninety-three. She had a good run.”
“It still sucks—good run or not.”
“It did suck. It sucked a lot.”
A light rain begins to fall. It’s only a misty drizzle, but we fold ourselves into the canoe and paddle back at a brisk clip, which is just as well because the drops come down with more vigor as we approach the resort.
We lift the boat out of the water and carry it to its rack. By the time we bring the paddles and life jackets to the storage shed, we’re both soaked. I finish hanging the jackets, and when I turn around, Will is watching me a few steps away.
Rain falls outside the door behind him, drumming on the metal roof. His shirt is sopping, hugging the ridges of his chest. We stare at each other for three long breaths and then he takes a step forward, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“Don’t what?” he asks, voice rough.
I suck in a breath. “Don’t look at me like that.” I don’t know how to handle this Will, the one who is studying my face like a treasure map.
“Like what?”
“Like you give a shit about me,” I say, pressing my nails into my palms.
He takes another step. “What if I do give a shit?”
“Well, you’re not allowed to.” I take a step back.
“Why not?”
I’ve been pushing down the hurt all afternoon, but it pops to the surface like a buoy. “Because you left me waiting for you on that dock nine years ago.”
“I didn’t want to,” he says quietly.
“Then why did you? You knew I would be here. You knew how I felt about you.” My voice sounds strangled.
He swallows. “Yeah, I knew.”
I can feel my bottom lip quake, and I bite down on it. Hard. I have to leave. I move past Will, but he catches my arm and turns me around. He ducks down, his eyes moving between mine.
“I was worried that I was different from how you remembered, and that you’d be disappointed.”
“But you did disappoint me,” I whisper. “You made me think it was all in my head.”
“It wasn’t,” he says. “Believe me, it wasn’t your head that was the problem.” I want to ask what he means, but he catches a tear on my cheek and tucks my hair behind my ears before pulling me toward him.
I wrap my fist in the hem of his shirt, tugging him closer. I want to run my fingers over his shoulders and press my tongue to his scar and do all the things I wanted to do when I didn’t hate Will Baxter.
He leans down and holds my face between his hands. His nose brushes mine. I slip my hands under his damp shirt, flattening them against his stomach, and he closes his eyes. His skin is hot, his flesh hard. I press against him.
Will traces a path down the bridge of my nose to its tip with his finger. “Perfect.”
As he brings his lips to mine, he whispers my name, and it snaps me out of whatever haze of nostalgia I got lost in.
“I’m sorry,” I say, stepping back. “I shouldn’t have done that. We can’t do that.”
“Okay.” He’s breathing as heavily as I am.
“I’m in over my head,” I say, my voice hitching. “I need your help. I need us to be okay, to be able to work together.”
He stares at me. “I would never do anything to jeopardize your business, no matter what happened between us,” he says. “I want you to know that. You can trust me.”
I shake my head. Trusting Will would be like trusting a mirage. “I can’t. I don’t know who you are. And you don’t know me.” Then I walk out of the shed and into the rain.
* * *
—
The knock comes well after two a.m. It’s a soft thud. Not Peter’s tap, tap, tap, or the frantic rapping of a guest who’s spotted a pair of yellow eyes in the bush.
I’m already awake. I gave up sleeping a few minutes ago.
No one is at the door when I get downstairs, but there’s a thin, square parcel on the welcome mat. It’s wrapped in bright striped paper and there’s an envelope on top with my name on it. I recognize Will’s penmanship immediately. It hasn’t changed.
I take the gift to the kitchen table and open the card. Inside, there’s a sketch of a woman holding a paddle in the air like a sword, and a short note.
You do know me. And I know you, too.
I rip off the paper and stare at the album cover, smiling into the dark.
12