I can’t take it anymore. I peek over my shoulder—just one quick, tiny little glance to the side. But my eyes instantly connect with his, and I shoot my gaze forward again, pulse rushing in my ears. That tiny glance was enough to take in every inch of Will, and it’s making everything worse.
Tonight he’s wearing black jeans, white sneakers, and a denim button-down shirt rolled up over his forearms. His hair is sort of purposefully messy, and he’s wearing a black watch on his tattooed wrist. He looks too good to be real. And now that I know what his skin looks like and feels like under that shirt—the way the lines of his tattoos are subtly raised to add the most delicious texture—my face heats.
“Annie’s been saving your seat!” Madison says unhelpfully, making me sound desperate even though I had no idea he’d be here tonight. I widen my eyes to signal her to cool it, but she just grins her mischievous smile back at me.
Amelia points over my shoulder at Will. “Okay! Rules first. You can hang out with us, but you have to interact like a friend and not a bodyguard. No subtly protecting me!”
And then Will’s butterfly knuckles enter my vision, and my skin curls up with tension. I keep my eyes on the table—hand wrapped around my drink. “Deal. If a fight breaks out, I’ll use you as my shield.”
Will takes the seat beside me, and his shoulders are too broad for this small space. He’s almost touching me. Out of the corner of my eye I see him look at me. I cut my gaze to him for a fraction of a second, and his mouth suggests a smile—a hidden one. Secrets.
“Annabell,” he whispers making the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
“Wilfred.”
We grin quietly at each other until Maddie’s voice breaks through our moment. “Hey, did you see the latest articles floating around about you from this week?”
“No. I try to stay off social media as much as possible,” Amelia says, and then her expression turns weary. “But what are they saying now?”
Maddie chuckles. “Not you, pop star. Him.” She nods toward Will. “There’s a fresh batch of photos of him guarding you at all of your events from the past few days, and they are calling him…” her smile grows, “A stern brunch daddy.”
“A what?” Will asks, sounding horrified. “Wait—do I want to know? It sounds disturbing.”
“What’s disturbing?” Noah asks, finally making his way back to the table, and this time, he has James in tow.
Amelia looks up at Noah as he sets down a beer in front of her. “Will is a stern brunch daddy.”
Noah looks like he just stepped in cow manure. “I can’t even begin to know what that is.”
James, however, takes a chair from the table beside us and whips it around to straddle it, forearms resting on the back. He steals one of Maddie’s fries, earning her glare. “A stern brunch daddy is a term romance readers use to describe a character type. It’s when a dude who looks scary is actually all soft and sweet to the person he loves.”
Noah looks at him in dismay. Actually, we all do.
Madison plucks the fry out of James’s fingers. “Stop acting like you’re a super progressive man who knows about romance. You only know that because I showed you the article ten minutes ago at the bar.”
James shrugs. “But I get points for actually listening.” He pauses and looks up at my scowling brother. “Actually…now that I think of it, Noah, you’re kind of a stern brunch—”
“If you say the word daddy one more time, you’re going to be scraping your teeth off the floor.”
James pretends to shiver with delight. “I love it when you go all alpha.”
I wish I could say I’m enjoying this conversation, but the truth is, I’m hardly listening. The majority of my consciousness is laser focused on the place Will’s knee is resting against mine. A soft, yet almost intentional, pressure that I try not to overthink. But the thing about quiet people is, we’re only quiet because our brains are so busy overthinking everything.
Does he know his leg is touching mine? Does he want his leg to be touching mine? Tactile, Annie. He’s just tactile, remember? The man needs to be touching something at all times. He’s probably touching Emily’s leg on the other side. I glance under the table to sneak a peek, but nope. Their legs could fit an entire watermelon between them. And then my gaze shifts to his hand resting on his thigh. I have the strongest urge to reach over and run my finger over the wings of the intricate butterfly. To take that hand and put it back on my hip and tell him to squeeze because it’s the memory of that touch that will likely haunt me until I’m in my grave.
And then his hand flexes, and I realize I’ve been caught staring. I suck in a breath and shoot my gaze up and forward. But in the corner of my eye, I can see Will looking at me. He turns forward abruptly when Amelia addresses him. “I bet you’re wishing you’d never sat down right about now.”
Will laughs and it’s warm and inviting. “Nah—I kinda like the absurdness. It makes me miss my brother.”
“You have a brother?” she asks. “How did I not know that?”
“I don’t get to see him a lot. You know…working and all that.”
The look on Amelia’s face says she feels personally responsible for his lack of time with his brother, but I know better. I heard the hesitation in his voice and the blasé way he delivered that sentence—there’s more there that Will doesn’t want unearthed. I have the deepest urge to take a shovel and get to digging.
Will interprets her expression too. “Amelia, don’t worry. You’re not overworking me.”
Her face skews up. “I feel like I am. You need a break! Take one now. Starting today, no more working until after the—”
“Like hell I will. I like working. It’s what makes me happy. Now, enough about me. Please.” This man really hates talking about himself. He has deflected any sort of personal revelations from the day we met. And yet I’ve still managed to understand him more than he’d like me to. I know that he kicks all the covers off when he sleeps because his body heats up to the temperature of the sun. I know that he adds extra salt to his fries—and that he hates soda. I know that he’s an early bird and wakes up with the sun. And I also know that something in his past hurt him because he used to hide in a magnolia tree but absolutely won’t discuss it. I think he has scars he keeps safely hidden behind his charm.
Suddenly I realize my family is all staring at me like I have a horn sprouting from between my eyes. “What?” I ask, alarm running through my voice.
“He just said a cuss word. Why doesn’t he get a tally in the sacred notebook?” Emily asks.
“Oh. Well, because…” I turn my eyes to Will and contemplate it. The answer springs to my mind immediately, but I know I can’t say it out loud. Because I like it when he does. So instead, I smile. Not even meaning to, really. And Will smiles, too, like he can read my thoughts. Like he’s remembering our secret stolen moments together in the flower shop, in my truck, in my room—and that just maybe he knows me in different ways than my siblings do. “He gets one freebie.”
That seems to appease everyone enough for their attention to turn away from me.
“Speaking of freebies!” Amelia starts. “Guess what I brought y’all back from L.A.”
I tune out as Will leans in close to my ear. “Is it okay that I’m here? I figured it would be because everyone in the town thinks we’re dating now. But maybe I assumed wrong, and you want to keep our hangouts on the down-low?”
Hmm, is it okay that he’s here? That his warm breath is caressing the shell of my ear and making my head spin? That just the nearness of him has the blood in my veins pumping with fire? No. It’s not okay. And I think it’s only fair that he move far, far away because whether he means to or not, he’s slowly wrecking my plans.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say with a quiet grin. “And my family knows we’re not really together now. They guessed it the other day, so there’s no pressure to act like it at the table.”