“Hun, this is a lot even for you,” says Jeanine, pushing her gorgeous red ponytail back over her shoulder. Jeanine is one of those women I’d like to shadow for a day and take notes on how she does…everything. She has that natural sway to her hips when she walks that screams confidence. A smile that is innately flirtatious. And she once went with me and my sisters to a bar in the city where the woman came away with ten phone numbers! Ridiculous. Inspiring.
“They’re not all for me. I’m meeting someone.”
If there was a record playing, it would have screeched to a stop. Jeanine’s sharp blue eyes whip to me. Phil and Todd, sitting two booths down, angle their faces in my direction. Greg, behind the breakfast bar, nearly spills the coffee he was pouring.
Jeanine smiles then. “One of your sisters?”
“Nope.” I shift the plates around, needing something to do with my hands. “Someone else.” My knee bounces under the table and I’m sweating. Because today, I am meeting Will for a practice date.
He swung by the shop earlier this morning and asked if I’d like to meet him for a low-key practice date. And despite the fact that we’re meeting at the local diner, I’m still buzzing with nervous energy like I’m meeting him at a three-star Michelin restaurant, and it’s going to be filmed for live TV. I couldn’t focus on my work at all. I spilled my coffee from how much my hand was shaking on the way into work. I’ve had a constant buzzing sensation in my stomach that makes me feel as if I’m about to take flight.
“Someone else, you say?” Jeanine prompts, clearly wanting me to dish all the gossip so she doesn’t have to dig it up on her own.
In that moment, the Someone Else in question walks through the door. His presence fills the place like a sudden gust of summer wind. Will steps into the diner, removes his sunglasses in slow motion (okay fine, it’s regular speed but a girl can imagine), his biceps flexing under his black short-sleeved shirt as he does. He turns his head, scouring the diner until his blue-gray eyes find me. A smile tugs the corner of his mouth as he hangs his glasses on the collar of his shirt.
I have melted into a puddle in the booth. I am no longer human—just a blob of desire.
And now he’s walking toward me, and Jeanine’s face is a study in shock and awe. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—watches Will Griffin and his inked body walk to my table. Clearly, they thought it was okay when he was silently guarding Amelia, but meeting me for a solo lunch is too much to stomach. Angel Annie and bodyguard Will? It’s a big concept. Even I’m struggling a little at how we ended up here.
It’s all fake, that’s how!
“Hi,” he says as his laughing, roguish eyes land on me.
“Hi yourself.” Oh geez, it comes out a little more flirtatious than I intended, but the shadow of our afternoon in his bedroom is still shielding me from reality. I smile up at him as he stops beside the booth, not able to take his seat because of how Jeanine is blocking it—staring in thick silence. She’s trying to process why Will Griffin is meeting me for lunch.
“Hey, sorry, do you mind if I…” He gestures toward the bench she’s blocking.
Jeanine shakes herself from his hypnotic eyes and practically leaps away. “Sorry! Yes. Have a seat, honey!” She calls everyone honey. It’s her thing. It’s why she goes home with ten phone numbers from the bar.
“Can I get you anything?” she asks Will, still in a daze.
He laughs, eyeing the table. “Normally I would say yes, but it looks like the whole menu is already here.” He looks up at me inquisitively, one brow lifted. So impressive, that ability.
I fidget with the napkin beside my plate. “I was nervous while I waited. So I went ahead and ordered a few things for us…”
“Just a few,” he repeats with a smile in my direction and then looks back up to Jeanine. “I think I’ve got everything I need here. Thank you.”
“All right, darling, well…just holler if you need anything.” She gives me a speaking glance and then slowly pulls herself away to return to the area behind the counter.
Will leans forward slightly. “What was that look for?”
I shrug my shoulders even though I know exactly what that look was about. And then I push my full plate away because suddenly I can’t even entertain the idea of eating. “All right. Let’s do this. What’s first?”
Will’s gaze moves from my plate to my face, a cautious smile in place. “What do you mean?”
I gesture between us. “Dating. What do I do first? You’ve sat down, I ordered you everything you could possibly need. What do I do now? Especially with my hands because I’m getting the urge to wave them around for no reason.”
And wow, that’s so freeing to say to someone. Normally, on dates I have to keep those thoughts in my head, but in this scenario, I can spill my guts and nothing bad happens. Amelia is a genius.
“You don’t need to do anything with your hands.”
“It feels like I do. How’s this?” I perch them on the table, and he watches, tracking my movements as I adjust them again. “No? How about like this then?” I spread my arm over the back of the booth. I scrunch my nose. “This feels manly. Do I look manly? Does this look like I’m asserting dominance, because I can tell you right now I’m a beta all the way.”
Will reaches across the table and pushes my plate back in front of me. “How about you just eat this?”
“I can’t eat. I’m too nervous.”
“What’s there to be nervous about?”
“You,” I say honestly before I remember to filter. Something about Will does this to me, though—I can’t help but say exactly what I’m thinking. “Or…you as in men. A date. You get it.”
He picks up his water glass, presses his lips to the rim, and takes a quick drink. “I have a secret you might like to know. It’s related to your pirate books.”
I have never needed to know anything more in my entire life. “Tell me,” I say leaning over the table and splaying my hands on the surface like I’m willing to push the entire thing away if need be.
He grins and nods toward my plate. “Take a bite and I will.”
I eye him sideways, seeing right through his tactics. “I’m not one of those girls you have to worry about eating, you know? I like food normally. Enjoy it often. Could probably clean most of these plates myself if this weren’t a practice date making me feel like barfing.” I wince. “I said barfing at the table. On a date. See, this is why I opt for silence, usually. When you get me going, there’s no filter.”
He shakes his head—seemingly unfazed by my barf comment. “It’s just me. You can’t mess up because there’s nothing to mess up. I’m your practice person, remember?” He holds my gaze. “You’re safe with me.”
His gentle tone has all of the tension in my body melting away like butter on toast. I take in a deep breath and release it. “Okay.”
“Okay.” A smile. “Now eat.”
As if on cue, my stomach growls. With a revived appetite, I switch my plate of eggs for the burger and fries. After biting into the burger, I wipe my mouth with my napkin and raise my eyebrows at Will. “A bite for a secret. Let’s hear it, Wolf Boy.”
He points lazily to his ear. “I used to wear an earring.”
My mouth falls open, but then I remember there’s food in there and clamp it shut. Sudden vivid images of Will in a pirate outfit, pistols hanging off a leather belt around his waist, shirt gaping open over his inked chest, and now…a silver hoop in his ear. Or no, it would be something gaudier. An emerald. A ruby he stole from a lady in a ballroom. The same ballroom he spots me in, and then decides he needs me. Can’t live another second without me. To the screams of the entire room, he snakes his arm around my waist and hoists me off the ground, stealing me away into the night. He takes me to his ship (which is somehow docked nearby), where he pushes me back against the railing and then his mouth crashes over mine. I wrap my arms around his neck and—
“What the hell is going on in your head right now?” he asks, pulling me from my fantasy.
My face flames. “Nothing. Let’s change the subject.” I squirm in my seat, suddenly feeling both hot and awkward. Will can never know what was going on in my head.
He hums, grinning like he somehow already knows. I wad my napkin and throw it at him. “You don’t know.”
“I think I do.” He circles a finger around his face. “You wear all your thoughts on your face. So openly. You were taking my clothes off in your head.”
I gasp like an outraged matronly woman. “Absolutely not.”
His eyes sparkle. “How naked did you get me? All the way or just to my underwear?”
I bury my face in my hands. “Moving on! What’s next?”
He has pity on me, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. “All right. Tell me what you’re most insecure about when it comes to first dates. What’s your weakest point?”
“Is everything too broad?”
“A bit, yeah.”
I take in a deep breath and think back to my date with John. “Conversation, I think. I’m so used to my family and the way there is never a quiet moment with them that I don’t know how to handle lulls. So I usually try to fill it as quickly as possible.”
“And that gets you into trouble?”
“I gave a Ted Talk on the reproductive cycles of flowers on my last date.”
Will gives a valiant effort to not burst with laughter. But I see it there, hovering below the surface. His nostrils flare. His cheek twitches. “Is it too much to ask to hear this monologue? Please tell me flowers are into kinky stuff?”
“Stop!” I say, laughing and stretching my foot under the table to push his knee. Chuckling, he captures my ankle instead of letting me kick him. His thumb glides softly across the tender skin of my ankle and at the same moment, our laughter fades. The air cracks between us, and he lets go while I clear my throat and sit up straight.
Silence blankets the table.
Will pops a fry in his mouth and then licks the salt off his lips. Before I realize it, I’m watching oh so closely. For research! Obviously. Noting how the pros do it.
This time he does the manly look I tried but couldn’t master: arm hooked over the back of the bench seat. So casual and composed. Like maybe his shoulders are tight from a long workout and he just needs to stretch them. My eyes track down that long arm as it spans out over the top, putting his floral tattoos on display for me.
Will clears his throat. “It’s okay to let the conversation go quiet for a bit, by the way. The ability to be silent shows confidence.” As if to illustrate a point, he shifts, picks up his water glass, and takes a long drink. His Adam’s apple bobs against the long column of his throat, and now I’m convinced I need to jump into a pool full of ice because I am way too hot and bothered for a casual lunch at the diner. What is happening to me?
I lean my forearms on the table, sitting forward. “How are you so good at this?”
“Practice. Everyone thinks a good date is something that comes naturally, but it’s not. It’s taken time for me to learn the best tactics. Like the other day in my room when we…” He trails off and looks down briefly. “Anyway, yeah. I know my strengths now, and I’m confident in them.”
Interesting. He’s avoiding remembering that moment too. Did he feel as affected by it as I was?
A thrilling concept.
“Hey, can I ask you a random question?”
“Sure.”
“Is there something between you and James?”
A startled punctuated laugh jumps from my throat. “Me and James?” I’m sure my eyes are bugging from my head. “No way. That would be like me falling in love with Noah. Gross.”
“Really?” he asks, looking a little skeptical.
“Really. I can’t think of anything less appealing. No offense to James.” I smile as Will nods. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugs. “No reason. Just thought it would be good to get the whole picture. If we were trying to specifically help you snag James, then we could tailor our lessons.”
Makes sense. But no—James may not be my brother by blood, but he’s my brother all the same.
I pull my legs up in the booth, crossing one over the other. “Okay, speaking of lessons. After I’ve learned to bask in silence confidently, then what? What about when I need to talk? I don’t think my sexy flowers are as interesting to other people as they are to you.”
He laughs and grabs a napkin. “Do you have a pen?”
After digging through my purse, I find one and hand it to him. Will then writes a series of sentences on the napkin and hands it to me. “These are the questions I have memorized that I ask on every single date. Questions about family are always awkward and have too many potential pitfalls, and no one really wants to talk about their job. So I like to ask fun icebreakers instead. Works every time.”
I read the napkin out loud. “What was your favorite TV show to watch as a kid? What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to do it? Would you rather skydive or read a book?” I lower the napkin. “You have these memorized?”
He nods.
“And they really work?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he tilts his head and watches me like there’s a question that’s been nagging at him for years. “Annie, what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to?”
Immediately the answer comes to mind. One that I can’t voice. One that he can’t know.
Instead, I nibble on a fry and make a thinking noise. And then my eyes rest on his forearm and a more appropriate answer surfaces. “I’ve actually always wanted to get a tattoo.”
He sits forward, looking excited and a little pleased. “Really? Why haven’t you?” He asks like it would be as simple as just getting a haircut.
“I don’t know. A combination of being afraid it will hurt and not sure what I’d get.” And because I just can’t. I’m Annie—it would be shocking. It would be so out of character for me. It would be…fun.
Suddenly Will’s words from the other day ram into my memory: “It seems to me, Annie, that you are just waiting for someone to give you permission to be yourself out loud.” I’m afraid to admit how right he was. How much I haven’t been able to get our conversation out of my head no matter how hard I’ve tried. How the more I think of it, the more fear I have that the future I described to him won’t be enough. That marriage isn’t going to give me my happily ever after. And if that’s true, what in the world is causing this hollow feeling?
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” he says before taking a big bite of pancakes. “I’m sure you can handle it.”
My eyes trace his arm all the way down to the butterfly. “How did you decide on your flowers?”
He answers too quickly for me to believe him. “I don’t know—I’ve just always liked them.”
“If I lift my chin when I lie, looking a little too nonchalant is your tell. What’s the truth, Will Griffin?” I ask, mirroring his leaned forward position so we’re eye to eye.
He stares at me, his expression never changing. And then he shocks me with an honest answer. “In my yard growing up…we had a magnolia tree out back. I used to hide out there a lot. When I needed to get away. It was sort of a haven for me.”
Oh.
Something in Will’s eyes and thoughtful tone tells me that he visited that tree often. And it wasn’t just a haven but a safe haven. A place he needed too often. As I picture a younger version of this man hiding up in a magnolia tree all by himself, my heart bleeds. I want to climb up there with him and hold his hand. I want to know every reason that drove him up those branches—and I want to make all that pain go away.
He sits back abruptly and smiles. “Of course that was before I found my wolf family. After that I was too busy roaming the land and hunting to climb trees.”
The more I get to know Will, the more I realize his charming playfulness is not always real. Sometimes I think it’s a mask. It’s a smile drawn on a sticky note and pasted on his face. If I were to pull it off, I would find a frown beneath.
“Come on—don’t give me that look, please.” He glances over his shoulder toward the fellow diner goers watching us with hawklike intensity. He flashes someone a beaming smile. Waves at another.
“Am I giving you a look?”
“A heavy one,” he says before turning his eyes back to me. “Let’s move on and figure out what tattoo you should get.”
I don’t want to make him feel uneasy, so I push down my growing, desperate need to know this man in front of me. It’s for the best anyway. Empathy is the first step toward feelings. And Will Griffin is not someone I can have feelings for.
“Hmm. Well at the risk of you thinking I’m trying to be your copycat, it would be fun to get some flowers. Maybe a little bouquet on my wrist.” But then a new idea hits me, and excitement surges right to my belly. “Or even here.” I pull my shoulder forward and tap the back center of it. Will’s eyes track my finger and a smile like lava melts across his mouth. For a minute he’s lost to whatever mental image he’s conjuring up. And then his blue-gray irises connect with mine—the black centers dilated. “You should definitely get that. It would be very sexy.”
My stomach clenches and I blink at him. “You think I would be…sexy with a tattoo?”
He laughs one short laugh, and for a second I’m scared he’s laughing at me. Maybe he never said sexy. Maybe my brain added that word all on its own out of hope. If that’s true, I’m going to need to join the witness relocation program.
“No, Annie. Don’t get it twisted. I already think you’re sexy without a tattoo. So I know for sure you would be with one.”
My lips part on a sharp happy inhale. Did he really mean that? I’ve never once in my entire life been referred to as sexy. Always nice or the girl with a good heart. Never sexy. Never anything that made me feel quite so womanly as the word he just used to describe me. But then with a flash of disappointment, I remember how this whole conversation started.
Again, this was a demonstration. Practice. He’s showing me how well the lines work and how he effortlessly flirts because of them. Was the story about the tree real? Or is it just all a part of the mechanics.
Ugh. My heart is racing and my skin feels clammy. Like I’m going to cry. Oh God, am I going to cry?
I give a stilted laugh while dropping my gaze and blinking a hundred times at my plate as I shift it around to wipe a nonexistent drop of water from the table. “Nice. Good line.”
“Wait, what?” he says sounding confused.
I clear my throat and flash him an imitation of his own fake smile a minute ago. “I see what you did there. With the demonstration about the line and then the subsequent flirting. It worked flawlessly,” I say, overly cheery. “I’ll definitely have to remember it. Well done.”
“Annie…”
“You know what? I need to get back to the flower shop. I just remembered someone is coming by to pick up a big order. Huge order.” I shoot up from the bench. “Tell Jeanine to put my half on my tab.”
“Wait—Annie!”
“Sorry! I really just have to go. Thanks for the lesson!”
I’m in such a rush to leave the diner that on my way to the door, I run straight into Phil’s chest. “Hi, darlin’, how are you this morning?” he says with a big smile.
Sweet Phil. He helped me learn to ride my bike, and gave me my first summer job, restocking shelves in his store. Phil wears dad sneakers and khaki shorts every day of his life—even in the winter—and I think if I were to go open his closet, I’d find fifteen identical pairs lined up on hangers, pressed neatly and ready for action. I truly adore Phil, and I don’t want him to know I’m upset. Mainly because there’s no reason for it. Will was only doing exactly what I wanted him to do—teach me how to successfully flirt and converse on a date.
But for some reason, hearing the words I’ve so desperately craved coming out of his mouth and knowing they weren’t true, that they were just to prove a point—well, it hurts.
“I’m great!” I say to Phil, most likely doing a poor job of concealing my emotions based on the way his brows are crunching together and he’s looking over my shoulder to where Will is talking to Jeanine at the booth. I want to wave my arms around to distract him. I go for the next best thing. “How’s your sale on bolts and screws going today?”
It’s a new sale every day, and it’s the highlight of my mornings to make a guess about what the sale of the day will be. My sisters and I even have a dry-erase board on our fridge where we post our guesses. Loser (the person who gets the fewest correct guesses in a seven-day period) gets grocery shopping duty that week. Unfortunately, I’m the loser this week.
“Selling like hotcakes! Who knew bolts and screws would be so popular? I haven’t had a sale this successful since rakes last September. Stop by the store later, Annie girl, and I’ll give you a packet of bolts. Never know when you’re going to need one.”
“You’re the best, Phil.”
He frowns again. “Annie, has that boy said something to upset you?”
Shoot. The last thing I need is for the whole town to suspect that Will is hurting me. They’ll run him right out of here if they think I’m heading for heartbreak.
Am I?
I hazard one last glance over my shoulder and find Will standing up from the table while throwing cash on the check. Because I’m a coward, I turn and practically run out the door.
