“Two words!” called Lindsay.
Lucas nodded, and started acting out…something. He raised his thick arms over his head, then brought them down by his sides and started stepping from side to side before standing still.
“Soldier!”
“Rocket!”
“Jumping bean!”
The guesses from Lucas’s team came furiously—mostly from Lindsay and Linda—but none of them were right. Lucas became more and more visibly frustrated, shaking his head vehemently as he continued his same strange dance with his arms occasionally held akimbo, but generally thrust down at his side.
“Telephone pole!”
“Pencil!”
“Ruler!”
“Penis!”
The group exploded with laughter, with even Will chuckling when Lucas fell onto the ground with disappointment as his dad, the official time keeper, called out time.
“It was Forrest Gump!” he shouted to the sky. “I was being a tree! Not my friggin’ junk!”
“Ohhhhh!” His group all chanted their sudden awareness altogether, producing another round of laughter.
“Lucas, do your Forrest Gump impression,” Lindsay said. She turned to her friends. “Have you guys seen him do this? He sounds just like him. Like, close your eyes when he does it.”
Lucas didn’t need more than that to start. He clambered back to his seat, and with a grin, turned to Lindsay.
“Life is like a box of chocolates…” he started to drone.
I rolled my eyes. I had heard this before. It wasn’t actually that good of an impression—Lucas just effected a mild Southern accent and talked really slow, just like everyone else did when we were kids and our parents would put on that movie. It came out when I was about two, but every person I knew grew up with a DVD or even a VHS of that thing in their house. Everyone knew it.
Beside me, Will snorted.
Lucas looked up, irritated. “What?” he said. “You think you can do better, Bon Jovi? Good impressions are actually really hard.”
Will shrugged, but the arm around me tightened. “It’s all right.”
Lucas smirked at Lindsay, as if to say, Look at this fool.
“But you got the accent all wrong,” Will said like everyone else understood what he meant completely. “You sound like you’re from Texas, not Alabama.”
I turned and blinked at him. What? How would he know that?
“Oh, boys. Let’s keep it civil, now,” Linda warned.
Lucas crossed his arms. “Oh? What’re you, some Southern accent specialist? Aren’t you from somewhere back east or someplace like that?”
Will’s jaw tensed, and I could practically feel the gears turning in his head. The hand over my shoulder clenched into a fist, and for a second, I thought he was going to get up and punch Lucas or something equally terrible. I was the only one here who had ever seen that temper, and though I hoped Will wasn’t about to go throwing Linda’s hand-carved camp tables into the lake, I wasn’t completely sure he wouldn’t. There was always that part of him that seemed completely unpredictable.
And he was. Just not in the way I ever expected. Of course.
All at once, Will removed his arm from my shoulder, scooted about a foot away from me down the log, and sat up. His entire body language and positioning shifted, though the changes were so subtle, it was difficult to tell what he had done. But in a second, he went from being closed-off Will Baker to being someone…else. Someone completely different.
Then he opened his mouth, and I knew exactly who he was: “Those must be comfortable shoes.”
The whole group went silent. My mouth dropped, along with a few others’.
“I bet you could walk all day in shoes like that and not feel a thing,” Will continued. “I wish I had shoes like that.”
He stared at me, like he was waiting for me to say something. It took me a while, but eventually, I figured it out as the famous scene came back to me.
“M-my feet hurt,” I said, and everyone laughed lightly, then dropped into silence again as Will continued.
For my part, I could do nothing but stare, enthralled, as he continued through the opening monologue to Forrest Gump. The messy blond hair, the muscles that bulged through his thin sweatshirt, the sculpted face and penetrating green eyes—all of it disappeared under the body language and absolutely pitch-perfect rendering of the Alabama accent Tom Hanks had used. Will Baker no longer existed. I was sitting right next to Forrest Gump, listening to him talk about shoes, people, all the things he could remember about them. I was on the set of the movie, watching him play with his nonexistent tie, shuffle his feet together, and there was practically a feather floating in the air next to him—that was how convincing he was.
By the time he got to the final line where the scene melts to a child in leg braces, Will turned to everyone else, and fairly shouted it, sounding exactly as it had in the movie: “Mama said they’d take me anywhere!”
As if on cue, everyone there, even Lindsay and Lucas, burst into sudden applause, whooping and hollering as Will scooted back to his place next to me, slipped his arm back around my shoulders, and pulled me into his side.
“Holy shit,” I murmured as he glanced down. His cheeks were flushed, but it seemed to me to be as much from pleasure as from embarrassment. The dimples were out in force. “Where did that come from, Baker?”
He just shrugged and pressed an absent kiss to my shoulder. “Everyone has a few hidden talents, I guess.”
“You should be acting or doing improv or something,” I told him. “Seriously, you were amazing. You looked like you were a trained performer, Will.”
He shrugged, visibly uncomfortable. “It’s just a bit of fun. Let’s drop it.”
“Really, though,” I continued. “Did you ever see any of those improv groups in New York? You were way better than those guys.”
“Maggie, I said drop it.”
His words cut through my excitement, and then I realized that he was shaking. Physically shaking. And immediately, I felt terrible. Will didn’t like attention, and here I was, singling him out in front of everyone.
“Well, honey, I don’t know how you’re going to top that,” Linda was telling Lucas, who was looking a bit put out. “I think you’d better stick to De Niro.”
“Whatever,” Lucas grumbled.
Will chuckled, but froze when he looked up and caught sight of Lindsay’s phone pointed our way,
“Did you—did you record that?” he asked, a little too gruffly. I squeezed the hand resting on my knee, willing him to calm down a little.
Lindsay frowned. “What? No. Linda asked me to take some pictures of everyone to remember the night.” She held her phone back up. “Want one?”
Will shook his head even as I leaned in to smile at the camera.
“No,” he said. “I’m good.”
I turned. “Why not? What’s wrong?” He was afraid of pictures too?
“Come on, you grouch,” Lindsay jeered as she held her phone up again. “It’s just for memories, I promise. Don’t you want a picture together as a couple?”
She was trying to rile up Lucas, and on the other side of the fire, I could see it was working. Lucas polished off the other half of his beer in one go while staring daggers at Will. His gaze flickered between us a few times, taking in the casual body language. He knew we were seeing each other, of course—he’d been around us all week, even after the blowup last weekend. But this was the first time either of us had been openly affectionate around him. Will was being territorial. And I was somewhat guiltily enjoying it.
Lindsay continued to prod. I didn’t want to push Will, but I couldn’t deny the appeal of having some kind of memory of the two of us. For whatever reason, this still didn’t feel quite real. We could make all the proclamations we wanted to each other in private, but there was something about having a record of ourselves, something to show others, that made me feel more like this was real. That others could see it too.
; “I’d kind of like one,” I murmured into his chest. “If—if you don’t mind.”
Will looked down at me with softened eyes. Then he sighed. “I really can’t say no to you, you know that?” he murmured. Then he turned back toward the camera, setting his chin on top of my head. “You sure you didn’t record anything?”
“Yes!” Lindsay practically shouted. “Jeez. Paranoid much?” She held up her phone, swiping to the right app. “Man, it’s really hard to get the lighting right. Maggie, you do kind of sink into the darkness, right? Must be hard.”
I did my best to ignore her comments. Beside me, Will growled low.
“Okay, you guys, smile,” Lindsay said after she was finished fiddling with the controls. “You too, mountain man. One, two, three—cheese!”
A flash went off, bright enough that I could see stars for a moment.
Beside me, Will had gone stock-still. As soon as I could see clearly again, I turned to him. He was still staring at Lindsay, who had since turned to snap photos of others.
“Hey.” I tapped his cheek. “You okay?”
He blinked furiously. Every muscle in his body suddenly shifted, strung as tightly as one of my guitar strings. Like if I touched him, pulled him in any way, he’d shoot in the opposite direction.
“I have to go,” he muttered, standing up so suddenly that I was practically tossed off his body. Without even saying goodbye or thank you to any of the guests or the Forsters, he practically jogged into the blackness.
“Here we go,” Lucas remarked with a roll of his eyes.
But I was already jogging past him, preparing for another confrontation with the man I was dangerously close to falling in love with, if I hadn’t already. I was confused. Embarrassed. Abandoned. And really, really pissed off.
Because this was ridiculous. I wasn’t going to live my life walking on eggshells because of a man’s neuroses. I was done with that, and this…whatever this was…was never going to work if Will ran away like a scared animal every time some random trigger set him off. If this was ever going to work, truths needed to be said. Cards needed to be laid. Things had to change. Starting now.
By the time I reached the parking lot, Will was already opening the door to his truck in quick, jerky movements that betrayed his panic.
“Hey!” I shouted, my voice echoing through the darkness. The joviality at the fire was behind us, only a faint echo swallowed in the night air.
Will froze at his car. “Let it go, Lil.”
“What the hell?” I ignored him completely, reached around to slam the door shut, then pulled on the front of his hoodie so he had to face me completely. “Are we really doing this again? Is this going to be your M.O. every time someone does or says something that makes you the slightest bit uncomfortable?”
Will’s face twisted in a dark frown. “I don’t need to explain myself to you, Lily. I don’t want my fucking picture taken.”
I scoffed. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me? You just left me stranded in front of all my friends, looking like an idiot. Are you mad about having a freaking picture? Or that I wanted to be there and you didn’t? I never said you had to come, Baker.”
“And I didn’t want to be there!” Will burst out. “For a lot of reasons. But I sat there, twiddling my fucking thumbs in my office, and realized I’d be a dick if I let you sit here by yourself all night. I don’t like your friends, Maggie. I don’t like people making racist comments to your face and talking to you like you’re nothing. You can’t expect me to enjoy listening to these small-minded bitches degrading my girl! Lindsay. Lucas. Your own mother, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to hear it, and neither should you.”
I swallowed, my anger only slightly stifled by the idea that Will considered me his girl. I liked it. Too much. And I was just about to say it, but Will kept talking.
“I just don’t know why we need to waste our time with these people,” he continued. “I’m better than them. You’re better than them, Maggie.”
“No, I’m not!” I exploded, sending out a spray of gravel when I stomped my foot. “First of all, I’m one of them, Will. Maybe even less than them. I’m Ellie Sharp’s daughter, half her crappy DNA and half some stranger who would screw a drunk woman in a bar without a second thought. I tried to get away from that sad fact for the last eight years, and you know what? I failed. I came back here because I needed to accept it.”
Will opened his mouth, clearly ready to argue, but I held up a hand. I wasn’t done.
“Those people over there? Most of them have done more for me and mine my entire life than you can possibly imagine. I broke Lucas’s heart when I left town, and here he is, literally helping me put my home back together. Linda and Don? They were like second parents to me. So before you go thumbing your nose at the good people who live here, maybe consider your fucking audience, all right? We’re not better than them. They’re better than us.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Will countered lamely. “But, Maggie…I hate hearing you talk about yourself like this. I hate the way you let them do it too. I look at you, and I don’t see someone who should be stuck here taking care of her deadbeat mother. You should be back out there. Making music. Following your dreams.”
He couldn’t have known the way a statement like that would cut into me, but he should have known enough. After all, Will understood why I’d left New York. He knew, at least a little, about how hard I’d tried, for how long, giving everything I had to a career that, in the end, couldn’t save me.
And that choice hadn’t just cost me everything I had. It had cost Mama her life too.
“I can’t,” I said bitterly, now swiping tears off my cheeks. “My mom buried herself in the bottle for the last eight years because she thought I wasn’t coming back, Will! I’m stuck in Newman Lake because I won’t do that to her again. Ever.”
He didn’t say anything at first. From the fire pit, a few distant peals of laughter cut through the silence, but Will’s eyes didn’t move from mine. We were engaged in another one of his stare-offs, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to break first, even though my stomach was completely tangled in knots. She was far across the lake, but from here, I could see Mama’s body curled up on the bathroom floor, or maybe passed out on a deck chair. I wouldn’t turn my back on these people ever again—not for my own stupid dreams, and certainly not to appease another man.
Will could take me if he wanted. But he had to take all of me. And that included them too.
“Look,” I tried. “You can’t let a few stupid comments determine how you think of an entire community. And you definitely can’t just run away because of a camera flash or a song or whatever sets you off next. I can’t deal with that.”
Will opened his mouth, then shut it. He folded his arms over his chest and didn’t speak.
I blinked. My eyes hurt. They welled a little at the thought of what I was going to say next. But I had to say it. I had to learn to put down limits. If I had learned one thing from my time with Theo, it was that.
“I want you to know me, Will. Know my life. And these are my people, whether you like it or not. You want to live your life alone, that’s…well, it’s your prerogative to do so. But it’s not mine. So…maybe we need to think about this. What this really is. Whether it’s really going to work.”
Will’s eyes closed, and my stomach dropped. That was resignation on his face—he was probably coming to the same conclusions I was. This…connection…or whatever it was between us might have the force of a tidal wave. But in the end, even that kind of power couldn’t overcome fundamental personality differences. It couldn’t overcome values.
Internally, I panicked. Being with Will over the last few weeks had made me feel more like myself than I had in a very, very long time. For the last…had it really only been a week?…I had gone to sleep in his arms, spent my days working alongside him. He had become more than a casual lover in such a short period of time—already, he was something of a rock. Was I really will
ing to throw that away for an alcoholic mother and a friend who sometimes couldn’t take no for an answer?
The answer, of course, was yes. It could only ever be yes, because that’s what family is, what my mother and the Forsters were to me. Will wasn’t family. Not…not yet.
We stood there for a long time, me looking at Will, Will with his eyes shut tight. Laughter from the bonfire ebbed and flowed, but we were statues in the summer night breeze.
But still he said nothing. And slowly, eventually, that said as much as any single word.
“All right,” I said finally, turning away so he couldn’t see the next round of tears threatening to fall. I shouldn’t have felt like this, but I did. It wasn’t his fault that his paralyzing fears kept him from being around people. Just like it wasn’t my fault that I had people in my life who needed my attention. After less than a month of knowing him, it shouldn’t hurt so much, then, that we probably weren’t going to work out.
But it did. It really, really did.
Will remained silent as I walked to my car, didn’t call out or even try to stop me as I put the keys in the ignition and drove home.
26
I was too busy crying to notice the headlights that followed me right down Muzzy Drive instead of left. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to notice that they followed me all the way around the lake, even down my gravel driveway. It wasn’t actually until I had parked near the stairs, was bent over the steering wheel trying to suck in deep breaths, and a pair of knuckles were tapping lightly on my window, that I realized the old orange Toyota was parked next to me.
I jumped at the sound, swallowing back my tears and my pride as I caught sight of Will’s face. Hurriedly, I rolled down the window while swiping under my eyes. Will leaned down, his face filling most of the window.
“Lil,” he said quietly.
“Um. H-hi,” I mumbled.
“Why did you leave?”
I sniffed. “Well…you didn’t say anything. You were pretty clear.”
Vote Then Read: Volume I Page 197