The Varlet and the Voyeur

by L.H. Cosway

  I nodded even though I had no plans to follow his advice.

  If she decides to stay on . . . I would see her, every day. It would be torture.

  But the alternative was unbearable.

  Nineteen

  @JoseyInHeels: When your life starts falling apart, cheese is the cement that will hold it together.

  @ECassChoosesPikachu to @JoseyInHeels: … what’s going on? Call me!

  JOSEY

  I woke up on the couch to the sound of the door opening. Glancing at the screen of my phone on the coffee table, I saw it was after 4:00 a.m.

  Will.

  I’d sat up waiting for him for hours, agonizing. Why had he used his safe word? Had I done something wrong? Was he okay? Had something happened after the match?

  My head was a mess. My thoughts going a mile a minute.

  One voice said, he doesn’t want you anymore, he’s come to his senses.

  Another said, quit overthinking everything and relax. Will is a grown-up. He knows what he’s doing.

  And a third said, of course he used his safe word. Anyone can see you’re falling in love with him. He probably wants to run for the hills.

  The third one caused me the most turmoil.

  I even called Eilish out of sheer anxiety because I needed someone to talk me down. She ended up texting Bryan, who texted her back to say Will was with him. At least I knew he hadn’t been kidnapped and murdered by some serial killer. When he didn’t return, I started to worry something terrible had happened to him. And yes, I knew Will was hardly likely to be targeted by predators—given the fact that he looked like a predator himself—but such was the way my mind worked during times like this.

  I was surprised I managed to fall asleep at all, especially with all the lights on in the living room. Maybe I conked out from sheer emotional exhaustion.

  As he entered the room, my eyes traveled from his shoes all the way up to the top of his head.

  Will looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. His hair was a mess, there were dark circles under his eyes and his shirt was rumpled.

  When he caught sight of me he straightened, took a half step back, and ran a frustrated hand through his mussed hair. “I thought you’d be in bed.”

  He thought I’d be in bed?

  How on earth was I supposed to just go to bed when he walked out of the hotel after dropping a combine harvester bomb?

  “I was worried about you. Did I do something wrong?” I bit my lip to stop myself from the barrage of questions on the tip of my tongue, and then I tasted blood. I was far too edgy for this conversation.

  Will didn’t make eye contact as he sat down on an armchair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But, we need to talk.”

  Oh no.

  Not a talk.

  My heart knew what was coming even though my head refused to accept it.

  “You want to end things,” I blurted, bracing myself by holding my breath.

  Will’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected that. Or maybe I’m wrong? Maybe he doesn’t want to end things? Maybe I should stop jumping to conclusions? Maybe I have entirely too many thoughts!

  Will scratched his head, visibly perplexed. When he spoke, his voice was scratchy. “Yes, I, uh…” He cleared his throat, then continued quietly, “We should end our arrangement.”

  I nodded before I knew I was nodding, an involuntary, self-protective movement. Meanwhile, inside my body, mind, and heart, everything was crumbling. The sense of rejection, of being cast aside, hit me like a wallop. He was…he was dumping me. Well, not quite, because we were never a couple, but that’s how it felt.

  I was being dumped by my friend with benefits in the early hours of the morning at a hotel in Sydney, Australia. I couldn’t even run to my parents or Eilish for comfort. They were on the other side of the world.

  I was mortified. Maybe more mortified than I’d ever been in the entirety of my life, which is saying a lot. One would think I’d be indoctrinated against mortification at this point.

  But I didn’t want to be mortified. I wanted. . . I wanted. . . I wanted to be strong. Resilient. I wanted to rally against it. I wanted to be something else, something different than perpetually embarrassed Josey.

  So I smiled.

  Now Will looked supremely uncomfortable and confused. Maybe he thought I was going to cry and beg him to change his mind. Nope.

  In fact, hell no.

  HELL. NO.

  “I thought you might. Well, that’s perfectly fine. I actually had the same idea, so I guess great minds think alike.” I was jumping the gun, but I’d rather him think I was on the same page instead of an emotional mess. “Anyway, no need for you to avoid me anymore. It’s all good.” I laughed and shrugged and sighed. “I get it. No hard feelings and all that.” I added a nonchalant handwave, which might have been overdoing things, but oh well.

  This was a new experience for me. And really, a poorly executed nonchalant handwave was the least of my problems.

  Even though I was forcing myself to save face and accept this, I was so confused. Aside from when he came back to the hotel today, the last time Will and I were together everything was fine. We’d laughed, had amazing sex, been friends.

  I struggled to get my feelings under control. The sad fact of the matter was, I was… I was heartbroken. This whole trip, my feelings for him had blossomed. They’d ballooned from a crush into something much more serious. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.

  I was falling in love with him.

  It was the exact opposite of what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to keep my feelings out of things entirely.

  Emotion clogged my throat. I sat there, my eyes starting to water, but I refused to cry.

  Meanwhile, Will’s earlier expression of confusion had been replaced with . . . nothing. Absolutely nothing. Whatever he was feeling—if he was feeling anything, which was debatable—had been locked up tight behind a stoic façade. I barely recognized the cold, detached look on his face as his dispassionate gaze moved over my features.

  “Well, I guess that’s that then,” I whispered.

  Will stared at me a long moment, swallowed, and then said, “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  Another silence followed as we watched each other. I continued to summon my composure and even managed to paste on a new, small, closed-mouthed smile.

  But this time, the silence stretched longer than before. Much, much longer. It became something else, a tangible, physical thing, a heavy shroud. I hated these kinds of silences, and filling them had always been a compulsion of mine. Instead of just struggling against my feelings, I found myself struggling against my feelings as well as struggling not to fill the silence.

  Eventually, unsurprisingly, I lost the fight against my compulsion. “This was never supposed to be forever. Like I said, I was thinking the same thing earlier, you know, before you got back, that we should end this. Ending it before we fly home makes so much sense, and now we just have tomorrow. So, no big deal. Good timing and all that. It’s the smart thing to do.”

  Why was I talking? Shut up now, Josey.

  Something that looked to me like sympathy flickered behind Will’s eyes. I didn’t want it. It made me feel like he could see right through my bluster to my true feelings.

  He inhaled a deep breath and stood. “Okay.” His voice was croaky again. “I’ll, um, get out of your hair.”

  As he passed me by, I reached out to grab his hand before I could stop myself. He froze in place, his entire body stilling.

  My gut twisted up in knots, while my brain screamed at me to let go, leave him alone, say nothing.

  I wanted to ask him why.

  I wanted to know if he thought he could ever feel something for me in the distant, hypothetical future.

  Instead, I pushed those questions aside and, looking up at him, I said, “What about my job? Do you still want me to work for you?”

  Will’s jaw moved, and he stared at the floor. My heart stalled.


  With what seemed like great effort, he brought his attention to me and said, “If it’s okay with you, I’d like you to continue to live, uh, help me when we get home.”

  He does?

  “You do?” I was surprised. A tiny measure of relief filled me. At least he wasn’t kicking me out of his life entirely.

  “I do.” A pause as he looked me in the eye. “I need you.”

  That statement sent my emotions on a roller coaster ride. I knew he meant he needed me as a companion, not me me. I wasn’t delusional, but it affected me nonetheless.

  I was lost in thought when he said my name. “Josey.”

  “Will?”

  He stared at me meaningfully. “I would never hurt you. You know that, right?”

  I returned his stare, mine blurred with confusion, because his words made no sense. He’s hurting me now.

  Except . . .

  Oh.

  Oh.

  Will really had seen that I was falling for him. That must’ve been why he decided to end it now.

  He didn’t want to break my heart. That’s what all this was about.

  I huffed a little laugh because, unfortunately, he was too late. Not only was my heart sore, everything inside of me ached. Emotion rose to the surface again, and I couldn’t push it back down this time. I needed to get out of there before Will saw me cry.

  “Yes, I—of course I know that,” I finally whispered, and rose from the couch. I gathered my few things and stepped towards my room. “See you in the morning. And again, this was going to happen once we got home anyway. It’s definitely for the best that we stop having sex now in preparation for going back to our usual routine. So…uh, good thinking, to both of us.”

  Oh man. Stop. Talking.

  I blinked rapidly to stay my tears and hurried inside my room, shutting the door softly behind me. I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head, even though it would be morning soon. I closed my eyes and endeavored to fall back asleep.

  You don’t feel anything.

  You don’t feel anything.

  You don’t feel anything.

  A single tear fell down my cheek, contradicting my useless inner manta, because right now I was feeling everything, and too much. In that moment, I knew I’d never had a broken heart before right now. The few breakups I’d been through before and the subsequent feelings of sadness had nothing on this.

  This, what I felt right now, was true heartbreak. I was utterly crushed.

  The next day Will had his final test match. I’d planned on going, but decided against it—for obvious reasons. Instead, I hid in my room until I heard him leave for the day. I couldn’t stand for him to see my puffy face and reddened eyes from all the crying I’d done last night.

  Today, I would sort my shit out.

  Today, I would obliterate all the hurt feelings inside me and put on a permanent brave face. Because if there was anything worse than getting dumped by William Moore, it was him knowing how heartbroken I was. We’d set out the rules and I agreed to follow them. It wasn’t his fault I’d messed up.

  Instead of calling Eilish or my parents, I decided to splurge. I spent the day in the hotel’s spa. I had a manicure and pedicure, a massage and a mud bath. I even swam several laps in the pool and spent a half hour in the sauna.

  I resolved to play everything cool with Eilish. I didn’t want to make things weird between her and Will. She was his physio and they had to work together almost every day. Therefore—for her benefit—it was best to keep my hurt feelings to myself and pretend like all was well. Eventually, it would be.

  My strategy was, if I could pamper myself on the outside, then maybe I’d feel better on the inside.

  It didn’t feel like it was working yet, but I held out hope.

  When Will got back from his match, he looked exhausted, the stress lines around his eyes belying his tension. Perhaps he wasn’t doing so well with all of this. Despite my claims that everything was fine, I think he sensed I wasn’t being entirely truthful. And he was the sort of person to feel guilty about hurting someone else’s feelings, even when he had no reason to feel that way.

  I was the one who’d fucked up.

  Therefore, my broken heart was my own fault.

  “How did the game go?” I asked, trying to muster something that resembled a smile. It kinda worked.

  “We lost, 13–15,” Will replied, not looking at me. Maybe that was the reason for his tension.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” His voice was flat and he still didn’t look at me. “We won the other two. I’m going to take a shower.”

  I swallowed and nodded, hating the new, reserved tone he was using. It wasn’t like his reserve when we first met, either. Now there was a tightness behind it, like he didn’t want to show me any kind of warmth. I assumed this was in case I misconstrued friendliness for feelings.

  Yeah, he’d definitely suspected I was falling for him. The very idea plunged a brick to the pit of my stomach. I’d just have to redouble my efforts to appear unaffected.

  Good luck with that.

  All these thoughts scrambled through my head, and I didn’t notice Will had stopped midway to the bathroom. He stared at me with something I couldn’t identify, a rawness of emotion that it took everything inside me not to react to.

  “Josey, I…” his words trailed off.

  “Will?” I said, unable to disguise the hope in my voice.

  He shook his head, turning, and muttering, “Never mind.”

  He left, shutting the door behind him. When I heard the shower turn on, I went inside my bedroom. It was only 8:00 p.m., but we had an early flight. I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive the journey back to Dublin sitting next to him.

  Luckily, I had some audiobooks to listen to.

  Now, if only I could concentrate on something other than my self-inflicted emotional turmoil.

  “Would you like something to drink?” asked the smiling flight attendant as I stared blankly around the plane. We’d only been in the air an hour and already it felt like I’d been here for days.

  I looked up, hesitated, then said, “Do you know what? Yes, I’ll take a glass of Prosecco.”

  She smiled. “Coming right up.”

  Maybe getting drunk would make this flight more bearable, since Will was being even more quiet and monosyllabic than usual.

  By the time I ordered my fourth drink, he cast a wary look my way. He’d obviously been monitoring my intake. I knew Will didn’t like people getting drunk and causing a fuss on flights. It was why he preferred to travel alone rather than with the team. Well, he needn’t worry. I planned to be a quiet, miserable drunk, not a spirited, mouthy one.

  “You’re going to be sick,” I heard him say.

  I raised an eyebrow, looking in his direction. “Pardon?”

  Will coughed and put down his copy of National Geographic. “I said if you keep drinking like that, you’re going to make yourself sick.”

  “I know my own limits, and I feel fine. So you can relax.”

  Wow, where did that snappy tone come from? I barely recognized myself. Maybe I did want to be a mouthy drunk after all.

  Will’s lips formed a straight line. “I don’t want you ill. It’s a long plane ride, and being sick when you fly is the worst. We haven’t even caught our connection yet.”

  “I didn’t ask for your advice,” I replied with false cheerfulness. “And I’ll remind you that I wasn’t the one who needed to hire a babysitter, so back off.”

  Will flinched, blinking at me with astonishment. Turning away from him, I downed the rest of my glass, trying not to feel guilty for that last comment, and signaled to the flight attendant for another. She was busy with another passenger, and I was struck with an urgent need to pee. Instead of waiting, I got up and headed for the bathroom. Luckily, there wasn’t a queue since most people were napping. I went inside, did my business, and was washing my hands when a knock sounded on the door.

&nbs
p; “I’ll be out in a minute,” I called. Okay, maybe I slurred a little.

  “Josey, let me in,” came Will’s voice.

  Oh, man. The one time I don’t want him to follow me to the bathroom, he does.

  “I’m not interested in another lecture,” I said, opening the door after I dried my hands. I was just about to step out when he put his body in front of mine and maneuvered me back in. My bottom hit the edge of the sink as he reached behind himself and turned the lock over.

  My brow crinkled. “What are you doing?”

  His dark eyes studied me. “What’s going on with you?”

  What’s going on with me?

  What the hell did he think was going on?

  “Absolutely nothing,” I responded harshly. Apparently, I was a mean drunk when the mood took me.

  Will blew out a long breath and his entire posture seemed to slump. He looked exhausted.

  “You’re . . .” his eyes moved between mine. “You’re regretting what happened? You’re having a hard time?” he guessed.

  I ignored his questions, because even though I felt wretched, I didn’t regret a single thing. Even knowing what I knew now, I’d do it all over again. Just the same.

  Instead, I jabbed my finger into his sternum. “I wonder, do you have any feelings inside that big, hard chest of yours? Or are you made of stone?” I was saying too much, but it was hard to make good judgment calls when I’d had four glasses of Prosecco.

  Will blinked, and for a split second I saw a flare of temper.

  “I’m made of flesh and blood just like you. And I do have feelings.”

  I exhaled heavily. This bathroom was way too small for the two of us to be in here. I could smell his cologne, could feel the warmth of his body, tension radiating off it in waves. I’d spent the last two weeks worshipping his naked skin and it was intolerably close. All I wanted to do was pull him to me, have him hold me in his arms.

  Obviously, that wasn’t happening.

  “You’re like a robot,” I said absentmindedly, jabbing my finger into his chest again, but this time he grabbed it in his fist. I sucked in a shocked breath.