Austen Box Set

by Hart, Staci

  “Yes?” I breathed.

  “They’re a little blue. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I sighed and finally sat, running through an assessment of my body. Heart was beating steadier than usual and with no pressure or pain or tightness in my lungs. “Yes, I’m sure. Thank you.”

  A few people had gathered around, but they seemed satisfied and went on their way. But the boy still sat at my side, angling toward me.

  “Man, that was scary. I’ve never seen somebody faint before,” he said, dragging his fingers through what had to be the most luscious hair I’d ever seen in my life.

  “I’m sorry. I…I have a heart condition that sometimes likes to make itself known.”

  He chuckled. “Does it always drop you like a bag of hammers?”

  I found myself chuckling back. “No, not usually. Thank you. For stopping and all.”

  At that, he smiled, and it almost blinded me with its brilliance.

  “I’ve never rescued anyone before. Not that I did much,” he admitted a little sheepishly.

  It was adorable.

  “Well, I’ve never been rescued, so it was a first time for both of us.”

  I noticed then that we were still sitting in the walkway and moved to stand, but he reached for my hand, helping me up, and once we were standing, he didn’t let my hand go.

  “I’m Will,” he said with his eyes locked on mine and his lips smiling in a way that made my insides feel effervescent.

  “I’m Annie.”

  He bowed dramatically. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, madam.”

  I giggled, offering a curtsy as he kissed my hand. “Why, thank you, good sir.”

  “Allow me to call on you tonight to inquire after your health. Prithee, would you honor me with your phone number?”

  I laughed, but a crackling fire burned in my chest, the cold in my hands and face dissipating to make way for a flush that I felt through my whole body like a fever. “That would be most agreeable.”

  He smiled and pulled my arm into the crook of his elbow. “Can I walk with you?”

  “You don’t even know where I’m going.”

  With a smirk, he said, “Doesn’t matter. I think I’d follow you anywhere.”

  And my only thought was that I’d died and gone to heaven after all.

  We’d taken two steps when I wobbled, and when he caught me, I was tipped in his arms, looking up at him with the cloudless blue sky stretching off in every direction.

  “Hold on to my neck,” he said with a smile.

  And when I did, he scooped me up like a princess.

  “Oh!” I breathed, cradled in his arms, the closeness of him overwhelming. “You don’t have to do that. I can walk.”

  “I’m sure you can, but this is so much better, isn’t it?”

  And I had to admit that it absolutely was.

  Greg

  Annie was the last thing I’d thought about when I fell asleep last night and the first thing I’d thought of this morning when I woke. And all I wanted to do when I saw her was ask her on a date—a real date. No more ignoring my feelings, no more wondering if she felt the same.

  I’d find out for sure.

  Lying in bed, trying to sleep, that little photo of her on the steps of The Met sitting on my nightstand, I had wished that I’d told her how I felt. I almost had—the words were on the tip of my tongue—but the truth was that I wasn’t sure how she felt, and the fear of rejection had stopped me.

  But not today, I told myself as I kept busy, waiting for her to show up to work, nervous as all hell.

  Because I knew how I felt and what I wanted, but what she wanted was a mystery to me. I’d dissected every moment, looking for signals. But Annie didn’t know how to send or receive signals. She really might not consider me as anything but a friend, and if that were the case, things were about to get real weird between us.

  The thought made me feel a little ill, but I bolstered myself with faith and hope.

  But the second she walked through the door, my hope drained out of me like soggy leaves out of a rain gutter.

  Her face was alight, flushed from either the cold or the proximity of the man whose arm she clung to. His eyes were on her face, his expression thick with wonder and maybe even a touch of adoration.

  And if it had been anyone but him, I might have found a way to accept it.

  Will Bailey was a version of the devil just as much as Jacques Poosteau, but the difference was that Will appeared harmless. No one would have questioned Jacques’s desire to separate your face from the rest of you. And of the two, Will was easily the more dangerous.

  When Annie approached the bar, the look of gladness and trust and complete joy on her face was a bucket of ice on the dying embers of my hope.

  “Greg!” she called as she walked toward me where I gripped the edge of the bar hard enough to turn my fingers white.

  Will met my eyes, his expression shifting to something colder, more calculated than he’d ever show Annie, not until he chewed her up and spit her out.

  “Hey, Annie,” I said, hoping I sounded casual and cool as my heart set fire in my ribs.

  “Oh my God, you will not believe what happened.”

  She burst into the story, her face open as a daisy and lips smiling like a bubbling spring, and I listened, that flaming organ in my chest sinking with every word.

  Because one thing was painfully clear: I had missed my chance.

  Discomfort gripped me, squeezing tighter at hearing she’d fainted. She was fine, she insisted, and she’d tell her doctor, she swore. And Will had saved her, she said emphatically. She spoke about him as if he’d slain a dragon or saved her from pirates or Vikings or drug dealers, her eyes wide and full of emotion so sincere, it scared me.

  Not because she felt it. But, because she believed it so fully, she would never see Will coming.

  When her story was told, Will chuckled and stepped back, separating them. Thank God for that because I was thirty seconds from dislocating the arm her hand was hooked in.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, “but I’ll see you tonight, Annie.”

  She blushed so fabulously, I was surprised she didn’t faint again. “I can’t wait.”

  “Me either,” he said with a smile, not sparing me a glance before he turned and walked away.

  Annie sat on one of the barstools and unwound her scarf. “Oh, and my uncle might have gotten me an audition with Juilliard!”

  My mouth opened and smiled and laughed all at once in disbelief. “Annie, that’s…that’s incredible.”

  “I can’t even believe it!” she mused. “I’m sure the chances are almost nonexistent, but even having the opportunity is just…” She shook her head and laughed. “God, I have never been happier in my entire life. I have a shot at Juilliard, I just met my dream guy, I have a real job, and I live in New York City. All of my dreams are coming true.”

  I pushed my feelings aside, turned my back on the things I wanted and gave her the best lie I had. “I’m happy for you, Annie.”

  Her smile slowly faded. “Are you okay, Greg?”

  “Yeah. I just have some stuff in the back I need to do,” I said, needing an escape, needing a minute to compose myself. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  Now she was full-on frowning, the coup de grâce on her hangdog, hurt expression. “Oh.”

  In that moment, I understood something vital.

  I wanted Annie’s happiness more than anything, even my own. And she was happy—so blissfully happy that the thought of shattering that overrode my own desires.

  So I did the only thing I could.

  I leaned on the bar toward her and put on my best smile, saying, “You know what? It can wait. Tell me about Juilliard.”

  And when happiness lifted her up like a kite, I knew I’d do anything for her. Even if it meant the end of me.

  That Motherfucker

  Annie

  The day flew by, in part because we were so busy an
d in part because I floated through it like Snoopy in the Macy’s Parade—high and smiling and bobbing through the people with a fool smile on my face.

  Every second of the encounter with Will played through my mind, starting with coming-to in his arms. It was something out of a dream or a fairy tale, and I couldn’t believe it had happened to me.

  Nothing like that had ever happened to me.

  But it was the season of firsts. And Will was a brilliant first. He was so handsome, so charming, so absolutely grand, and beyond all reason, he wanted to see me again. In fact, he’d insisted on picking me up from work to see me home.

  There hadn’t been anyone like him in Boerne, that was for sure.

  Wasted Words was packed that day, the line at the registers never quieting for more than a minute or two. Not long enough for me to talk to Greg again.

  He’d listened to me talk about Juilliard, but something in him had closed off, shut down, pulled back. It was as if the magic from yesterday had been sucked right out of him.

  I tried to tell myself I was imagining things. I was just being paranoid. He didn’t purposely choose the far side of the bar where I couldn’t see him. He wasn’t making it a point to go to the back at every opportunity.

  He wasn’t mad at me.

  But I itched to ask him flat-out anyway.

  I heard my sister in my head saying, He probably likes you, and the thought jarred me so thoroughly that I almost dropped the change in my hand as I passed it to a customer’s open palm.

  If he liked me, he certainly wouldn’t be happy about my showing up with Will. I considered for a moment how I would feel if he showed up with a girl on his arm, and I was subjected to an irrational burst of adrenaline that made my heart stutter.

  Maybe Elle was right. Maybe I did like him.

  My pulse picked up at the thought, but I dismissed the idea completely. If I liked him, my insides would be going ape. Like full-blown tree-shaking, banana-throwing, howler-monkey nutso, like they did about Will.

  I sighed wistfully, smiling at my hands as I scanned a stack of books, thinking of Will, remembering the feeling of being cradled in his arms as he’d carried me to his car, the way he’d held my hand, walked me into the store to make sure I was safe. I’d finally found someone who made me feel and feel so intensely that it was nearly all I could think about.

  I couldn’t believe he was real. I couldn’t believe he was interested in me.

  Life was weird. A few weeks ago, I hadn’t been sure how life could even keep going, and now I found that life running away from me in the best way, like rolling down a grassy hill in the summertime.

  I didn’t believe in heaven or hell, but I believed in finding meaning and comfort where I could. And I had to think that, somehow, I had manifested my destiny strictly through my desire to honor my father and live my life in a new way.

  The universe had granted me a gift, and I didn’t want to take it for granted.

  When I glanced over at the bar, Greg was there, his enigmatic eyes on me, the irises the color of midnight. But when I smiled, he smiled back, sending a slow crawl of relief through my chest. We’d just been busy, that was all. I was just being dramatic, which was a common trap for me, right alongside jumping to conclusions and judging things based on what I could see and the narrow lens I could see them through.

  Unfortunately, that knowledge never stopped me from repeating my mistakes.

  Once it hit six, I finished up and passed the baton to Ruby before taking my drawer back to the office. And once I was all set, I grabbed my things, clocked out, and headed to the bar to ask Greg if everything was okay before Will came to pick me up.

  Only I never got the chance.

  Will and Greg were exchanging words across the bar, and their body language said those words were unpleasant. Greg’s shoulders were square, his face tight, the muscles at the corners of his jaw bouncing like he was clenching and unclenching his teeth. Will didn’t look much better, though a little less aggressive; his eyes were narrowed, and he stood tall and square, but there didn’t seem to be any bite behind his posture. Greg, on the other hand, looked like he could separate Will’s head from his body.

  They both put on the controlled facade of neutrality when I approached.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked Will before glancing at Greg.

  A thousand questions were poised on the tip of my tongue, and Greg’s dark eyes held a thousand things he wanted to say.

  “Fine,” Will clipped, his presence between Greg and me tangible and impeding. “Are you ready?” he asked, offering me his arm.

  “Yeah,” I answered as I took it.

  Greg’s eyes were dark and stormy, but he found a way to smile. It was a taut, unfamiliar version of the smile I knew. “I’ll see you later, Annie.”

  “Bye,” I said stupidly, and we turned to leave. But as Will swept me out of the bookstore, I chanced a glance back.

  Greg still watched me, in the exact spot I’d left him. I didn’t think he’d even exhaled.

  The second we cleared the doors, I asked the question that had been burning at the back of my throat.

  “Do you know Greg?”

  Will reached for the handle of the hired Mercedes and opened the door for me. “I dated his sister in high school,” he answered to my utter shock, ushering me into the car.

  I scooted over so he wouldn’t have to walk around, and he slid in next to me. My mind turned the news over and over, imaginings of what could have happened commandeering my attention as he asked me my address, which I absently relayed to the driver.

  Once the car pulled away, Will sat back with a sigh. “It was a long time ago. He never did like me, and neither did his brother.”

  Relief loosened the rubber band around my ribs at the implication that Greg wasn’t upset with me at all. He didn’t like Will. Of course he hadn’t been thrilled about me walking in with someone he didn’t approve of.

  It explained everything, though niggling doubt still clung to my thoughts.

  “Why not?” I asked with the utmost honesty and curiosity.

  He shrugged. “They’re overprotective of her, and they hated me because I was so different from them. I was just some rich asshole who was dating their sister.”

  My brow quirked. “Why would they think that?”

  “We come from different worlds. Prejudice happens from all sides. Their dad was a plumber, and mine’s a partner at the law firm established by my great-great-grandfather. Blue collars and blue bloods.”

  I found myself frowning. That didn’t sound at all like the Greg I knew. “They didn’t like you because you had money?”

  “It was hard for Sarah. She came to our prep school as an outsider—not just because she was new in a school of old friends, but because there was a class divide. When we started dating, she became a part of my group of friends. And when we broke up, she wasn’t welcome.”

  “That doesn’t seem very fair,” I said with a flash of defensive anger in my chest.

  He took my hand, twining his fingers in mine. “It wasn’t, but…” His eyes shifted to the seat-back in front of him with a faraway look on his face. “We had gone to this party the night we broke up. She drank way too much, and we ended up in this huge fight about her brothers. She went one way, I went another. I figured we just needed to cool off, but when I went looking for her, she was in one of the bedrooms with a guy.”

  The vision made me feel ill.

  “Everyone found out. They ostracized her from our clique, spread the news in mass texts with photos. I haven’t seen Greg since Sarah and I dated, but I have a feeling he blames the whole thing on me.”

  “That’s…that’s…”

  “I know.” A deep sigh left his lungs. “Anyway, I’m sorry about what happened back there. I didn’t realize he worked there.”

  I nodded, curious about the other side of the story, about what Greg believed.

  Will smiled, a soft, genuine smile that sent warmth blooming in my c
hest. “But it’s in the past, and I’d rather look forward. Wouldn’t you?”

  I smiled back, putting my curiosity away to indulge in the moment with Will. “That’s been my personal motto lately.”

  Will watched me, his smile never wavering. “When can I take you on a date, Annie?”

  A flash of excitement shot through me, warming my cheeks. “I’m free tomorrow after work. I get off around three.”

  “I’ll pick you up at work again. The weather is going to be great tomorrow, even warmer than today. I have an idea, but is it all right if I surprise you?”

  My smile widened. “I love surprises.”

  “Good, because I’m full of them.”

  I swooned in my seat. “I’m sorry it couldn’t be today.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You need to work on your audition, and I have plans to make for tomorrow.”

  Sadly, the driver pulled up in front of my building, and George opened the door with a tip of his hat and a questioning look at me as Will got out behind me. We stood on the curb, and Will took my hands in his, looking down at me with something akin to worship in his eyes.

  I was ninety percent sure I mirrored him.

  “I’m so glad I was in the right place at exactly the right time today,” he said softly.

  “So am I.”

  I didn’t want him to let go of my hands, and I didn’t want to go inside. I just wanted to exist in that moment for as long as I could, memorizing everything so that I could call on it and repeat it on a loop.

  But his fingers relaxed and fell away, and he stepped back. “See you tomorrow, Annie.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  He ducked into the car and reappeared, reaching for the door. “Me either.”

  And then he closed the door, holding his hand up in parting as the car pulled away.

  I watched him go before making a noise that was something like a giggle-sigh and skipadee-doo’d inside, minus the actual skipping.

  I floated into the house, picking up Franco, the Maltese, when the dogs overwhelmed me. I tucked the furry little thing into my chest; he madly licked my chin as I blew past Susan, who informed me of dinner in an hour.