I decided to think happy thoughts, and my dinner made me happy. I took my last bite and sighed, half in enjoyment, half wistfully that it was all gone. “I don’t get excited about chicken too often, but this is to die for. Thanks for suggesting this place.”
“Thanks for being willing to try it out with me.”
We had reached what one how-to-date article called “the fork in the road.” He would either wind up for a pitch or leave the mound and forfeit the game.
He picked up his napkin and dabbed at his mouth before setting it down. “I’m sure the desserts here are great too, but if you don’t mind a walk, I know where to find the best cheesecake in the city.”
“Hannah loves cheesecake. That sounds good. We’ll go with you,” Will said.
“Does it?” I asked. Will hated cheesecake. “What about you, Raina? Does cheesecake sound good to you?”
Her plastic smile said that tagging along with us didn’t sound good at all. But she said, “Sounds great.”
“You sure?” I pressed. “You guys are totally committed to cheesecake?”
Will’s eyes narrowed, suspecting something was up, but Raina jumped in before he could answer. “Absolutely. What girl doesn’t love cheesecake? I might even love it more than you.”
I leaned back and smiled at them. “You’re probably right. I don’t feel that strongly about cheesecake tonight, but you guys enjoy it. I’ll take you up on the walk though,” I told Jared, who perked up when he realized I wasn’t quitting for the night. Yet. I wasn’t going to string Jared along, but I wasn’t cutting him loose with Will in earshot either. Besides, it would serve Will right to wonder what I was up to while he watched Raina eat her cheesecake.
“Great,” Jared said, signaling the server for our check. “Nothing better than an Indian summer for—”
“Baseball,” Will said.
“A walk on the town with a beautiful woman,” Jared finished, ignoring Will, who suddenly had a cough again.
“Do you follow baseball at all?” Will asked, a challenge in his voice.
Jared might not have understood the challenge—Will couldn’t fathom me ever being serious about a guy without a diehard dedication to the sport we loved—but he answered anyway. “I go to Rangers games sometimes,” Jared said. “I’ve been too busy since starting my practice to keep my season tickets, but yeah, I still like it. I like soccer better though.”
“Floppers,” Will said.
“Yeah, because that doesn’t happen in other sports ever. Just ask Manu Ginóbili.”
That made me laugh out loud, and I wished I didn’t have to end our walk by telling him we weren’t going to hang out again. I did, however, wonder if there was a way I could get his number for Sophie.
The waitress set our checks on the table, and I reached for ours, but Jared snatched it up first. “Maybe I’m a chauvinist, but there is some of my mother’s training in me that I just can’t let go. Let me get it, as a thank you for some awesome dinner conversation.”
I smiled and relaxed in my chair as he tucked his card into the check holder. Raina hadn’t even reached for the bill, and Will was able to pay for their dinner without a peep of protest from her. Jared asked Will about a trade the Rangers had made earlier in the season to strengthen their batting lineup, and that conversation lasted until the waitress returned with the receipts and they each scrawled out their signatures on the slips. Or maybe only Will scrawled. For a guy who dealt professionally in precision and clarity, he had atrocious handwriting, like the ink could never keep up with his brain.
“Guess this is where we split up,” Jared told Will, not sounding at all sorry about it. He jotted something on a cocktail napkin and handed it to Will. “That’s the cheesecake place. Have a good night,” he said as he hurried around to my side of the table to help me slip my cardigan on. Oh, man, I needed this guy for Sophie, big time. What a complete, total, absolute peach who deserved a peach like my best friend.
We headed out to the sidewalk, and Jared pointed south. “That way?”
“Sounds great.”
As we waited for the light at the corner to change, I glanced back to the restaurant in time to see Will and Raina walking in the opposite direction. They weren’t holding hands or even walking particularly close, but my heart lurched watching them step in sync. I wondered if Will had looked back for me at all, and the lurch became a squeeze when I realized that he probably had, since that, after all, was what good big brothers did.
Chapter 9
Will’s door shot open as I passed it, and I barely bit back a shriek. My hand flew to my chest while I took a deep breath and then shot him a death stare before walking to my apartment. I’d stayed out a whole hour after Jared and I had split up, not wanting to walk past Will’s parking spot in the garage and torture myself if its emptiness mocked me by announcing he was still with Raina. He’d thrown open his door too fast for me to even process, much less enjoy the knowledge that he was home. How irritating.
He followed behind me. “Where have you been?”
“Go home, Will.”
“I’ve been home for an hour.”
“Congratulations,” I said. I slid the key in my lock without looking back.
“You didn’t answer my text.”
“Yes, I did.” I opened the door and set my purse on my end table.
“Telling me to stop texting you is not an answer.”
I shut the door on him. He opened it again.
“If you used your deductive reasoning skills, you could have pieced together that I was alive and well and too annoyed to talk to you.” I gave him a shove hard enough to move him out of my doorway and shut the door again, throwing the dead bolt this time.
He jiggled the handle. “I’m going to YouTube how to get around a dead bolt,” he said through the door.
“You’ve got problems, Will.”
“Yeah, you. You’re a giant pain in the neck. Dave would never let you get away with crap like this.”
I shot the dead bolt back and threw the door open to glare at him. “You know why Dave pawned me off on you? Because he figured out that I’m way too much work to babysit. That’s what happens when you try to interfere with a grown woman’s life. So he thought to himself, ‘Who do I know that’s dumb enough to take this on?’” I reached up and knocked three times on his forehead. “Ding, ding, ding. You’re the winner. I absolve you. Dave conned you into doing an impossible job. You can give up in good conscience.”
I tried to close the door again, but he stuck his foot in the way and muscled past me. I gave up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water.
“You’re in a bad mood. Your date didn’t end well?” He didn’t sound at all sympathetic.
Yes and no. The perfect end to a date for me would be a shivery kiss and that feeling of floating back home. Instead, I’d had to find a way to tell Jared that I thought he was awesome, but I had a feeling we weren’t going to be a good fit.
He’d understood immediately. “Will.” He didn’t even phrase it as a question, so I hadn’t insulted him by denying it. I had, however, increased the awkward quotient exponentially by asking him if I could set him up with a friend. He’d said he’d think about it, but I’d shown him a picture of Sophie on my phone, and I’d left with his number to pass on. And he was smiling when we parted ways in the parking lot, so I was calling the whole thing a win.
“It was a good date.” Minus the entire part of the evening where Will had been an absolute disaster.
“So where’d you go after?”
“Walking. Talking. None of your business.”
His eyebrows shot up as he considered that, and he wandered in to flop on my sofa. “You surprised me. You were on point. You should give lessons to some of the girls I’ve gone out with.”
Prickles of pleasure at the compliment danced up the back of my neck.
He wasn’t done. “But I still think you’re a little naive—”
I walked out of the kitchen b
efore he could finish the sentence and shut my bedroom door on the rest of his words.
“—about what guys are after. Oh, come on!” he hollered as the door clicked shut. “That’s as immature as it gets. Do you have your fingers in your ears too so you don’t have to hear anything you don’t like?”
I threw myself on the bed and dialed Sophie.
“Hey,” she said. “Date report. How did it go?”
“Good news, bad news. My date’s name was Jared, and he was great.”
“Cool. What’s the bad news?”
“I’m not done with the good news yet. Hang on.” I listened for Will in the living room, but I heard nothing, so I wandered out. No Will. Good. “So the rest of the good news is that Jared is not the guy for me, but I’m pretty sure he’s your future husband.”
“Ooooh, tell me more.”
“In a second. The bad news is that stupid Will was on my whole stupid date.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He crashed it like a Miley Cyrus wrecking ball.”
“Miley Cyrus writes trite metaphors.”
“This one was accurate.” I snuggled into my favorite couch corner and told her all about the stupidest date of my life. “And then he had the nerve to pounce on me when I was coming home and demand a report.”
“Oh, Will,” Sophie sighed. “What a dummy. What a duuu-uuuuuuuummy,” she sang for emphasis. “So what did you do?”
“I tried shoving him out the door, but that didn’t work. He still needed to lecture me, so I locked myself in my room until he called me immature and finally went away.”
“Huh. So basically you acted like his sister, and he treated you like his sister.”
“Don’t be on his side! This was exactly the kind of night where he should have seen me as an equal. I was in a sophisticated outfit, sharing dinner and sparkling conversation with a handsome man, and the second I get home, he’s waiting up for me like Dave so he can lecture me.”
“We need to get back to the part about my future husband pretty soon, but while I’m 100 percent on your side, you also just admitted that as soon as he started in on you brother-style, you responded back sister-style. I’m going to fix this for you, but you have to see that pattern first. You can’t morph when you’re with other people, even when you’re in his presence, and revert back to old dynamics when you’re alone together.”
“But—”
“Say I’m right, Hannah.”
“He—”
“Say I’m right, Hannah. This is tough love.”
“Fine. You’re right. But you’re going to have to explain what I’m supposed to do when he acts like that.”
“It’s simple, but it’s hard. Can you imagine what would happen if I acted like my students every day? They’d treat me like one of them, and most of them would probably think that was pretty fun, but we wouldn’t get anything done. So no matter how much their shenanigans make me want to jump in or how often I feel like getting caught up in Sicilian land wars when one of them feels like pulling me into a power struggle, I rise above.”
“Did you just use a Princess Bride quote and a Maya Angelou quote on me? In one sentence?”
“Yes. I’m masterful. But take it as a mantra. Repeat that to yourself when you’re with Will: I will rise above this. If he does something that treats you like a sister, think about how you would act if it was some random guy you were dating. You would never put up with one tenth of Will’s crap from a date. You would put him in his place or walk out. And that’s what you have to do with Will. Retrain him while giving him plenty of opportunities to see the adult you.”
I slid to the floor and stuck my feet up on the couch. It was one of my favorite thinking positions. “It sounds like we’re training a puppy. I’m not trying to change Will. I’m trying to change his perception of me.”
“This isn’t like puppy training at all,” Sophie argued. “This is like last year when you wanted that promotion and you knew Parham”—and she paused so we could each make a fake spitting sound like we did every time we named my boss—“wasn’t going to give you a shot.”
Parham had thought I was too fresh from college, too young to handle it. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but his actions had. So I had wormed my way into being an interim project manager when we were short staffed and killed it, and my promotion became a no-brainer. And the second promotion had come six months after that. My next move up the ladder would make me Parham’s professional peer.
“It’s all about making Will see that he’s blind too. And if you can’t let go of the puppy-training analogy, then, yeah, it’s also about looking amazing around him and rubbing his nose in it every time.”
I laughed. “You’re the best.”
“True. Now tell me who I’m marrying.”
I told her all about Jared and got her blessing to give him her number. We ended our call, and I was wrapping up an e-mail to Jared, telling him more about Sophie, when a call from Dave came in on Skype.
“Good morning,” I said, answering it. He often called when he woke up because that was right before I was going to sleep. Usually he answered with a “Good night” and a grin to acknowledge the time difference, but today he only grumbled, “Hey,” and scowled.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You went on a blind date tonight?”
“I did,” I answered, losing my own smile. It was going to be one of those calls, where Dave wasn’t content with siccing Will on me and had to butt in for himself.
“From the Internet? That’s not safe, Hannah. Come on.”
I sat back and crossed my arms. “Will told you, huh? Did you give him the same lecture you’re about to give me? Because he went on a blind Internet date too.”
“It’s not the same thing. He can handle himself.” He winced. “I meant—”
“You meant exactly what you said. Your double standard is stupid, and you better change the subject right now, or I’m going to bed.”
“He’s a big guy, Hannah. No one’s going to take advantage of him. So unless your date was smaller than you, I still have a point.”
“No, you don’t. I understand that I need to use common sense when I go out with strangers, which is why I told Sophie where I was going and who I was with and met my date at a busy restaurant. I didn’t need Will hovering, and since I obviously made it home in one piece, I definitely don’t need you hovering now.”
“It’s my job.”
“No. Your job is taking care of your wife and your career and your life. Not managing mine. I love you, but I swear you’re worse now than when you lived down the hall.”
Jessica’s head popped onto the screen. “It’s because he feels like he’s got less control now. Forgive him. I’m working on him. Hi, Hannah!” she said with a quick wave before she straightened and went back to whatever she was doing.
“Listen to your wife,” I said. “I’ve got this. I’m safe, healthy, and happy. Now call Will off, and let me do my thing.”
“No way,” he said. “If anything, he’s too lax with you.” I heard a loud snort from Jessica. Dave ignored her. “The only reason I even accepted this job is because he promised he would keep an eye on you, but you’re wandering off with Internet strangers. So don’t worry, you’re not even my first lecture this morning. I got on his case too.”
I groaned. “Say you didn’t.”
“He definitely did,” Jessica called. “Went on and on about how he’s given Will the sacred trust of being the surrogate brother, and letting you wander off with strangers is not in keeping with that trust. And on. And on.”
“Dave. Stop. I mean it. What reason have I ever given you to think I can’t take care of myself?”
He pressed his mouth tight and glared at me.
“Look at you.” I leaned closer to the screen to study his body language. “You’re a stressed-out mess. There’s no reason for it. I’m fine. I’ve been fine.”
“You’re fine until you’re not, Hann
ah. That’s how it goes. There’s enough random, bad things that can go wrong without messing with known risks like Internet blind dates.”
I took a deep breath, determined to hold on to my temper because I could sense the anxiety in his voice. The only reason I hadn’t completely lost it with Dave over the years was because I knew he wasn’t trying to control me personally—he had an extreme need to control the situation when it came to people he loved. And he loved me like crazy. Which was why I let him get away with driving me crazy. He’d been like this since the accident when our parents had disappeared from our lives in a matter of seconds.
“Dave.”
“Hannah.”
“I have not once in my whole life been in any danger. That’s not luck. That’s me exercising common sense. I’m fine. I’ll stay fine. And I promise I’ll always check with Sophie, meet people in safe places, and use good judgment. Please, spend your energy on something where you can make a difference. Because you taught me well. I’m going to be okay.”
The tiny lines he’d developed around his eyes tightened. Will didn’t have those yet because he wasn’t a worrier like Dave was. Then the lines relaxed again, and he sighed. “I can’t call Will off. He’s the only way I’ll have real peace of mind. I don’t know how I would have survived your teenage years if I hadn’t had him for backup.”
A pang in my stomach made it hard for me to keep my expression neutral. Part of me wanted to complain that it was Will playing backup that was making it so hard to break through to him now. But the reality was that it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d never been the kind of girl Will had gone for back then, and that was the whole problem now.
Chapter 10
The next day, after work, I whipped up my version of the Sun City grilled chicken and walked down to Will’s with two plates in hand. I tapped the door with my foot until he opened it and blinked at me. “You’re talking to me now?”
Always Will Page 8