Whatever It Takes (Bad Reputation Duet #1)(82)

“You’re shaking.” He draws his head back, just a fraction, and I realize my arms and legs are trembling, out of anxiety.

“It’s just a lot…not bad.” I wish I could express my feelings better, but maybe that’s the problem. So much has suddenly poured through me, so many foreign sentiments, that my system is basically overloading.

Willow Moore at approximately 115% capacity. Delete or reboot.

I don’t want to delete anything with him.

Before he speaks, I ask, “Am I hurting you?” My hands are barely pressing on his ribs, but I just want to make sure.

“No.” He pauses. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

He nods a couple times again. Then he lets me go, his arms falling—then mine do too, but he never takes a step back. I worry about the second hug, now that the first has ended. I wonder if I’ll grow used to this embrace in time.

“Will you alert me?” I ask him. “Next time you hug me again?”

“By plane banner and smoke in the sky.”

“I don’t think I’ll be looking up.”

He nearly smiles but feigns surprise. “You’d miss an aerial ad? No way.”

His sarcasm isn’t the mean kind. It pulls my lips higher.

Garrison never takes his eyes off me. “Willow,” he says in a quiet, calm moment, “can I hug you again?”

My chest swells. “Yeah.”

Garrison wraps his arms around me once more, and my arms almost stop trembling. His lips to my ear, he whispers, “How was that alert?”

“Perfect.” I try to relax a little more.

He rubs my back, his hand soothing as it travels in a short up and down wave. And he says, “Thanks for inviting me.”

I look up at him. “You were already invited to the party.”

“Not by you.”

This is the day, the very moment, that I realize how much Garrison Abbey is glad to be in my company. Mine.

Willow Moore from Maine.

You may not be such a fool after all.





25 PRESENT DAY – December


London, England





WILLOW HALE

Age 20





It’s been almost a full 24-hours since I booked Garrison’s flight to London. A delay from a snowstorm held up the plane in Philly all night, and he didn’t actually leave the airport until noon today. The sun has already set, and my nerves have gone from worry to catastrophic levels.

Thank God for the flight tracker app. I’ve been obsessively watching the plane cross the ocean, and now it’s only a couple minutes from landing.

Sitting on the steps to Bishop Hall, the wind picks up and howls. Music blasts from speakers on the snowy quad. A party starts to gain momentum, people dancing and passing around cans of cheap beer. Most of the parties here have been at houses or pubs, but apparently Wakefield always has one themed party on the quad at the end of every year.

Tonight, the theme is “celestial” and everyone is wearing white, but I’m in a green puffer jacket and jeans. I don’t even care that I stick out like a neon sign. My stomach knots, unable to join in the festivities.

I don’t know what happened last night, but Garrison doesn’t sound that upset unless something is going on with his family or the paparazzi or maybe his ex-high-school friends paid him a visit. My mind has been racing through the horrible possibilities.

I was even tempted to text Connor about Garrison’s job to make sure he wasn’t fired. But unless it’s a group text, I don’t really have a texting friendship with Connor Cobalt. And anyway, I’d much rather learn what’s going on from Garrison, not run around him for information.

So I’m waiting.

“Willow!” Tess plops down on the stair beside me, beer in hand. She wears this fluffy, white fur coat that contrasts her rich brown skin. Glitter dots her cheeks. She looks gorgeous, truly fitting the celestial theme. Tess frowns when she sees my green jacket. “Do you have nothing white to wear? We can go to my closet.”

I tuck a flyaway strand of hair behind my ear. “Thanks, but I’m not doing the party tonight. I’m actually waiting for Garrison to get here.”

Tess’s grin lights up her face. “Wait, we’re going to meet the boyfriend tonight!” Her knees bounce in excitement and she claps her hands, even with a beer in one.

“I mean…maybe,” I say.

At this point, I’m not sure what will happen. Garrison could arrive in London and then just hop on a plane back to Philly. He didn’t want me going to the airport to pick him up. His words: I’m already inconveniencing you enough. Please just let me get a cab, Willow.

Normally, I would have argued with him, but his voice was so…broken. I don’t want to push him.

Tess sips her beer. “Well, I’ll be excited to see him even from a distance. I can tell you love him a lot, and I may be biased, but I think you have great taste in people.”

I match her smile.

Sheetal steps over in furry boots and a sleek white jumpsuit. “What are you two grinning about?”

“Tess was just saying that I have great taste in people,” I say.

Sheetal narrows her eyes at her girlfriend. “I love how you find a proper way to compliment yourself inside a compliment to someone else. Bloody brilliant.”