A Cross-Country Christmas(53)
“Lauren. Something is obviously bothering you. I can’t help if you won’t talk.”
A traitorous knot tied itself at the base of her throat. He was right, she was acting like a child. This was the part of the movie where everyone watching screams “Just tell him already!”
Heck, even she was internally screaming that. But stopping that meant talking, and talking meant opening up, and opening up meant hurt.
“It’s nothing. I’m just dealing with some stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Personal stuff. I’ll stop taking it out on you.”
“Lauren, I don’t care if you take it out on me, but I can’t fight a battle that I don’t even know I’m in.”
He watched her, and she nearly shrunk under his gaze.
“Lauren, I like you.”
Her eyes shot to his, as if somehow, she had the ability to deduce whether he was being sincere. She wasn’t a good judge and she knew it.
“What do you mean?”
And that’s when he smiled, and her stomach flip-flopped, and the cage she’d built around her heart began to crack.
“I mean, I like you. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re a huge pain, a horrible traveler, and you drive me absolutely crazy.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “But I can’t stop thinking about you. You are who you say you are. You don’t try to be something you’re not or waste time playing games. You’re smart, and you don’t pretend you’re not. You’re beautiful, but you have no idea. You know what you want, and you go for it.”
“That’s not true,” she said quietly.
“Seems like it to me.”
“But you don’t know what I want.” She looked up, desperate, and found his eyes.
He took a calming breath. “Then tell me.”
She wanted to, so badly. The words were right there, right there, about to spill out of her like a tipped-over bucket of water.
“Can we go outside?”
He nodded immediately. “Sure.”
They paid their check, then walked in silence to the Jeep. He was waiting for her to say something, and she wasn’t sure she could. Her emotions were on the spin cycle.
She looked around, trying to find a hiding place.
“I saw you last night with that woman,” she finally blurted.
No going back now.
He looked at her, and she looked away, hating how naked she felt at the admission she’d been bothered at all. Admitting how it made her feel meant admitting she had feelings to betray. It was a whole lot of transparency, and she wasn’t ready for it.
“Wait. Gin?”
“What?”
“That woman. Her name was Gin.”
“Her name was what?” Lauren scoffed as she said it.
“I don’t know her,” Will said. “She sat down next to me and started talking to me, and wait—is this why you bailed on the Christmas dance?”
She looked away.
“Lauren,” he took a step toward her. “I was waiting for you. I told her that the second she sat down.”
“She must not have heard you,” Lauren said. “I saw you and you said something and she laughed and she had her hand on your arm and—ugh—it doesn’t even matter! I have no right to be upset. If you want to go out with some stranger in a hotel, that’s your prerogative.”
“I didn’t want to go out with some stranger in a hotel. I wanted to go out with you!” He took her by the shoulders and forced her gaze. “I’ve always had a thing for you. Always wondered what it would be like if something happened between us.”
She flinched, as if physically hit, and pulled away.
“What’s wrong?”
She glared. “That’s exactly what you said to me that night.”
“What night?” His eyes searched hers.
“Word for word, Will. Word for word!” She turned a circle, feeling trapped in a city that wasn’t her own.
“Lauren, what night?” He looked desperate for answers only she had.
She looked away, then directly in his eyes. “The night you kissed me.”
Will’s brows pulled downward in a tight V. “What are you talking about?” He paused, a look of horror on his face, then turned serious. “Lauren, you have to explain this to me. What are you talking about?”
She shoved her hands through her hair. “You were drunk!” She crossed her arms over her chest. “The party? I saw you at a party, and you asked me to drive you home. . .” Her vulnerability made her shake.
He took a step away from her. He put his head down, and softly said, “But there’s more.”
She’d never considered this might be as hard for him to hear as it was for her to say.
She closed her eyes.
So, they were doing this. She was going to tell him everything—finally—words she swore she’d never say out loud. Words she couldn’t keep inside any longer.
Chapter 26
In a flash, she was on holiday break from college her freshman year. Lauren hadn’t stayed close to home—why would she? She wanted to study film. And she’d taken to Berkeley almost instantly. A lot of her friends had trouble adjusting, off at school in a different state, but she took to being away like Andy Dufresne spreading his arms wide in the rain after crawling through the sewer pipe at the end of The Shawshank Redemption.