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Considering he’d only just gone from a lifelong playboy status to ‘settled down,’ it made sense. Now if I could just get him to talk to me about it, we’d be golden.
The rest of the dinner passed at a crawl until finally the food was eaten–I tasted none of it despite alfredo pasta being my favorite–and we were all headed for our cars.
I tried to take Will’s hand as usual but he jerked away, clenching it into a fist at his side while avoiding my eyes. A pit opened in my stomach, the dread from before doubling down as he all but ran away from me.
When he was over by the cars, pausing long enough to give a tense nod to each of my parents, I sighed. “Well, that was…bracing.”
Devin snorted, eyeing Will warily. “No kidding. I’m going to check on him. You got Mom and Dad?”
I nodded despite the urge to turn and walk away. The evening was almost over, and while I knew their opinions of William were bound to be bad, avoiding the subject wouldn’t make it magically go away.
Pasting on a smile, I walked over to where they waited by their car and spoke. “Thanks for coming out, you two.”
Mom hugged me, as usual, but Dad scoffed, his eyes locked on William in a glare.
“That boy isn’t ready for a lasting commitment, Bea.”
My heart dropped, not because Dad disapproved–though that was part of it–but because I’d worried about the same thing. Ever since Will started panicking over someone mentioning kids or marriage, the doubt had been gnawing away at the corner of my mind.
He wasn’t willing to sit down and talk about it. Instead, he was trying to pull away and hide. That wasn’t a good sign for any healthy relationship and while I wanted to be with him, this shone a light on everything I was worried about.
Mom frowned, lightly gripping Dad’s arm reproachfully. “Dear, we don’t know that.”
She didn’t sound confident though, and Dad did when he huffed. “You saw how twitchy that boy was whenever I brought up anything that might be considered long-term. Kids, marriage, buying a house together. Building a life. He flinches away from all of it, and I don’t want Beatrice getting hurt because he runs away later when things start getting serious.”
Part of me wanted to argue that Will and I were new to this entire relationship thing; that it wasn’t fair to ask him those kinds of questions yet especially thanks to how he used to be, but…
Doubt was an ugly thing and it sank in deep, shaking my previously stable confidence to its core.
I’d thought that William had thought all of this through before agreeing to start something with me, but maybe not.
Maybe my beating by that creep had just clouded his mind and instead of thinking everything through, he’d made a snap decision.
It hurt to even think of, but I couldn’t let myself be blinded to the possibility. Will had, until now, been a playboy. Commitment hadn’t even existed in his dictionary and now this?
Looking back to where he stood with Devin, the two talking quietly as my brother attempted to soothe him, I didn’t know anymore.
One thing for sure though? What Dad did was unacceptable.
Focusing on that for now, I faced him and squared my shoulders, making sure my tone was heavy with every ounce of the disapproval I felt.
“Dad, that was not okay. Yes, he is skittish about all those topics, but tearing into that instead of letting me handle it in private was wrong. If someone tried that with Mom you’d be furious, and that isn’t even getting into what you’d do to someone who dug into your life.”
He scowled, crossing his arms in what I knew was his ‘I’m wrong but you won’t get me to admit that’ stance.
“Bea baby, you’ve always been the sort to fall fast and hard. That’s not a bad thing either, your Ma and I were the same way, but that boy.” He spat the word, nodding his head toward William, “isn’t ready for what you want. He’s going to hurt you. I can’t sit by and say nothing as he does.”
I sighed, still holding my posture despite the exhaustion biting into my bones. “Yeah, he might hurt me and I knew that going into this, but you’ve hurt Mom before, too.”
He jerked back as if I’d slapped him, but I didn’t stop. “It’s impossible to have a relationship with someone, be physically close to them for long periods of time, without tensions rising. Fights happen and sometimes one or both sides get hurt. That’s part of a relationship. What matters is how you communicate through it.”
Which was what worried me here, since William was flatly refusing to even try to talk to me. Hopefully he’d be more open to it when we got back, but I wasn’t holding my breath either.
Mom nodded, her hand curled around Dad’s bicep. “She’s right. No relationship is perfect. We’ve had our down times, and we worked through them. We’ll be here if she needs us, and if he does hurt her by walking away later, we’ll be there for her then too. But we can’t make decisions for her anymore.”
Dad’s will crumbled, and he slumped a tiny bit. “I hate the idea of that punk hurting you. You deserve better than that.”
There was the overprotective father I knew and loved. Pulling him into a hug, I said against his chest. “I know you want to keep me safe and wrapped in bubble wrap forever, but that doesn’t work. I want to see if this thing between Will and I can last. If it doesn’t, then I know you two will always be there. But I have to try.”
