AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t believe you,” I say, tilting her chin up with a finger so she has to look me in the eyes. I wipe away a few tears.
“Fuck you, Fane. I’m crying over the documentary I was watching. When it got too depressing, I took a break to cook an asshole I know some dinner.”
“But he was rude, so you came back up and started watching again,” I guess, seeing that the television is paused.
“Yeah, he’s an arrogant prick,” she says, causing me to burst with laughter.
“He is,” I agree. “But he’s very sorry.” I lift her off her feet and kick her door shut behind me. I carry her to the sofa, and she wraps her arms around my neck.
“I’m sorry I overheard something so personal. But I hope you know I’d never judge you.” She speaks the words softly against my neck. Her soft breath tingles down my spine, and I repress a shiver.
“I know, Willa. It’s not something I talk about. It’s not personal that I didn’t tell you.”
“I understand,” she says.
“Will you come eat dinner with us and tell me what your documentary is about?”
“I don’t want to intrude, Zan,” she starts to argue. Wrapping my fingers gently in her hair, I tilt her face back to mine again, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“You’re never an intruder, Willa. I’m sorry I made you feel like one. Come downstairs?”
“Okay,” she relents after bouncing her eyes all over my features. “I really like Damian; he seems like a good guy.”
“He is,” I agree. “Come on.”
This isn’t the way I’d have planned on telling Willa that I’m not straight, but I know I can trust her with it. Trust was never my issue with her. She’s as loyal as her sister. Coach raised honest, trustworthy women.
Willa is a door ajar. One that I have always been too afraid to open wide or shut tight.
I still am.
That doesn’t mean I can’t open my door a little to her though. I remember the first time I met her. Isla asked me to come have dinner with her, meet her sister and her daughter. I walked into the apartment to Willa dancing with Sadie as if they had no cares in the world and no audience to judge. They were joyously free, and I wanted to capture it like a butterfly in a net and keep it for myself.
Then Willa turned at Isla’s introduction of me and my heart missed a beat. She has the most genuine smile, reminding me of every movie I’d ever seen with a girl next door. Natural, real, shining, like the light of a thousand moons. Bright but soft—that’s Willa.
I wish I could offer her everything she deserves.
Damian waits for us in my living room where he’s set up the television and is signing into a streaming service. He looks up when he hears us enter and beelines to her.
“Hey, you okay?” He runs the pad of his thumb over her tear-stained cheek, sending me a glare over her shoulder.
“I’m okay,” she says.
“You sure? It was bad timing.”
“I know, and as I told Zan, I’m not upset over that.”
“She was watching a sad documentary,” I say in my defense. “It’s not all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault at all,” she says. “Do you have dishes?”
“Yeah, somewhere. Let me find them.”
The three of us work together to find what we need, wash what’s new, and plate dinner. I’m struck with how easy we function in such a small galley kitchen. As if we’re a cohesive unit, no one is in another’s way, moving around on instinct. Like we anticipate the other’s moves.
Willa chatters on about the new project she’s working on and how the documentary she was watching was part of her research.
“She was being raped by a youth pastor from the age of nine and got pregnant at ten. TEN! Her family forced her to marry her rapist and it’s all completely fucking legal in more states than you could imagine. Including Washington, if you can fucking believe that. As long as a court signs off, we have no legal age of marriage here,” she rants. And yeah, I can see why she is so upset.
