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“You sound like an alien who lost her ship and now has to settle among us humans.” Will chuckles softly, but the warmth in his eyes encourages me to smile and thaw a little.
“And you’re enjoying every moment of this, aren’t you?”
“After all these weeks of trying to figure you out, only to realize you’re as nervous about this as I am? You bet I’m enjoying this.”
The conversation soon grows into something far more complex as Will starts asking all the questions that he’s been holding on to since I started working for him. He wants to know everything about me, about my family and my brothers. He asks me about my wants and my needs, about where I see myself in five years and whether I always imagined myself working in tech. My answers feel plain to me, yet he seems to feed on every word, actively stitching together the bits and pieces of my life story.
“What about you?” I ask once the food is brought over and we start to dig in. We’ve both gotten comfortable enough with one another for me to address this side of him. “I mean, I know you grew up in the system, but would you like to tell me more about it?”
“Do you really want to know?”
For a moment, I see fear in his eyes. It almost tears my soul apart. “Yeah. I really do.”
“It’s not a happy kind of story, or a funny one. It’s just years of loneliness and pain and me trying to keep my head above water so I could prove to the world that my parents never deserved me in the first place. Naturally, I do have some abandonment issues, but I think I’ve managed to get them under control in recent years.”
“What was it like, living an orphanage?”
He won’t look at me this time, and I can almost hear the wounds inside of him reopening.
“I’m sorry, forget I asked,” I blurt out. “It was a stupid, unnecessary question.”
Finally, he meets my gaze. “The people in charge of that place were petty little tyrants, each and every one of them. They belittled us and made us feel like we would never be worth much in this life, yet they asked the moon and the stars from us in order to get adopted. We had to be perfect, even though we were broken.”
My stomach churns as I understand the kind of murky territory I’ve waded into. “Will, you don’t have to tell me about it if it’s hurting you.”
“It doesn’t hurt me anymore,” he says. “It’s just a truth I’ve learned to live with, Olivia. You had your family, I had my version of one. And I grew out of it. Now, I donate to the orphanage and go there for the occasional photo op, but that’s just to keep the press’s attention on them so they’ll treat the kids in their care with a little more decency. I can’t change the system, but with my work at Bucklow Tech, my aim is always to strive to create a better world for everyone.”
Damn, the more he talks, the more his passion consumes me. The rest of the evening unravels in a similar fashion, with hot and cold waves of personal histories and secret dreams and desires we normally wouldn’t share with anyone else. The chemistry between us is undeniable. That’s downright scary, considering how relaxed I am since we got the awkward stuff out of the way.
Knowing that we want each other has completely changed our dynamic.
At one point, we leave the restaurant and head to the pool bar downstairs. There’s a small party going on around some of the tables—a team-building, it looks like, with employees and managers hanging out and dancing and drinking the night away. Will and I take seats at the bar and keep talking. We go through everything. Favorite movies, favorite music… fears and secret wishes… funny memories and college experiences…
“Oh, I love this song!” I exclaim when a rock ballad comes on. My inhibitions are dead at this hour, and I can’t even blame the drinking. I barely had a glass of wine, and this cocktail is more fruit than alcohol, anyway. No, I’m drunk on Will. “Dance with me.”
He gives me a startled look. “What?”
“Dance with me.”
“Do I look like the dancing type?”
“You said tonight was mine and that I could do anything with it,” I say, pouting like a little girl as I get up, hips already swaying to the rhythm of the song. Oh, the many times I imagined hooking up while dancing to this tune, and here we are, almost making it happen. “I want to dance with you.”
“To this song.” He sighs, feigning despair. He’s as playful as I thought he’d be. I just need to push the right buttons to get him out of his shell, the same way he’s been pushing all the right buttons to get me out of mine.
“To this song,” I declare.
He sighs again and joins me, his hand snaking around my waist as he pulls me close. Soon enough, I understand how dangerous a move this was when our hearts thud loudly against each other, our bodies in perfect sync as we sway to the music, lips mere breaths apart. His eyes keep me pinned, while his other arm comes around, both hands settled on my hips. I lose count of the steps and forget what the song is even about.
“We’re completely out of time,” Will says, his voice barely a whisper. “I thought you’d be the better dancer out of the two of us.”
“I’m just as bad at it as you. I just wanted to dance,” I tell him, my blood simmering.
“So it was a ploy to get me here.”
“Yeah…”
“What’s the endgame, then?” he asks, a playful flame flickering in his eyes as he lowers his head, ever so slowly. I’ve got my arms around his neck, my breasts pressed against his muscular chest, our souls tangling beyond repair. “You must be going somewhere with this.”
