Page 27 of His Small Town Girl


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“Will, you don’t have to do this.” I say, and it would probably be for the best if he didn’t because if he continues to be so soft with me, I can’t be responsible for falling for him.

“I want to, so tell me about her.” He asks again, and so I do. I’m not sure if I talk for minutes or for hours, but for all of it Will listens and asks questions and somehow even makes me smile and laugh. Eventually, I get sleepy, and my words are punctuated with yawns, but Will still listens patiently.

“Thank you.” I say, before I close my eyes and giving into sleep.

“Anything for you.” Will says, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

Morning comes much too quickly and my whole body seems to groan with me when Will’s alarm goes off, but emotionally I feel better than I have since Mama died. Will looks equally displeased with the alarm, but when he sees me, his eyes light up. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he drags me across the bed until I lay on top of him.

“Good morning.” He smiles up at me and I can’t help but smile in return.

“Morning.” I say back, feeling surprisingly shy, whether because I was probably a red eyed mess after all my crying or because of how vulnerable I had been, I did not know.

“You going to stay every night? I could get used to sleepovers.” Will kisses my neck, making me forget any thoughts of being shy.

“I better go. I think you are trying to use your city wiles to seduce me.” I say, rolling out of the bed with a laugh. Silently, I thanked whatever lucky stars had brought Will Whitmore into my life.

Chapter 19

The following night, Will knocks on my hotel room door at sunset. He has a blanket under one arm and a smile that I know will make me say yes to anything he asks.

“Come out with me tonight?” Will asks.

“To do what?” I ask, but I know I’m going to say yes. I just need to know what to wear. Last time he’d asked me out, I’d got all dressed up just so we could run to the dollar store for snacks. I’d had a good time, but I had looked a bit ridiculous choosing between sour gummy worms and cheetos while in one of my pretty floral dresses.

“It is a surprise.” Will says, adopting a mysterious tone that makes me raise an eyebrow.

“Well, what should I wear?” I ask.

“What you are wearing now is fine.” He says, looking over my shorts and tee.

I follow Will out to the car and am surprised when he drives us past the main stretch of town to get on the highway. There isn’t much out here in the middle of the desert. I’m even more surprised when, after 5 miles on the highway, he turns off onto a dirt road that winds up to the top of the plateau.

“Are you taking me out here to murder me?” I ask, wondering what he could possibly want to do out here.

“Not unless you get too sassy.” Will teases, throwing me one of his mischievous grins.

“Might as well kill me now.” I say, asking me to not sass off is like asking me not to breathe, especially around Will.

Will pulls to a stop at the top of the plateau, turning the car off and emerging us in complete darkness. He climbs out, grabbing the blanket from the backseat as he goes. I join him outside the car as he spread the blanket out in the middle of the dirt road.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Look up.” And when I do, my jaw drops. Stars twinkle across every inch of the night sky. I don’t notice how I didn’t see them before. These aren’t like the stars I’ve seen before that were spaced out across the sky. These are innumerable points of brightness covering every inch of the sky, some overlapping as the milky way snakes through the center.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Will comments, looking up at the sky beside me.

“It is stunning. I didn’t know there were so many.” I say, following the sea of stars from horizon to horizon.

“Crazy, that we can peer into the vastness of space and see things millions of miles away, but we can’t see a mile down most streets here on earth.”

“Guess that is the advantage of an unobstructed view.” I think of how these stars are always there, but the buildings and the lights of the all the cities we had visited had effectively blotted them out. They shine so brightly now, though.

“True, I’ve been surprised by what I’ve seen when I’ve stepped away from the things that were blocking my view.” Will says, and he tears his gaze away from the night sky to smile down at me.

“Same.” I breathe, knowing we aren’t necessarily talking strictly about the night sky anymore.

A little while later, we lay beneath the stars trying to spot constellations and laughing as we make up more accurate names for them. Will has pulled up pictures of some of the more well know ones and both of us are struggling to have enough imagination to see what they were supposed to be.

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