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“Nice.” He opened the door for her, then jogged around to his side.
“Are you really okay with going to watch a musical?” Janessa asked as he drove away from the store.
Will glanced over at her. “Sure. But if you’d rather not, we don’t have to. The money we paid for the tickets will still go for a good cause.”
“I’m fine with going,” she said. “I just realized that you might not find it as enjoyable.”
“I certainly don’t mind musicals. Plus, I’m able to spend time with you. I’d watch a musical even if I hated it because of that.”
“You’re such a sweetie. I have no idea what you’re doing with me.”
Will frowned. “Has someone told you that you’re not sweet?”
“That is probably not the first word someone would use to describe me,” Janessa said with a laugh.
“And yet, I’ve heard plenty of people talk about how much they appreciate you when they’ve gone to the clinic.” He realized then that maybe she’d heard detrimental messages from others the way he had, though most of his had come from Daphne. Well, and his siblings, but he ignored those.
“I’m self-aware enough to know that I’m not sweet in the way that Aria is.”
“Maybe not, but she counts you as her best friend, and I doubt she’d do that if you weren’t a nice person.” Will grinned. “And I happen to think you’re nice as well.”
“Well, like I said, you’re sweet.”
As he hit the outskirts of the town, he realized that Janessa hadn’t ducked down. He didn’t care, though it would probably be better if their families heard about them being together from him and Janessa, and not through the grapevine.
He wanted to ask Janessa what she was waiting for before she would be comfortable revealing that they were dating. As far as he was concerned, things were going fine. Better than fine, actually.
Will kept catching himself trying to compare how he was feeling for Janessa with how he’d felt for Daphne. Not at the end of their time together, but at the start when they’d just begun dating.
The thing he had realized was that doing that was essentially comparing apples and oranges. Because of their existing friendship, the foundation of what he felt for Janessa was so much deeper and stronger than what he’d felt for Daphne at this stage of their relationship.
He knew that meant that if Janessa agreed to making things official between them, that his love for her would only continue to deepen and strengthen.
Part of him wished that he could have just had a relationship with Janessa and not wasted four years with Daphne, but he hadn’t even considered that with Janessa. He’d left for college when she was still in high school, and by the time he came back, she was off at college herself.
They’d seen each other at holidays, but by the time she’d graduated and returned to Serenity, he’d already been focused on Daphne, even though they hadn’t officially started dating yet. So, while he might wish things had unfolded differently, Will and no choice but to accept the way they had.
And maybe their experiences—both in life and relationships—had brought them to this point, where he could appreciate so much more about her than he might have been able to in years past.
“Are you going to the game tomorrow night?” Janessa asked, interrupting his thoughts.
“Most likely.” Will reached out and took Janessa’s hand where it rested on the console. “Want to go with me?”
She turned her hand over and laced her fingers with his. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
“Do you think Charli and Layla will go?”
“I don’t think so. Since Cole isn’t playing on the team, I don’t think she feels as strongly about attending the out-of-town games.”
“That’s understandable,” Will said.
He didn’t think that the family’s absence at away games bothered Jay. Or at least his friend had never said it did. Will tried to go to as many games as possible—in or out of town—but then he rarely had much else going on.
“People might pick up on us if we keep showing up together,” Janessa said.
“I don’t care about that,” Will told her. “In fact, I wouldn’t care if the whole world knew that we were dating.” Janessa’s fingers tightened around his for a moment. “But I understand that you’d rather wait to make it public.”
“What exactly makes it official?” Janessa asked. “I’ve never been in a relationship—official or otherwise.”
