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“Why not?” Jay asked. “We’ve always talked about stuff like that.”
He was right. They didn’t keep secrets from each other. But the relationship stuff they’d shared had never involved members of their families.
It wasn’t that Will thought Jay would tell him that he and Janessa couldn’t date. He just didn’t want a bunch of interference from well-meaning people before he even had a chance to see where things might—or might not—lead with Janessa. From personal experience, he knew the likelihood of any of their siblings leaving them alone was slim to none.
“Here’s the thing,” Jay began. “I got a phone call from Gareth tonight. Apparently, he and Charli have decided that you have a romantic interest in Janessa.”
Will’s shoulders tensed at Jay’s words. What had tipped them off? Anything he’d done for Janessa he would have done for a friend. Something hehaddone for a friend. For Jay, even.
“What led them to conclude that?”
“It seems that your interest in how Janessa was doing triggered it.”
Will sighed. He shouldn’t have texted Charli to ask how Janessa was. “I was concerned about her because we’ve been working together for the Fall Dinner. I didn’t want her to overdo things if she wasn’t feeling well. Plus, she’s a friend.”
“Yeah. That’s what I told them,” Jay said. “However, all those things can be true, and you can also have an interest in Janessa as more than a friend.”
Jay could be persistent when he wanted something, and Will had never disliked that quality in his friend before, but he did right then.
“For the record, I wouldn’t care if you were interested in Janessa like that.”
“Then why are you asking me about this?”
“Curiosity, I suppose.”
“Nothing I’ve done would have made you leap to this conclusion if it weren’t for your crazy siblings.”
Jay laughed. “Are you saying I have no imagination?”
“Oh, I would never say that,” Will assured him. “You’ve shown that you do plenty of times over the years. You always had the best costume ideas when we had to dress up for certain days at school. My favorite was when you wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, and you got my mom to agree to come up with a Watson costume for me.”
“I thought we could solve crimes,” Jay said with a chuckle. “Best PIs in the world.”
“Instead, we ended up with careers that are nowhere near as exciting as that would have been.”
It seemed like maybe Jay would just drop the whole Janessa thing, but if he didn’t, Will would tell him the truth. He didn’t want to lie to his friend. He never had before, and he didn’t want to start then. All he’d wanted was a little time and space to sort things out for himself.
“Okay. I’m gonna go,” Jay said. “I know you still have work to do. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Have a good night.”
After he ended the call, Will slumped back in his chair, frowning as he stared at the table. He’d already been a bit uncertain about how to move forward, and now he was completely uncertain after the call from Jay. If Charli, Gareth, and Aria were already suspecting things, they’d be keeping an even closer eye on everything he did, especially as it related to Janessa.
Everything was getting way more complicated than it needed to be. If they’d just leave him to deal with it on his own, he was sure he and Janessa could figure it out.
But… siblings.
There was nothing he could do about it right then, so Will decided to just focus on his work. There was no rush for him to get the situation figured out. He had never been one to rush into things, and he was especially not going to do that with something as significant as a relationship with someone who was already so special to him.
When Will stepped into the high school gym on Friday night, only a handful of people aside from the team were there. He made his way along the front of the bleachers to the section where he usually sat.
Giving a wave in Jay’s direction, Will headed up the bleachers and sat down on the very top row. He shrugged out of his jacket and stretched it out on the bench beside him to save seats for the others.
The sound of the basketballs hitting the floor echoed throughout the gym. Will could see that the players were already improving, showing more organization in their warmup. It seemed that in spite of the issues with Donny and his dad, Jay was coaxing the best out of the team.
While he watched the practice, Will also kept an eye on the entrance to the gym, hoping to see Janessa when she arrived. They hadn’t spoken since the dinner, though Will had wished they had.
How he was going to deal with his feelings, Will still wasn’t sure, but he was leaning toward just outright approaching her. His feelings weren’t going anywhere, but he didn’t have confidence in his ability to keep them under wraps and subtly reveal them to Janessa.
