Practice makes perfect, p.12
Practice Makes Perfect, page 12
“What the hell is going on in your head right now?” he asks, pulling me from my fantasy.
My face flames. “Nothing. Let’s change the subject.” I squirm in my seat, suddenly feeling both hot and awkward. Will can never know what was going on in my head.
He hums, grinning like he somehow already knows. I wad my napkin and throw it at him. “You don’t know.”
“I think I do.” He circles a finger around his face. “You wear all your thoughts on your face. So openly. You were taking my clothes off in your head.”
I gasp like an outraged matronly woman. “Absolutely not.”
His eyes sparkle. “How naked did you get me? All the way or just to my underwear?”
I bury my face in my hands. “Moving on! What’s next?”
He has pity on me, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. “All right. Tell me what you’re most insecure about when it comes to first dates. What’s your weakest point?”
“Is everything too broad?”
“A bit, yeah.”
I take in a deep breath and think back to my date with John. “Conversation, I think. I’m so used to my family and the way there is never a quiet moment with them that I don’t know how to handle lulls. So I usually try to fill it as quickly as possible.”
“And that gets you into trouble?”
“I gave a Ted Talk on the reproductive cycles of flowers on my last date.”
Will gives a valiant effort to not burst with laughter. But I see it there, hovering below the surface. His nostrils flare. His cheek twitches. “Is it too much to ask to hear this monologue? Please tell me flowers are into kinky stuff?”
“Stop!” I say, laughing and stretching my foot under the table to push his knee. Chuckling, he captures my ankle instead of letting me kick him. His thumb glides softly across the tender skin of my ankle and at the same moment, our laughter fades. The air cracks between us, and he lets go while I clear my throat and sit up straight.
Silence blankets the table.
Will pops a fry in his mouth and then licks the salt off his lips. Before I realize it, I’m watching oh so closely. For research! Obviously. Noting how the pros do it.
This time he does the manly look I tried but couldn’t master: arm hooked over the back of the bench seat. So casual and composed. Like maybe his shoulders are tight from a long workout and he just needs to stretch them. My eyes track down that long arm as it spans out over the top, putting his floral tattoos on display for me.
Will clears his throat. “It’s okay to let the conversation go quiet for a bit, by the way. The ability to be silent shows confidence.” As if to illustrate a point, he shifts, picks up his water glass, and takes a long drink. His Adam’s apple bobs against the long column of his throat, and now I’m convinced I need to jump into a pool full of ice because I am way too hot and bothered for a casual lunch at the diner. What is happening to me?
I lean my forearms on the table, sitting forward. “How are you so good at this?”
“Practice. Everyone thinks a good date is something that comes naturally, but it’s not. It’s taken time for me to learn the best tactics. Like the other day in my room when we…” He trails off and looks down briefly. “Anyway, yeah. I know my strengths now, and I’m confident in them.”
Interesting. He’s avoiding remembering that moment too. Did he feel as affected by it as I was?
A thrilling concept.
“Hey, can I ask you a random question?”
“Sure.”
“Is there something between you and James?”
A startled punctuated laugh jumps from my throat. “Me and James?” I’m sure my eyes are bugging from my head. “No way. That would be like me falling in love with Noah. Gross.”
“Really?” he asks, looking a little skeptical.
“Really. I can’t think of anything less appealing. No offense to James.” I smile as Will nods. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugs. “No reason. Just thought it would be good to get the whole picture. If we were trying to specifically help you snag James, then we could tailor our lessons.”
Makes sense. But no—James may not be my brother by blood, but he’s my brother all the same.
I pull my legs up in the booth, crossing one over the other. “Okay, speaking of lessons. After I’ve learned to bask in silence confidently, then what? What about when I need to talk? I don’t think my sexy flowers are as interesting to other people as they are to you.”
He laughs and grabs a napkin. “Do you have a pen?”
After digging through my purse, I find one and hand it to him. Will then writes a series of sentences on the napkin and hands it to me. “These are the questions I have memorized that I ask on every single date. Questions about family are always awkward and have too many potential pitfalls, and no one really wants to talk about their job. So I like to ask fun icebreakers instead. Works every time.”
I read the napkin out loud. “What was your favorite TV show to watch as a kid? What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to do it? Would you rather skydive or read a book?” I lower the napkin. “You have these memorized?”
He nods.
“And they really work?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he tilts his head and watches me like there’s a question that’s been nagging at him for years. “Annie, what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to?”
Immediately the answer comes to mind. One that I can’t voice. One that he can’t know.
Instead, I nibble on a fry and make a thinking noise. And then my eyes rest on his forearm and a more appropriate answer surfaces. “I’ve actually always wanted to get a tattoo.”
He sits forward, looking excited and a little pleased. “Really? Why haven’t you?” He asks like it would be as simple as just getting a haircut.
“I don’t know. A combination of being afraid it will hurt and not sure what I’d get.” And because I just can’t. I’m Annie—it would be shocking. It would be so out of character for me. It would be…fun.
Suddenly Will’s words from the other day ram into my memory: “It seems to me, Annie, that you are just waiting for someone to give you permission to be yourself out loud.” I’m afraid to admit how right he was. How much I haven’t been able to get our conversation out of my head no matter how hard I’ve tried. How the more I think of it, the more fear I have that the future I described to him won’t be enough. That marriage isn’t going to give me my happily ever after. And if that’s true, what in the world is causing this hollow feeling?
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” he says before taking a big bite of pancakes. “I’m sure you can handle it.”
My eyes trace his arm all the way down to the butterfly. “How did you decide on your flowers?”
He answers too quickly for me to believe him. “I don’t know—I’ve just always liked them.”
“If I lift my chin when I lie, looking a little too nonchalant is your tell. What’s the truth, Will Griffin?” I ask, mirroring his leaned forward position so we’re eye to eye.
He stares at me, his expression never changing. And then he shocks me with an honest answer. “In my yard growing up…we had a magnolia tree out back. I used to hide out there a lot. When I needed to get away. It was sort of a haven for me.”
Oh.
Something in Will’s eyes and thoughtful tone tells me that he visited that tree often. And it wasn’t just a haven but a safe haven. A place he needed too often. As I picture a younger version of this man hiding up in a magnolia tree all by himself, my heart bleeds. I want to climb up there with him and hold his hand. I want to know every reason that drove him up those branches—and I want to make all that pain go away.
He sits back abruptly and smiles. “Of course that was before I found my wolf family. After that I was too busy roaming the land and hunting to climb trees.”
The more I get to know Will, the more I realize his charming playfulness is not always real. Sometimes I think it’s a mask. It’s a smile drawn on a sticky note and pasted on his face. If I were to pull it off, I would find a frown beneath.
“Come on—don’t give me that look, please.” He glances over his shoulder toward the fellow diner goers watching us with hawklike intensity. He flashes someone a beaming smile. Waves at another.
“Am I giving you a look?”
“A heavy one,” he says before turning his eyes back to me. “Let’s move on and figure out what tattoo you should get.”
I don’t want to make him feel uneasy, so I push down my growing, desperate need to know this man in front of me. It’s for the best anyway. Empathy is the first step toward feelings. And Will Griffin is not someone I can have feelings for.
“Hmm. Well at the risk of you thinking I’m trying to be your copycat, it would be fun to get some flowers. Maybe a little bouquet on my wrist.” But then a new idea hits me, and excitement surges right to my belly. “Or even here.” I pull my shoulder forward and tap the back center of it. Will’s eyes track my finger and a smile like lava melts across his mouth. For a minute he’s lost to whatever mental image he’s conjuring up. And then his blue-gray irises connect with mine—the black centers dilated. “You should definitely get that. It would be very sexy.”
My stomach clenches and I blink at him. “You think I would be…sexy with a tattoo?”
He laughs one short laugh, and for a second I’m scared he’s laughing at me. Maybe he never said sexy. Maybe my brain added that word all on its own out of hope. If that’s true, I’m going to need to join the witness relocation program.
“No, Annie. Don’t get it twisted. I already think you’re sexy without a tattoo. So I know for sure you would be with one.”
My lips part on a sharp happy inhale. Did he really mean that? I’ve never once in my entire life been referred to as sexy. Always nice or the girl with a good heart. Never sexy. Never anything that made me feel quite so womanly as the word he just used to describe me. But then with a flash of disappointment, I remember how this whole conversation started.
Again, this was a demonstration. Practice. He’s showing me how well the lines work and how he effortlessly flirts because of them. Was the story about the tree real? Or is it just all a part of the mechanics.
Ugh. My heart is racing and my skin feels clammy. Like I’m going to cry. Oh God, am I going to cry?
I give a stilted laugh while dropping my gaze and blinking a hundred times at my plate as I shift it around to wipe a nonexistent drop of water from the table. “Nice. Good line.”
“Wait, what?” he says sounding confused.
I clear my throat and flash him an imitation of his own fake smile a minute ago. “I see what you did there. With the demonstration about the line and then the subsequent flirting. It worked flawlessly,” I say, overly cheery. “I’ll definitely have to remember it. Well done.”
“Annie…”
“You know what? I need to get back to the flower shop. I just remembered someone is coming by to pick up a big order. Huge order.” I shoot up from the bench. “Tell Jeanine to put my half on my tab.”
“Wait—Annie!”
“Sorry! I really just have to go. Thanks for the lesson!”
I’m in such a rush to leave the diner that on my way to the door, I run straight into Phil’s chest. “Hi, darlin’, how are you this morning?” he says with a big smile.
Sweet Phil. He helped me learn to ride my bike, and gave me my first summer job, restocking shelves in his store. Phil wears dad sneakers and khaki shorts every day of his life—even in the winter—and I think if I were to go open his closet, I’d find fifteen identical pairs lined up on hangers, pressed neatly and ready for action. I truly adore Phil, and I don’t want him to know I’m upset. Mainly because there’s no reason for it. Will was only doing exactly what I wanted him to do—teach me how to successfully flirt and converse on a date.
But for some reason, hearing the words I’ve so desperately craved coming out of his mouth and knowing they weren’t true, that they were just to prove a point—well, it hurts.
“I’m great!” I say to Phil, most likely doing a poor job of concealing my emotions based on the way his brows are crunching together and he’s looking over my shoulder to where Will is talking to Jeanine at the booth. I want to wave my arms around to distract him. I go for the next best thing. “How’s your sale on bolts and screws going today?”
It’s a new sale every day, and it’s the highlight of my mornings to make a guess about what the sale of the day will be. My sisters and I even have a dry-erase board on our fridge where we post our guesses. Loser (the person who gets the fewest correct guesses in a seven-day period) gets grocery shopping duty that week. Unfortunately, I’m the loser this week.
“Selling like hotcakes! Who knew bolts and screws would be so popular? I haven’t had a sale this successful since rakes last September. Stop by the store later, Annie girl, and I’ll give you a packet of bolts. Never know when you’re going to need one.”
“You’re the best, Phil.”
He frowns again. “Annie, has that boy said something to upset you?”
Shoot. The last thing I need is for the whole town to suspect that Will is hurting me. They’ll run him right out of here if they think I’m heading for heartbreak.
Am I?
I hazard one last glance over my shoulder and find Will standing up from the table while throwing cash on the check. Because I’m a coward, I turn and practically run out the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Will
It’s nighttime before I can get away to find Annie.
I still don’t fully know what happened this afternoon. Everything seemed to be going well, and then I called her sexy and everything fell apart. She said something about it being a nice line and working perfectly. But I’m not sure what about that would have hurt her so badly.
All I know is that the look she had before she shot up from the table gutted me. She was smiling with tears in her eyes. One glance at those blue eyes filled with emotion, and I wanted to beg her to stay so I could fix whatever happened. I haven’t been able to shake the image from my head all day. And now I’m finally off work, and I’ve been trying to hunt Annie down. I checked her house first, but her truck wasn’t there. And then I drove by Hank’s, and she wasn’t there either.
Even though her shop is closed, I decided to come by anyway, and sure enough, there she is. The town is dark, but her shop is lit up like a glass box. I see her in there standing in front of the wooden worktable, shoving stems of greenery into a vase like it personally offended her. Her long blonde hair is piled on her head in a messy jumbled heap, and she’s wearing a light pink oversize sweatshirt that’s draping off one of her shoulders. I’ve never seen her undone like that, and it’s making my pulse race. My fingers ache to sink into the back of her messy hair and wreck it even more. Seeing her bathed in light and surrounded by flowers from out here in the dark makes me feel like a man who slipped out of hell and is glimpsing heaven.
Annie takes a step back from her worktable and presses one sweatshirt covered fist to her mouth, appraising the bouquet she’s been working on, and then apparently deciding she hates it and ripping all the stems out again.
I try the door, expecting it to be locked, but it’s not. The bell chimes above my head as I step into the warm shop.
“We’re closed,” Annie says without even checking to make sure a serial killer isn’t about to murder her.
“That’s too bad because I really need to buy a bouquet for a woman,” I say, and Annie’s body stiffens. “It’s an emergency.”
Slowly she turns to look at me. Her face is a study in embarrassment, but I don’t know why. I’ve never wanted to crawl into someone’s head and read all of their thoughts like I do with Annie. My need to understand her, to know every desire, every hope and fear and longing, scares me.
“What kind of bouquet do you need?” she asks, tugging the sleeves of her sweatshirt—which I can now see has a slightly faded Charlotte’s Flowers logo on the front—over her fists and bunching them up at her chest.
I squint one eye. “An apology bouquet.”
Her face softens and her hands fall to her sides. “Will…you have nothing to apologize for.”
“I do, though—I said something that really hurt someone, and I don’t know why.” I take two steps closer. “But I want to fix it. I want to make her feel better. So if you could make her a bouquet that you would like to receive, I’d be so grateful.” She watches me closely as I edge even closer to her. “Or…if you’re too busy, maybe I could make her one myself?”
A warm smile curves her full lips and more than ever I want to press mine to hers. I want to lick the sweetness right from her skin. “You don’t need to do that, Will.”
I lift a brow. “Very presumptuous of you, ma’am. You don’t even know the lady.”
She laughs and shakes her head before shifting on her feet. “Fine. I think if the lady in question was hurt—it probably wasn’t your fault.”
I step closer and my senses fill with Annie. She smells like sunlight and sugar cookies. “It was. I called her sexy and it offended her. I think I crossed a line.”
Annie presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. “No. Oh gosh—I’m so embarrassed. Let’s just forget it, please?”
I’m close enough now that I’m able to tug her hands down. “I can’t do that. What happened, Annie? Are you upset that I think you’re sexy? Are you afraid it’s going to change things?”
