We spent the rest of the day in bed. She napped in between bouts of love-making and laughed when I wrapped the sheet around my hips to go out foraging for food. Then laughed harder when I returned with boxes of cereal… completely naked. All the while, the patter of the rain was a backdrop to her soft sighs and gasping shrieks.
The day slipped into night and she yawned. “We’ve barely moved from here. How am I so exhausted?”
“I mean… we have been getting a lot of exercise.”
She touched the tip of my nose. “You’ve been doing most of the work.”
“Coach would be proud I still have the stamina. Turns out drills were good for something after all.” She laughed and then shrieked as I dove back under the covers, then shrieked for a completely different reason when my tongue found her clit.
Afterward, I held perfectly still as she fussed and twisted herself until she found a comfortable way to prop up her arm. “You know, you can just put that right here,” I told her, patting my shoulder.
She looked at me. “Won’t that bug you?”
“Not once I’m asleep. I pass out like a dead man.”
“I’ve noticed,” she giggled. Tentatively she rested her sling against my arm. “That’s like, the perfect height.”
“Not the first time a woman has told me that. Ow! You pinched me!”
“And I’ll do it again if you keep talking about other women while I’m in bed with you.”
I leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Honestly, I can’t remember any other women. There’s only you.”
Her mouth turned up in a smile under my lips. “I feel like we’re in some kind of dreamland. No worries. Nothing to do but kiss and talk and eat cereal in bed…”
“We’ve done a few other things in bed too. Ow!”
She made pincers with her fingers. “I’m talking right now.”
“Fine. So bossy.”
“You knew that before all this.” Her smile faded. “How are we going to go back, Cooper?”
“What do you mean?” I pretended I had no idea what she was talking about. But I had a feeling I knew.
“It’s… easy. Being with you. Here.” I watched her throat tighten as she swallowed. “But when we get back home? It’s not going to be so easy. You have the move. I have my brother. And… oh God, Claire is going to completely shit.”
I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to think about it either. Here, away from everything, it was easy to forget that she and I had a history. Here there was nothing to remind us of the terrible things we’d said, the terrible things we’d believed. A flash of guilt made my fingers flex. How could I be so disloyal? But I pushed that thought away and instead turned my head and brushed my mouth against her hair. “How about we just don’t go back?”
She let out a soft laugh and turned her face to mine. “Sounds like a plan,” she whispered.
So that’s what we did. And when the rain finally stopped, she let me take her hand and lead her across the wet lawn and into the dripping woods, where I knelt down and helped her take off her shoes. Then I carefully led her into the rushing creek, laughing as she shrieked when the shockingly cold water hit her toes. We picked our way over rocks, sat on a boulder and turned our faces to the sun that was struggling through the clouds, and made bets on which fallen leaf would float past us first. I told her about finding my dad’s email open and deleting the reply from his mistress and smiled when she said she would have done the same. Then she told me about the night Jacob’s father had shown up out of the blue and tried to take him, and how she and her mom had fought him off until Jim Crowthers himself showed up to arrest him. “I always thought he was my guardian angel,” Willa sighed as she rested her head against my shoulder. “Until I realized it was you.”
I kissed her and pressed her back onto her back. And when I made her cry out, it echoed in the trees and I thought that for one wonderful moment, I’d found heaven in a place I’d never even knew existed.
I knew it couldn’t last forever, but I was determined to try.
That night she was yawning like crazy but refused to go to bed without me. I was lying there in the dark, perfectly happy to have her curls brushing my face and listening to her soft, quiet breathing when her phone suddenly started vibrating.
Her body, which only a second ago had been pliant and heavy with sleep, was suddenly rigid next to me. “Shit,” she whispered.
“I got it.” I reached over her and pulled it from the charger. With a sinking heart, I saw the one word I knew would burst the fragile bubble we were floating in.
Mom.
She snatched it from my hand. I turned on the light as she answered with a breathless, “Is everything okay?”
All the languid happiness I’d grown used to suddenly drained out of her. She was rigid again, a tense mass of anxiety that was heartbreakingly familiar. I reached up to brush my hand over her shoulder and she swatted me away. “Mom, what’s up?” she fretted.
I drew my hand back, stung. “What’s wrong?” I murmured.
She held up her hand, then nodded and let out a long breath. “Sure,” she said into the phone. “Of course. Yeah, no, I’m feeling so much better. I actually went on a hike today.” Her eyes flicked to me and I tried to wiggle my eyebrows at her, but she shook her head and looked away. “So it’s fine. No, I’ll ask Cooper to take me now.”
My heart sank as she nodded once more and then hung up. I knew what she was going to tell me before it even left her lips. “That was my mom.”
“I gathered.” My happiness had drained away as well apparently, because I sounded like a real dick all of a sudden. “What did she need?”
“Her shift changed.” She let out a long breath. “Somebody quit, so Cal changed her hours to the night shift. Which means she needs someone to be home with Jakey these last few school nights. And then…”
“And then it’s summer break.”
“Right.”
I glared down at my hands, feeling like I’d had something held tightly that was now slipping away. Anger rushed through me, and I had the sudden urge to jump up and bolt from the room.
A single drop hit the top of my palm. I looked back up again to see Willa silently wiping a tear away from her face. “Thank you,” she breathed. “For taking care of me. This was… a lot nicer than I thought it was going to be and I really… I really liked spending time with you, Cooper.”
It took only a moment for me to register what she was doing. “No.” My hand jerked out and grabbed hers, and she gasped in surprise. “Are you trying to say goodbye to me, Willa?”
“I don’t want to but…”
“Then don’t.”
She blinked, and I nodded, slowly at first, and then faster. “Yeah, it’ll suck having to go back after this, but why does it have to end?” I squeezed her hand.
“You mean like… like we’re dating now?”
“You want to call it that? Sure. I mean…” I gestured to her sling where her left hand rested, still decorated. “We’re already engaged.” She let out a sudden laugh and abruptly knelt up on the bed. I held up my hands. “Wait! Not so fast. Hold up, hold up, don’t hurt your -”
I didn’t get to finish reminding her to be careful. And with the way she was kissing me, I didn’t even mind.
Chapter