Page 56 of Where the Dark Knelt
By the dejected look on Will’s face, I realized that wasn’t what he meant. Will moved some gravel around under his foot. His eyes flicked to mine, and he exhaled heavily again before he spoke.
“So you’re still going to do the long distance relationship thing with him? Try to keep this thinggoing?” I noddedand gave him a weak smile, because after Max’s text I wasn’t confident it would work.
“Well, yeah, that’s the idea… that’s what he said. He’s going to try to be here once a month.” Will’s brows bunched together, and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
“What’s the matter with you, Will?” He pursed his lips into his mouth and shook his head but didn’t give me eye contact.
He rubbed his eyes with one hand.“Nothing.”The defeated way he said it told me it wasn’t.
Searching his face, I knew there was more to this than he was telling me.“Will, I think I know you better than this by now, come on out with it.”
Will exhaled loudly. “Aw, well, shit! Lily.”
I waited, but when he didn’t say anything, I asked quietly, “Did you andSaffybreak up?”
Taking my hand in his, Will looked serious. “No.” He inhaled sharply, shook his head vigorously, before his voice took on a much softer tone. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He let out a shaky breath attempting to control it.
Will chewed his lip and huffed, still struggling to look at me. Eventually, his eyes met mine and held my gaze. I’ll never forget the look of pain in them.
“Well, what is it? You’re scaring me, Will.” He stroked my hand, then my cheek.
“Lily… in the time I’ve known you…” He took a deep breath.
“Okay, just spit it out,” I snipped. “My nerves can’t take any more of this shit, Will.” His eyes fell to the floor.
“If I tell you, Lily, I don’t want it to affect our relationship, or yours with Saffy.” His eyes looked dull and concerned. I knew whatever he had to say wasn’t good. I watched his body language prepare to tell me something that he knew I didn’t want to hear.
“Will, whatever it is, you can’t keep it to yourself now. I promise to try to keep our relationship as it is, you andSaffyare like family to me now, so I figure that whatever it is, we’ll weather it.”
Breathingdeeply, Will grimaced and I felt angst roll of him. The atmosphere between us was very tense. “You sure you want to hear this?” he asked, giving me a sideways glance.
“Just tell me.” I was getting really annoyed now.
“Okay, here goes nothing.” He sighed. “On Saturday night, when we were at dinner, and I went to the bathroom, do you remember that?” I nodded. Will struggled with his thoughts then continued, “Okay, well, Max… he was on his cell… in the hallway I mean.”
Waiting for him to reply, I held my breath. “He was talking to a female saying, something like ‘it’s been a pain to be away from you, I won’t be long until I’m home now, Kelly. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow’. I thought I’d heard him wrong, then he said, ‘I’ve missed you too, babe’. I was going to confront him, but then he said, ‘Okay, we’ll get some time and meet with them, talksoon’ and hung up.” I had felt there was something that Max avoided, nothing I could put my finger on, but it made perfect sense when Will told me what he knew.
Max was reluctant for me to visit him in Nashville when I tried to pin him down with a date during one of our conversations at the airport.How stupid am I?Of course Max would have a girl. Which meant he’d cheated on her with me. I felt devastated that he could betray me like that.
Will enveloped me in his strong arms andsqueezed me, resting his head against mine for a moment, before letting me go. “Lily, I know I’m not wrong. I’m a guy, and from how he was speaking to her… I don’t think it was just a friend. Kelly’s his girl.” Will looked terrible at having to tell me this, and I could see he cared about me. I felt that the last thing he wanted was to hurt me.
“There was something else.He was texting a few times on Friday to someone when we were on the boat, and he was smiling kind of wistfully when he was reading the replies. You were looking at your phone. Were you texting with him?” I shook my head. “I thought he was texting with you, but when you stopped and he kept going, I kind of realized he wasn’t texting with you at all.”
Twisting his lips, Will worked a swallow. “When my hat blew off on the boat and landed on his lap, I leaned in to take it back, and I think he thought I’d seen one of the texts. He winked at me and switched his phone off, before I could ask him what’s up, he shoved it in his pocket. He looked guilty about something.”
Will gave me an awkward smile.“I thought, what the fuck are you doing winking at me, dude? It felt strange at the time, but after overhearing his call I sort of put two and two together.” Will looked uneasy and gave me a half smile.
“He’s good though.I’ll give him that, how he was all attentive and shit toward you. That was the only thing that made me decide not to tell you sooner.” I quickly wiped a tear that was rolling down my face. How could he do that to me, we had been friends.
Will saw how the news was affecting me and pulled me back into his chest in a bear hug. He rubbed my back, and I sobbed into him. Will stood silently holding me, he’d said enough. I pushed away from him, but he pulled me back and held me tightly. Will’s soft voice vibrated in his chest. “Sorry, honey, it really is better you find out now than later, huh?” Then he kissed my head again.
I straightened upright and stepped away from him. “I need to go home, Will. I can’t do today now.” I stared up at him. Tearsstreamed down my face. I felt stupid, ridiculous, and ashamed that I had let someone else take advantage of me.
“You look fragile. Don’t argue, I’m coming with you.” He gave me a half smile. “There’s no way I’m letting you get behind the wheel of a car in this state.” As we walked to his car, he pulled me into him again. Occasionally, he looked at me and wiped his thumb over my cheeks in an effort to stop my tears.
Ifelt I just wanted to go home to the UK. I had got everything wrong here. I’d made so many mistakes and now seeingSaffyor bumping into Alfie would leave me with constant reminders of what a stupid fuck-up of a girl I was.
Chapter Twenty-Three
