Page 75 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
“Your door code, I remembered it in the middle of the night. Five seven zero four.”
“It just suddenly came to you?” I ask, eyeing him suspiciously.
“What? It did,” he says, shaking his head. Then his brow furrows, and he laughs. “You think I pretended not to remember it, so you’d be forced to sleep in my cabin?”
“Will Havers, you absolute scoundrel,” I say, glaring at him.
“I swear, the way Verity said it, in that singsong voice, it just pinged back into my brain when I woke up. You never get that?” Will seems earnest, while finding my suspicion amusing. “You really think I would go through all that—trekking up that hill in the dark, offering to sleep on the floor—just to trick you into bed?”
“A convenient lapse of memory, was it?” I ask, unable to decide whether I believe him or not.
“If I recall, it was you who initiated things, not me.” He walks slowly around the fire toward me, and I feel myself unfurl beneath his gaze. “I was happy to keep this unrequited,” he says. “Well, not happy exactly, resigned.”
He reaches for me, tucking a finger inside the top of my T-shirt, twisting it, pulling me toward him. I push myself up on tiptoes, tilting my chin upward. “I’m going to get a cricked neck if I’m not careful,” he says softly.
“I’m worth it,” I say, kissing him.
“I love seeing you in nothing but my T-shirt,” he says. His eyes meet mine, his pupils wide and full of heat, but then, rather than kiss me again, he unwinds his finger and lets me go. My feet sink back to the floor, disappointed. “Come on, let’s see if I remembered that code right.” He strides across the glade toward my cabin, then punches in a code. The door clicks. As he opens it, he turns back to me. I’m still standing by the fire where he left me.
“Did you want to go on that guided walk at noon?” he asks.
“Maybe, why?” I ask. He beckons me with one finger, and I follow, a yo-yo on some invisible string.
When I reach the cabin step, he says, “Because I want to know how long I have,” which sends an arc of anticipation through me.
“I do not need to go on the guided walk,” I say with an uncharacteristically girlish giggle.
“Good,” he says, picking me up in one deft movement, carrying me up the steps, then kicking the cabin door closed behind us.
The rest of the day passes like a dream. I am not myself. I am not Anna the mother, nor Anna the journalist, not even Anna the sister. I am not divorced or thirty-eight or anything you could write on paper. I am simply a woman in the woods, in my own private Eden, returned to a raw, animal state. I’m annoyed and delighted in equal measure to discover why this beautiful,arrogant, swaggering man walks through life with such a cocksure gait. In his hands, my body feels like a Ferrari, long parked in a dusty garage, now being driven by a Formula 1 driver who knowsexactlyhow to handle one.
Without our phones, I have no concept of time or the outside world. The day unfurls like one long conversation, with no end or beginning, just moving locations. When we’re not in bed, we lie outside in the forest glade, Will reading me a chapter from my book, my head resting on his chest. I learn that his physique is not from the gym but from a daily habit of outdoor calisthenics. He can shift his body into incredible positions and tries teaching me how to do a headstand, but it only ends in a lot of laughing and a head rush for me.
When the sun is high in the sky we take a long walk around the perimeter of the field, then find bread, cheese, and salad in the cool box for lunch. That evening we lie out on a blanket in the field looking up at the stars, and I wonder if we have been here for a year or a day. I feel energized, blissfully content, fun, and attractive. If I was in my hibernation era, I am now well and truly awake.
“I love that I can just look at you now,” Will says, rolling onto his side on the blanket, propping a hand beneath his head, eyes moving lazily from my lips to my chest, then back to my eyes. “I always felt guilty when I looked at you in the office.”
“Why were you looking at me in the office?” I ask, but he just kisses my hand.
“Because it’s impossible not to.”
“What would people at work say if they saw us now?” I say, covering my face with my other hand.
“I don’t think anyone at work needs to know,” he says, trailing his fingertips up my arm.
“What happens in the woods stays in the woods,” I say, nodding.
Will reaches to cup my cheek, shoots me a look of such tenderness, then groans and falls back on the blanket. “This is the worst timing, Appleby,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve fancied you forever. Since I started at the magazine, but you wouldn’t give me the time of day. Now this happens and…” He exhales loudly. “Jesus.”
I beam at this, his words sending delight thrumming through me. “That’s not true, don’t lie,” I say, my cheeks starting to ache from smiling.
“Anna, did you not notice I was constantly inventing reasons to talk to you? I asked you out to dinner twice; both times you shot me down. I was convinced you hated me.”
“I kind of did, until Hay. I don’t remember you asking me out twice.”
