Page 77 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
“Oh, right,” says Will, turning his back to her as he pulls on his jeans, his face puce. “I’d forgotten you were coming.”
“Youknewshe was coming?” I cry, crawling to find a T-shirt, wrapping the blanket tighter around myself. When I dare glance back at Greta, she looks amused, one hand on her hip, mouth curled into a smirk.
“Sorry.” Will rubs his face with both hands, then paces back and forth, before finally extending a hand toward her.
“You can’t use those photos,” I tell her.
“They’re your photos, you decide what you use. You looked so perfect together, wrapped in those rugs in the dappled light. Moments like that are always better captured than posed.” She looks back and forth between us. “This is a romantic getaway feature, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s not—we’re not going to illustrate it with half-naked pictures of ourselves,” Will says, shaking his head. “Please delete those.”
“It wasn’t a close-up. There’s nothing to see.” She leans overto show Will the photos on her camera screen. “Even if you don’t use them for the article, I’d want to keep these if this was me and my partner.”
“Oh no, we’re not…” I start to say.
“No, no, we’re not,” says Will, mortified.
Greta looks back and forth between us, and I hide my face in my T-shirt.
“We’re colleagues.”
“Ah, I see,” Greta says slowly, then laughs. “Well, I’ll take a ton of pictures, you decide which ones you use to illustrate the article.” She pauses, looking across at Will, then winking at me. “Nice work if you can get it, hey?”
Greta gives us space to put our clothes back on. Will and I share a mortified smile. Once our faces have returned to their normal tones, Greta asks if she can pose a few photos of us sitting by the fire, then standing outside the cabin with mugs of tea.
“I’ll let you get back to it,” she says, which turns Will’s face pink again. “There must be something in it, then, this Reconnect retreat.”
“Please don’t tell anyone at theTimesabout this,” I plead.
“Honey, relax,” says Greta. “When you get to my age, you’ll only wish you had more weekends like this.” And then she’s gone, marching back the way she came.
“I’m so sorry,” Will says to me as soon as she’s out of earshot. “They said they would send a photographer, but they didn’t follow up with any details. I thought they’d come separately to photograph the location.” His face is racked with guilt. “That was so unprofessional.”
“I can’t believe she thought we might want half-naked photos of ourselves in a national newspaper,” I say. Then when I catch Will’s eye, we both burst out laughing.
“It was a good photo. I might print it out and put it on my desk at work,” Will says.
“That might be a little unprofessional,” I say, my cheeks aching from smiling.
Then Will picks me up, in one sweeping motion, and carries me across the glade back to his cabin. “What are you doing,” I say, grinning up at him.
“I’m going to show you exactly how unprofessional I can be.”
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Chapter 25
We don’t have any moreconversations about what will happen when we get back to reality. I don’t think either of us want to think about it. We swim and walk in the woods and lounge by the fire or in my bed. It is a novelty to be touched so much, Will looking for my hand on a walk, throwing an arm around my shoulder, reaching to stroke dirt off my cheek. He is tactile and familiar and unselfconscious. He pulls me onto his lap by the fire or reaches out to stroke my hair. My body relishes it, like stepping into a warm shower after swimming in a cold sea.
On Sunday morning, I get up before Will and light the fire to make breakfast rolls. The smell of bacon and eggs draws Will out of my cabin and when he sees me by the fire, he shakes his head. “I wanted to make you breakfast in bed,” he says, then walks behind me and bends down to kiss the nape of my neck.
“Sorry, I woke up early,” I say.
Will leans around me and inhales the smell. “Perfectly crispy bacon.”
“I forgot I was cooking for a restaurant critic,” I say, gently slapping his hand with a spatula as he reaches for a piece.
“At least give me a job,” he says.
