Page 49 of A DIY Christmas Miracle
I winced. Apparently, Will wasn’t sleeping after all. Why wasn’t he asleep? He should be!
“Do you want me to sit back up again?” he asked carefully, voice barely above a whisper.
“What? No. Why?” I answered, horrified. He should stay just like he was. Especially if he was awake and knew what was going on.
“Because you’re so tense, I’m afraid you’ll pull a muscle. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, sooo… if me leaning against you makes you feel uncomfortable, you can tell me, and I’ll stop.”
“Why would it make me uncomfortable? You’re the one who should be uncomfortable being this close to me!”
What the fuck was going on here? Seriously?
“Uhm… I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why would I be uncomfortable with being close to you?”
Will straightened up and moved away — breaking our physical contact after all — until he could turn enough so he was facing me.
And yeah, being able to see each other’s faces was probably sensible, but I already missed his warmth and the feeling of his body.
“You’re the one who turned me down,” I said, followed by a silent duh. “So, yeah, I’d imagine you’d want to keep your distance.” I wished my words didn’t sound so hurt and defeated. I wished I’d be able to stay calm, but instead, I already felt tears rising in my eyes. I hadn’t even meant to reveal this much about my feelings, but… it’d just burst out.
“I beg your pardon?” How did Will stay that polite in situations like this? No, ‘what the fuck?’ or‘are you kidding me right now?’or anything. Instead, he said things like ‘excuse me?’ or ‘I beg your pardon?’ “I never turned you down. I think I’d know if I did.”
“Huh?” Yeah, I wasn’t as eloquent as Will. “I wanted you to join me in the hot tub and you turned me down. You used the cheapest excuse imaginable! ‘I don’t really like hot tubs?’ A couple of weeks ago, you were gushing about how you couldn’t wait to take advantage of it every night!”
Within seconds, all the color drained from his face and he was so ghostly white. I was afraid he’d just keel over. As it was, his eyes got bigger and bigger — emphasized by his glasses.
“I… but…” he stammered. His hands gripped the collar of his shirt, even though the neckline was rather wide and definitely couldn’t be cutting off his air supply. “It wasn’t like that… God, you must think, but…”
I didn’t understand what exactly he was trying to say. Actually, I wasn’t even sure if he did.
“Will?”
I carefully reached for his hands and tried prying them away from his shirt, but he was desperately holding onto it as if the thin cotton fabric could offer him real support. His hands were cold but sweaty at the same time. That didn’t bother me. Holding his hands in mine felt good.Right.
“It wasn’t like that,” Will finally said, his eyes begging me to believe him. His voice was laced with so much despair, it made my heart hurt. “It really wasn’t. You have to believe me.”
“Okay.” I nodded, squeezing his hands reassuringly. “But if you didn’t try turning me down… why did you lie to me? The day was going so well and then…” I stopped and let out a sigh. Thinking back about the moment he’d rejected me hurt. Even though he said he hadn’t meant for it to be a rejection at all, he’d lied to me to get out of spending more time together.
“Exactly. The day was amazing. I loved it. But on our way back, you started acting all weird and gloomy again. And then you started talking about that damn hot tub, but I couldn’t go to the hot tub with you while all our friends were there!” He shook his head violently, sending his glasses rapidly sliding down his nose. “Seeing you in possibly skimpy swimwear, being so close to you…” He fell silent, his cheeks turning a deep shade of red.
Oh god, he looked so damn adorable when he was embarrassed. But I finally understood what he’d been worried about. And damn, could he get any cuter?
“Just to be clear: you didn’t want to get into the hot tub with me because you were afraid you’d get a boner?” Seriously?Thatwas his reason? “You don’t need to be embarrassed over getting an erection in front of me.”
“My problem wasn’t getting a hard-on in front of you!” Will declared angrily. His hands were shaking in mine, and he was chewing on his bottom lip. Something I didn’t think I’d ever seen him do. “In front of everyone else. What do you think would’ve happened if Jack or Marc had noticed? They’d have started teasing me relentlessly. Possibly for years. At every opportunity.”
Sofucking cute.
“Okay. So you didn’t want to get in the hot tub with me… so our friends didn’t catch you with a boner?”
He just shrugged and averted his eyes, looking straight down at his lap, cheeks still a deep red. But it was enough of an answer for me to understand exactly what’d been going on in his head.
“Okay,” I said, squeezing his hands again. “Since that’s settled, we can continue watching the movie.” I turned my attention back to the movie, let go of his hands, but draped my arm invitingly over the back of the couch. “Do you want to snuggle up to me again?”
“Only if you don’t stop breathing from stress this time. I wasn’t kidding before; the hospital really is pretty far away.”
Chapter 17
Eli
