Page 20 of Wild Weekend
My heart skips a beat. Will is a lawyer. It doesn’t surprise me with his clean-cut looks, but it’s still a shock.
“Is that what you do now?”
He props himself up on one elbow and traces the line of my arm with his fingertip. “I’ve got a practice in Hope.It’s a small town on Wild Heart Mountain near where I live. I have local civilian clients, but I also take military cases still.”
He tells me about his work and I nod and smile along, but my heart is sinking. He’s a good guy, a right side of the law kind of good guy, which is more than I am. It’s lucky this is only a fling. That he’s only mine to enjoy for a weekend.
“What do you want to do today?” he asks, oblivious to my thoughts.
My body tingles thinking about all the things I want to do to Will today, but I need to give my body a rest.
“Don’t you have things organized with your club?”
Will puts his arm around me and pulls me back to his chest. “I was going to ride back today, but I think I’ll stay another night.”
He runs his fingers through my hair. It’s soothing, and I could stay here all day listening to his heartbeat and forgetting about the different lives we lead.
“I’d rather spend the day with you.”
The words make me feel warm all over even though he must just mean to have sex. “I’m a little sore…”
His fingers move to the front of my scalp and make their way back through my hair. “I mean go get breakfast, see the sights.”
“What sights are there to see in the middle of a bikers festival?”
He reaches for his phone. “Let’s find out.”
A few hours later, we’re wandering the streets of a small town that’s a twenty minute ride from where the festival is.
The streets are lined with motorbikes from festival goers who have had the same idea.
We stopped for ice cream at a local store, and I clasp my cone in one hand and Will’s hand in the other.
“Have you always lived in North Carolina?”
I take a lick of my strawberry ice cream, and Will’s eyes dart to my mouth. The look he gives me makes my body heat, and I lick the ice cream again just to see that look again.
“I moved there after my parents died.”
I jolt to a stop, all thoughts of provocative ice cream licking fleeing my mind. I know what that loss feels like.
“I’m sorry, Will. How old were you?”
He squeezes my hand, and I start moving again. “It was a long time ago. I was seventeen. I went straight into the military.”
We pass a trash can and I throw the rest of my ice cream in, no longer hungry. “Is that where you studied to be lawyer?”
He nods. “The military trained me, and I threw myself into my studies. My father was a military lawyer with the JAGs, and I wanted to do him proud. I was driven. Too driven.”
The last bit he mutters and turns away as he says it. I wonder what haunts him, but I’m too caught in my own thoughts to ask.
“I lost my parents too.”
Will stops walking and turns to me. “I’m so sorry, Stella. How old were you?”
It’s been a long time since I talked about this voluntarily. My therapist made me talk about my past, and I’m getting better at it. For years I kept it bottled up, and it still feels weird to talk. But Will’s looking at me like he really cares, like he wants to know.
“My dad left when I was two. Mom tried to track him down. We moved around a lot, but when she finally found him, she was too late. He was dead.”
