If the Shoe Fits (21 page)

When he finally pulled into the driveway, he noticed Julianne’s car parked next door at her mother’s house. He didn’t bother to flick the garage door open. Instead, he rolled down all of the windows and opened the sunroof before turning off the engine and leaning back against the headrest.

About ten minutes later, the garage door opened, and Davis scuffled through. He stopped at the front bumper and called out to him. “What’s going on, Son? You coming in?”

“I was thinking about going for a run,” he replied without lifting his head.

“Yeah, you look like it. Come on inside. Amanda’s here with some of her fancy bread pudding.”

Like a shot, Will found himself back at the Radisson, sitting next to Julianne and playing that silly dessert game of hers.

“Bread pudding with warm honey-vanilla sauce,” she’d guessed, and everyone at the table had a sudden urge for the delectable dessert they wouldn’t find anywhere in the area, aside from Amanda’s active kitchen, that is.

“You coming inside, boy?”

“Yeah,” Will muttered, and he flicked the handle and pushed the door open.

He grabbed the saddlebag from the backseat and, leaving all the windows down and the sunroof gaping wide open, he caught up to his dad and hung an arm loosely around his shoulder as they walked through the garage and into the house.

Fragrant spices accosted them before they even made it into the kitchen. Cinnamon, nutmeg, blended with a scent so sweet that Will began to salivate.

“There you are,” Amanda greeted him with a welcoming smile. “Have you had dinner, Will? I kept a couple of plates warm for you and Julianne.”

“Is she here?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t seen her today.”

“I saw her car outside.”

“Is it?” Amanda looked to Davis curiously. “Maybe she’s over at the house then.”

“I’ll just go clean up,” he told them, and the
ps-ps-ps
of their whispers followed him all the way down the hall toward his bedroom.

As he dropped the saddlebag on the bench at the foot of the bed, the hum of his phone sounded once again. He turned away in defiance and went into the bathroom to splash warm water on his face and scrub his hands clean. When he returned, he stood in the middle of the room, straining his ears for the continued buzz to no avail. The phone had gone silent.

Will changed into gray sweatpants and a Bengals T-shirt before he finally sat down on the corner of the bed. He sighed as he emptied out the saddlebag and picked up his phone, staring at the blinking light. He sighed again as he depressed the voicemail key.

“You have five new messages,” the robotic female announced. “First message.”

“Hey, Will, it’s me. I really need you. Call me, ’kay?”

Delete.

“Will? Where are you? I really need to talk to you, if you’re up to it.”

Delete.

“Will, it’s Judd. Give me a ring, would you? There’s been a shift in circumstances down here, and I’d like to talk to you about it, buddy.”

The last thing Will could think about just then was another plug from Judd for moving to Lexington.

Delete.

“Will?” Julianne’s unmistakable sniffles lassoed his full attention. “He dumped me. Are you there?”

He groaned softly, ashamed of himself, and made plans to head over to console her as he listened to the final message.

Delete.

Her stuffy nose and soft, vulnerable voice pricked something deep within Will as she stammered out her final message. “I … I need to get … out of here for a while. I think I’ll take off … for … a bit. I guess I’ll just … s-see you tomorrow.”

Part of him felt almost angry. This ditch digger had appeared out of nowhere one day, just stalked down the middle of the street toward Julianne and
saved a dog
. That type of thing—rescuing an animal!—acted as her undoing every time. Had he somehow known it and manipulated her? No, of course not, Will forced himself to admit. There had been no master plan in the whole series of events beyond the cruel twist of fate that he’d answered that ridiculous ad she’d placed on the very day that Will had screwed up the resolve to tell Julianne—at long last—how he felt about her. How he’d always felt about her.

And after the ditch digger had unwittingly dragged Will along behind him that first fateful day, through the rain, bumping along on the pot-holed concrete of Seventh Street, or wherever she’d been when she saw him, now he’d gone and done the unthinkable—at least to almond-eyed hopeful romantic Julianne. Just as Will had feared, he had broken her heart.

Will dialed Julianne’s number and tapped his foot as he awaited her reply.

“Hey, Will.”

“Hi. I just got your message. Are you all right?”

“I guess. Disappointed. Embarrassed. But all right.”

“Where are you?” he asked her.

“I’m out on The Log.”

“Sit tight. I’m on my way.”

Even as the maiden dangled over the cliff’s edge
,
she felt certain that her prince would arrive at any moment
to fight off the dragon and deliver her to safe ground
.

“Here!” someone called out to her
,
and she looked up and saw that it wasn’t her prince at all
.
“Take hold of this lifeline!”

“No!” she growled back at him
.
“Get out of here. Can’t you see I’m waiting for
my prince to save me?”

Will grabbed his
wallet and keys, and he tucked them and his iPhone into the pocket of his pants as he jogged down the hallway.

“Where’s the fire, Son?” Davis asked from the kitchen table.

“Sorry. I need to run out. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

Before his dad or Amanda could make any further inquiries, Will rushed out the door. He ran down the driveway and along the curve of the street, waving to the Nethertons as he passed them. He picked up some real momentum on his way down the slope of Jackpine Court. Cutting across the Weylons’ lawn and weaving between the two properties at the end of the cul-de-sac, he recalled the snow day of their sixth grade year when he and Julianne had discovered Jackpine’s
High Ten
status on Julianne’s sledability scale.

With all of the roads steeped in snow overnight, none of the city plows had been able to reach them, so they’d grabbed their sleds and started out from the top of Will’s driveway. Julianne screamed bloody murder as she bumped along the curve, flew straight down Jackpine Court and through the Weylons’ yard. Will’s hot pursuit brought her into view just as her sled took temporary flight and zoomed across Lakeridge Drive, down the hill, and twenty yards out onto the frozen lake before coming to an eventual stop.

Will shook the memory from his head as he leapt over the ditch and thumped across Lakeridge, spotting her as he managed the challenges of the hill that led down to Winton Lake. She sat slumped over on the tree trunk that had fallen out into the lake so many years ago, her feet dangling just inches above the water. When she peered up at him, her face looked a little like a punching bag, all red and swollen from who-knew-how-many hours of crying out there on The Log.

Will navigated the trunk like a balance beam until he reached her, and he cautiously lowered himself and sat down beside her. He reached both arms out toward her and, with a weary smile, Julianne leaned over, collapsed into his arms, and sighed.

“I’m so sorry, Jules.”

As they sat there quietly, the music of Winton Lake lulled them. A flock of ducks paddled past in a straight line, the leader quacking orders like a web-footed platoon leader. Behind them, on the trail concealed by trees, horses’ hooves clacked along at a slow walk. A car on Lakeridge Drive at the top of the hill gave them a short clip of a song from its radio before it faded into the distance.

A Whole New World
by Peebo Bryson and Regina Belle.

Will recalled that it had been Julianne’s favorite song the summer that it came out to coincide with one of the Disney movies. She played it so many times that he still remembered almost every lyric all these years later, in spite of his best efforts back then
not
to know them. He could still hear her off-key crooning as she reveled in the duet that represented every high school girl’s fantasy of the happy ending that love would eventually bring. And while Julianne sang along with it all summer long, Will’s teenaged angst inspired him to play a different song, one that never failed to tickle his soul with reminders every time he heard it, or even thought about it.

Jon Secada’s
Angel
. Will’s personal heart song back then—the anthem for every guy pining for something that he almost had, but lost. Two beats of those opening violins could shove him back there again, even now.

Twenty years had come between then and now, but Will knew his feelings hadn’t changed much beyond the general maturity that came with time. However, he knew one thing now more certainly than he’d ever known it back then: He had to tell her how he felt.

“Jules,” he said, and it sounded a little like a croak to him, so he cleared his throat. “Listen. I want to tell you something.”

“I know,” she said, nuzzling against his shoulder.

He wanted to laugh. Smiling, he assured her, “I don’t think you do.”

She lifted her head and looked at him with a sleepy smile that said she thought she knew him inside and out, that there were no surprises left between them, that he hadn’t had a single feeling that she didn’t understand or know about.

“Sure I do,” she said as she glanced down at her dangling feet. “You’re going to tell me that I got stars in my eyes when I saw Paul, that it wasn’t really a sign, and that he wasn’t really my Prince Charming after all.”

Her mournful gaze lit a fire under Will’s lips and he couldn’t help but smile.

“I think I just really wanted him to be the one, you know?” She tucked a lock of honey hair behind her ear and shrugged. “I’m so sick of people pointing out that I can’t hang on to a man long enough to have a real relationship, Will. I mean, I think it hurts so much because … it’s
true
.”

“It’s not.”

“It is, Will. And I was really excited to maybe walk into that gala with someone like Paul Weaver on my arm so everyone in the room could see that I not only managed to keep a relationship going for more than a few dates, but I snagged a twelve on the one-to-ten meter!”

“You think he’s a twelve?” he murmured. “What’s that make me?” After a moment, he sighed and added, “What do you care what people say anyway? Is it Lacey? When did you hand over all the power to Lacey?”

She shrugged again and fell silent, mindlessly scraping the bark of the tree trunk between them with her fingernail.

A sudden thought on how to advance the conversation tickled his funny bone. “And you know,” he said with a chuckle, “I know a way to really frost Lacey’s cookies … because you have something that she, for whatever reason, seems to really want.”

She gazed up at him, and Will noticed that either the early evening sunlight or sheer emotion had glazed her blue eyes with brushstrokes of green. “What do I have that Lacey wants? … Besides you.”

He threw his arms out to both sides in a dramatic sweep. “Duh!” When she didn’t seem to understand, he puffed out a sigh. “Why don’t I take you to the gala. I’ll be your date.”

Julianne curled her face into the most insulting form of disappointment. “What’s that going to prove? Everyone sees you as my backup catcher anyway. Walking into that ballroom with you as my date just says, ‘Look, she couldn’t find anyone else, so here she is again with Old Faithful.’”

Will wondered if she could
actually hear
her own scorching words; or for that matter, could she hear the high-pitched sound he made as he deflated?

Old Faithful? Like a pair of stained, torn jeans that everyone thinks you should toss, but no one has the heart to tell you?

“Not that I don’t really appreciate the offer,” she added, rubbing his hand. “You’re the best.”

“I
really
am,” he stated bitterly.

“Besides, I came up with the germ of an idea before you arrived. At first, I thought it was just insanity finding a voice inside my head … but the more I think about it, the more I think it might be kind of genius.”

“Do tell.”

“I know there’s no chance of Paul changing his mind about us. He was pretty clear about there not being anything between us to build upon.” She clicked her tongue and sighed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that just one more date with him to the gala would at least make me feel better … you know … in front of my peers.”

“Jules …”

“No, hear me out, Will. I think I might be able to convince him to go out with me just one more time and be my date for that one evening. I’m going to—”

“Jules, really. I don’t think …”

“—offer to pay him!”

“… you should … I’m sorry. You want to what?”

“I’m going to offer to pay him to escort me to the gala!”

“Pay him.”

“Genius, right?” And the way she sat there grinning at him made Will question his hearing. And how he felt …

“That’s not the word I would choose.”

“I’ll cover the cost of his tuxedo rental, and I’ll pay him for his time—”