Love Will (27 page)

I look at Damon, and know we’re on the same page. “We’ll Photoshop it,” I tell him as we fist-bump.

Chapter 12

When my phone rings a little after one the next afternoon, I run through the bus to answer it. “Shea?”

“Hi,” she says, bringing a smile to my face.

“Hey. I’m glad you called me back.”

“I was working when you left a message earlier.”

“I know…”

“I thought you would have called last night,” she says simply, airily, not angry or anything.

“I thought I would, too. I meant to. As soon as we got in, I got in bed, I put on my headphones, started doing some random calculations, shifted my focus to you… remembered being with you… remembered how I felt when I was with you… I thought about your eyes, and this little golden fleck you have below your left pupil, and then I don’t know what happened, but it was morning. I called you as soon as I woke up.”

“You fell asleep?” she asks.

“I don’t think you understand the significance in that. I don’t fall asleep on my own. I don’t
sleep
. If I do, it’s in spurts, and I swear I’m actually cognizant of things around me when I
am
asleep. I can sometimes account for my time when I’m sleeping.”

“Whatever,” she laughs.

“I swear. But I slept
hard
last night. Like I normally sleep after a night of…
exertion
.”

“I was gonna say,” she starts, “the Will I know seems to sleep okay when he’s not awake doing
other
bedtime activities.”

“I slept great with you,” I say softly. “I can’t wait to sleep with you again.”

“Really?”

“I don’t lie.”

“I missed you last night. It was cold here. It snowed again.”

“How’s your electricity?”

“It stayed on. I’m good.”

“You have a place to go if it goes out again? I don’t want some other guy coming over to test scientific theories with you.”

She giggles. “I have friends a few miles down the road and snow tires on my car. We take care of each other.”

“Girl friends?”

“These are, yes. I have some guy friends, too, Will.”

I groan loudly enough for her to hear.

“They aren’t scientific like you. They could throw another log on the fire, but that’s the best they could do at warming me up. Okay?”

“That’s all they’ve ever done?” I have to ask her. The curiosity would kill me otherwise.

“Honestly?”

“Yes,” I say, feeling my heart falter.

“They’ve never even added wood to my fireplace. For your sanity, I’ll tell you it’s rare that I invite them over to my apartment. We have parties after closing at the restaurant–my friends and I–but you know how tiny my place is.”

“I’m doing a little dance right now,” I tell her.

“I would love to see that.”

“It’s good. It’s
sexy
,” I tease her.

“Well, good thing there aren’t any girls around you.”

“Who said that? I’ll have you know, there’s a woman asleep about five feet away from me as we speak. We found lonely little Peron a nice girl last night. Which, by the way, Damon says it’s miraculous I slept at all with all the noise they were making. He said he and Tavo actually left the bus for awhile.”

“Wow,” she says, laughing again. “So is that where you were last night?”

“Yeah. We went to a few bars in town. I was his wingman.”

“You?” she asks. “
You
were
his
wingman?”

“I can be a wingman!”

“How many girls did you hit on?” she asks me, still sounding okay with this whole arrangement.

“Uhhh…” I start. “None?”

“Will, give it to me straight.”

“I swear. I talked to a few, but I didn’t lead any on. Just small talk as I worked toward the goal: to get Peron laid.”

“Let me rephrase the question. How many girls hit on
you
?”

“Why do you ask such questions?” I press her. “It’s not something I can help…”

“Can you give me a number?”

“I don’t know… probably seven?”

“In one night… seven… shit.”

“What?”

“Will, how am I going to keep your attention when I’m miles and
states
away from you?”

“Shea,” I tell her calmly, seriously, “I left a part of myself in Minneapolis with you. I don’t know why you can’t feel it, because it sure as hell feels like something’s missing since I left you.”

She’s quiet for a minute or so. I’m just waiting for her to accuse me of using another line on her, so I’m surprised when she finally does speak to me in her sweet tone. “When do you think you’ll come back and get it?”

“I don’t know when. Just know that I fully intend to, okay?”

“Okay.” I can hear her smile.

And when I take that part of myself back, I hope you’ll come with me.
I don’t say it aloud. It’s not really even a conscious thought. It’s just a notion that’s taken root and seems to spread like wildflowers in my chest. Near my heart, in fact.

“We have a show tonight, so it may be too late to call you after. I know our schedules are kind of opposite right now, but–”

“It’s just for a few more weeks, Will. Then the restaurant will be closed, and I’ll be available to talk whenever until I find another job. Just leave a message in the morning when you’re up and I’ll call on my lunch break again.”

“Thanks for understanding. And know that I’m thinking about you even when I’m not talking to you, okay? It’s pretty constant, actually.”

“Same here.”

“Well, that makes me feel a little less crazy,” I admit.

“Break a leg tonight.”

“Go cook your heart out… but not my enchiladas.”

“Those are our little secret,” she says. “Write a song for me?”

“I’ve written some… already got another in mind.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Can I hear them?”

“Someday, yeah,” I assure her softly.

“Have a good day, Will.”

“You, too, Shea.”

“I love you, Shea!!!” Damon yells–thankfully, after I hang up the phone.

“Asswipe, don’t you
ever
do that again.” I punch him in the chest to make sure he gets the point.

“What?”

“What if she heard you?”

“So what if she did?”

“I’ve known her for less than a week. You think we’re exchanging
I love yous
?” I ask him without looking at him.

“You’ve spent more time with her than all the women you’ve ever been with combined,” he exaggerates. “I figured you’d secretly exchanged
vows
.”

After rolling my eyes at him, I find my guitar and sit next to him in the living area.

“Are we writing or rehearsing?” he asks.

“I’m writing. Shea wants me to let her hear a song I wrote for her… but everything I have is a little too serious.”

“They all say
I love you
, don’t they?” he teases.

I crack my neck before answering. “When I read back through them, I guess that’s the general gist of them, yeah.”

“Oh, fuck,” he says. I nod my head. “You’ve known her for
less than a week
!”

“I don’t know, Damon. There’s something about her. She’s nothing like anyone I’ve ever met. She challenges me, and wants to know about me. And I want to know
her
. Like, where she’s been and where she’s going. She genuinely interests me. And she’s fun, too. And fucking beautiful… like the kind of woman where you find something new and gorgeous about her every time you look at her. And you never want to stop looking at her, either.

“Plus, she’s got her shit together–even though her life’s crumbling down all around her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s losing her restaurant in a few weeks. She doesn’t have anything lined up. She’s got savings, apparently, and very little stress about what’s happening. Oh, and when she loses the restaurant, she loses her apartment, too. But she has this Zen attitude about it all. About everything in her life, really. I love it. I love that about her.

“There’s no drama in her life. She has this aura of peace. Of calm. Can you blame me for wanting to surround myself with that?”

My friend smiles. “No… what, does she have no family or something? How do you have no drama?”

“She has a sister who lives in Africa. Her parents are both gone… she’s completely independent. Lives her life like she wants.”

“Oh, wow. What does she want with a scoundrel like you?”

“I have no idea, but she seems to want me. She knows about me, and she still wants me.”

“She know about your connection to the Hollands? They
are
one of the wealthiest families in the country.”

“Yeah… but she was into me before she knew. It’s not like that, Damon.”

“Okay.” He knows I’d be able to see through that. “She know how you feel about her?”

“I haven’t hidden anything from her. She definitely knows there’s something between us. She knows that I think she’s someone special. That she’s different than the rest of them.”

“Then your songs will come as no surprise to her, right?”

“Fuck, they’re coming as a surprise to me!”

“Well, when you read over them, do you still mean what you wrote?”

“Yeah,” I say with a chuckle. “One hundred percent. But it’s a lot to pour my heart out like that to her when I haven’t–”

“Haven’t even known her a week. We’ve established that, Will. You can dwell on the fact that it only took you a couple of days to fall for her, or you can step back and see that it’s actually taken you
years
to find her and fall in love,” he says. “If you’re sensing activity from that lifeless muscle in your chest, go with it, man. In all the time I’ve known you, it’s been as unfeeling as a rock.”

I know he’s not wrong. In more interviews than I care to count, he’s used three words to describe me: brilliant, talented, and detached.
‘Look up any of those three words in the dictionary, and you’ll find Will Rosser,’
he always says.

“Guys?” We both look up to see Peron, standing in front of us with his flannel pants on backwards.

“One o’clock!” Damon exclaims. “Good work! How do you feel?”

“Like we had sex all night…”

“You pretty much did.”

“Uhhh… yeah. I’m mortified.”

“Don’t be!”

“I slept through it all,” I admit. “And I had my headphones on, too.”

“She wants to go at it again,” he whispers, looking worried.

“It’s just the two of us here. Tavo and Ben are out shopping. I haven’t eaten yet. You?” I ask Damon.

“Nope.”

Twelve hours later, I find myself in the same restaurant I’d had lunch in, only this time my dining partner-in-crime is Peron. Tavo and Ben couldn’t wait to get back to their new video game that was released yesterday, and although they insisted on blaring the sound through incredibly high-end speakers and it annoyed the shit out of me, that’s not why we’re here.

The gig went well. We played
Where Your Horizon Meets Mine
tonight, this time with the full band, and once again, the crowd went crazy over it. We’d thought about doing
Done Away
acoustic, but Damon wasn’t quite ready before the show.

Peron had an off night, and we’d teased him relentlessly that he wasn’t allowed to get laid again while we were on the road. After all, he’d never had an off night before while we were on tour. When the concert was over, he approached me and asked if we could go out for coffee instead of joining the others on the bus.

“If you’re feeling guilty about Brooke,” I start after they bring an appetizer to us, “you shouldn’t.” I eat a piece of fried lamb meat, happy with the waiter’s suggestion after I’d realized I hadn’t eaten since I was here for lunch.

“I’m not,” he says.

“Good. And we were just messing with you back there. Everyone has a bad night every once in awhile. Even you, Peron. And trust me, no one could tell but us.”

He nods, showing no emotion.

“So what’s up?”

“The condom broke last night.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Then another one broke this afternoon.”