45. Will
45
Will
M y knee bounces beneath the conference table.
Alice sits just two chairs away from me like normal—only she isn’t being normal at all. Mason simply asked how her weekend was.
She’s clammed up so much so that the rest of the team stares at her waiting for an answer.
“Well”—she gulps—“it’s complicated.”
Mason’s brows pull together. “Your weekend was complicated?”
“Yes. So complicated. So, it’s hard to say how it was.” She’s blinking so rapidly that she may start fanning the entire room at any second. Her gaze stops on me. “I can’t say. Not because I can’t ,” she adds quickly. “But because I don’t want to.”
“Are you tripping, princess?” Theo says through a laugh.
“Possibly,” she tells him.
Mason tilts his head, still watching her. “You don’t want to say how your weekend was?”
“I really don’t.”
“We were just worried about you. Will wheeled you out of here on Friday, and then you didn’t come back?—”
“I wasn’t worried,” Theo says.
“And you shouldn’t be!” Alice spouts. “Because there’s nothing to worry about. At all. Like at all at all. I’m fine.” Another gulp. “Finer than frog hair.”
“Frog hair?” Mateo says, his nose wrinkled as if her words smell sour.
“It’s a saying.” Alice nods. “It means I’m totally fine. Like one hundred percent fine. I am the finest person in this room.” Her mouth clamps shut, and her teeth knock together. “That’s all it means.”
“Maybe we should get to work?” I say, trying to keep my eyes off Alice. But her blue irises are wide and crazed, making it hard to look away. “We need a link on our website to a page about Jet Jacobson before our press conference. He officially signed with the Reno-Tesoro Red Tails last week.” I am working so hard to remove any and all eyes off Alice.
But the girl isn’t helping herself—or me.
“Woo! Hoo!” she yelps—followed by loud, joyful laughter. We’re all happy about Jacobson joining the Red Tails family. But I’m pretty sure Jet heard Alice’s whoop all the way in Colorado.
The team is staring at her again.
With my phone in my lap, I send a quick text to Zoe—I need an extraction team to come remove her from the conference room.
But apparently, Zoe can’t leave her current meeting.
“You’re acting weird,” Mateo says.
“She’s lost it,” Theo says.
Even Mason looks worried. “Alice, are you okay? You look a little… not fine. Despite the whole frog hair thing.”
“I’m a little anxious,” she says. “Because Billy is depending on us.”
Okay, worried about the boss. We can roll with that.
“And what if he doesn’t like what he sees?”
“Then we give you credit for the whole thing.” Theo snickers at his own joke, but Alice isn’t finished.
“He’s always watching, you know. You think he isn’t. But he is.”
“What does that mean?” Mason says, peering around the room.
“As in hidden cameras?” Mateo says, eyes wide.
“Maybe. Maybe he’s here right now,” she says. Her gaze passes Mason to me, and she narrows her brow. “Or maybe he’s not.”
“Guys,” I say above the chatter. “You’ve got this. Billy trusts you. There aren’t cameras in this room.”
“That’s exactly something you’d say if there were,” Theo says.
“There’s not! Geez. Alice,” I say, my voice gruffer than I mean for it to be, “can I talk to you in the hall?”
“Yes, please,” she says. She stands and hurries to the door. But not before she turns back to the team. “Billy says you guys are awesome. You’re working hard, and he wants you to know he sees that. Uh—not because there are cameras. Because there probably aren’t.”
“Wait,” Theo says. “You talked to Billy?”
“Alice,” I say, yanking her from the room. I link my fingers through hers, not caring if anyone sees, and drag Alice back into the oversized closet that would have ample space if not for this broken copy machine tucked inside.
“I’m sorry, Will.”
“Stop,” I tell her. Clearly, this is going to be more difficult than I thought. I wrap her in a hug and hold her close. “Just breathe.”
She does. In and out. Over and over again.
“I suck at this,” she says into my button-up shirt.
“You really do.” I press a kiss on her head.
“You’re so good at it. How are you so good at this?” Warm Alice breath seeps through my shirt and onto my chest.
“Lots of practice.”
“That wasn’t a compliment. I hope you know that. I’m not praising your ability to fool all of us.”
“I’m not trying to fool people. I’m trying to lie low.”
She huffs. “I know.”
“Alice–you kept quiet about us . You can do this.”
She shakes a finger at me. “This is so different, Will Baxter. And you know it. This isn’t keeping our relationship private. This is one big whopping dishonest… life!”
Ouch. I sigh. I can’t argue with the woman. “Do you think you can go back in there? And just work? Can we talk about the website?”
She pulls in a breath through her nose. “I think so.”
“Good. We don’t need to discuss Billy or your weekend or anything that makes you turn into an anxious auctioneer. We can go in there, easy and relaxed.”
“Easy and relaxed.”
We step through the conference room doors. The team is quiet. Eyes nervously dart from their computer screens back to the pair of us in the doorway.
I can hear Alice breathing beside me. I am just about to ask about everyone’s progress when?—
“Will has a tattoo!” Alice roars.