Chapter 12 #3
For tonight, he goes to greet Mere, one of the first to arrive, all the kids in tow.
She grins at him but is pulled away by Casey before they can talk.
Todd gives Will an awkward half hug and then skitters away to talk to Noel, who, to Will’s amazement and deep amusement, blushes tellingly at being approached.
The rest of the children are shepherded off by Daphne Cardini-Johnstone, who has emerged from behind the market bakery counter to hold court in the kids’ play area, where a number of members of the Cardini family are keeping a vague eye on the proceedings to ensure none of the town children kill one another or themselves.
Hazily, Will finds he remembers this from town gatherings of his own youth, the loose network of Glenriver families who took the “it takes a village” approach.
Old Mrs. Cardini, now that Will thinks about it, had bandaged more of his skinned knees when he was a child than his own mother had. Nancy Gunderson, too.
Nancy’s still off in Georgia, but old Mrs. Cardini’s sitting at the playground with Daphne, having arrived about three hours early to poke around the market bakery, pass judgement, and gossip.
Will takes her a cup of hot cider and kisses her on the cheek, and she swats him away and says, “Oh go away , William; if you’ve gone and become a gentleman, I will die of old age,” but he thinks she’s pleased, even so.
Most of the rest of the town trickles in over the next hour or so, as the sun sets.
They are still missing the section of the populace trapped on the other side of the bridge, but before darkness falls, Mere hurries over to Will with a beer in one hand and her phone in the other.
When she gets close, she turns the phone proudly to face him.
“So, okay, I told Sandy about this idea, and he liked it so much they’re doing one on the other side of the river, too! See?”
Will peers at the screen, a slow grin spreading over his face as he sees the loose circle of tents in the distance, the large pile of dead wood and branches being added to even as he watches. Oddly touched, he says, “God, that’s—amazing, actually? I’m glad he thought of it.”
“Yeah, I liked it, too,” Mere says, shaking her head with a fond smile at the screen before she tucks the phone back in her pocket.
Then—maybe, Will thinks with trepidation as it happens, it’s the beer—she throws an arm around him, pulling him in for a tight hug.
“I’m glad you came back here, Will,” she whispers, fierce.
“Even if you drive away tomorrow and I never hear from you again : Thank you for coming back.”
“Oh,” Will says, unexpected tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “That’s… Sure. Of course.” He clears his throat, and then, slightly raggedly, adds, “And you’re not going to—to never hear from me again, God. I’m not a stupid teenager anymore; I know about social niceties now.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Mere warns, stepping back and wiping her own eyes. “See if I don’t!”
Will smiles brightly at her, and opens his mouth to say—oh, he doesn’t know what.
He’s as interested as anyone to hear what it’s going to be, whether a promise to return and visit, or a confession that he’s suddenly not sure he wants to sell, or even leave , at all.
Mere isn’t Selma, obviously, but she was Will’s very first best friend, and he trusted her enough then for it to carry over now, in spite of all the lost years between them.
She might be biased towards Casey and Glenriver, but then again, wouldn’t Selma be biased towards Will doing the right thing, the sane thing, and sticking with the life he’s spent two decades building in Chicago?
He doesn’t get to find out, anyway, what he would have ended up saying.
A hand lands on Will’s shoulder, its grip warm and familiar, and Will’s voice shrivels back down into his throat when he realizes that it’s Casey’s.
If nothing else, Will would like to do his very best to avoid discussing his feelings for Casey, which are messy and complicated except in the ways they are upsettingly and graphically simple, in Casey’s actual earshot , so.
For the best, really, that the surprise of being grabbed by the man seconds before going maudlin and confessional has left Will feeling as though he swallowed a series of furious frogs.
“ There you are,” Casey says, smiling at him, when Will half turns to face him. Glancing quickly at Mere and then looking back at Will, he adds, “Sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if you’d mind helping me with something?”
“Oh,” Will says, trying to gather himself at speed and finding it a bit like trying to scoop sand with a sieve. “I—sure, yeah. Or, uh. I don’t mind, is what I mean.”
“Great,” says Casey, beaming at him. Will smiles back, helpless not to in the face of Casey’s expression, though his own goes somewhat queasy when, out of the corner of his eye, he notices Meredith suddenly looking very amused.
If other people are able to tell how I feel about this , Will thinks with sudden, crystalline clarity, I will walk north until I am fully submersed in Lake Erie and see if there’s any truth to the rumors of lake monsters. They can have their merry way with me! Take me away, boys!
“Can I,” Will says, as he waves an awkward goodbye to a now-grinning Mere without making eye contact with her, then starts to follow Casey through the gathering crowd of the party, “grab a drink, maybe? I think I might really need a drink.”
“You can get one where we’re going,” Casey says.
As they pass it, Will looks wistfully at the bartender’s table he himself, six hours before, stocked with his own favorite brands of alcohol; he considers ducking over while Casey isn’t paying attention and at least grabbing a beer.
But Casey must sense it; he looks over his shoulder at Will, and snorts, and then reaches over and grabs Will’s wrist like it’s nothing, like he doesn’t even think about it.
“Come on . After the two weeks we’ve had, I think we can do a little better than one of Jared Eckles’ mixed drinks. ”
Casey’s hand is warm around his wrist, the meat of his palm flush against the suddenly rushing estuaries of Will’s veins, his fingers flexing a little with every step; Will can’t think about that.
If he does, he’ll stop talking, and stop moving, and just stand here like stone, transfixed.
If nothing else, Casey would be bound to notice that. So…
“You said Jared was a good bartender!” Will protests, outraged. He does so in a hiss, so that Jared won’t overhear them and be offended. “This morning! I said we needed a good bartender, and you said Jared was a good bartender?—”
“You said you needed a bartender, and I said Jared was a bartender,” Casey corrects, slanting a grin over his shoulder.
“Which he is! He’s a fine and affordable bartender, who will get you serviceably drunk on cocktails that taste fine at the beginning of the night, and then progressively less good as he, himself, gets drunker.
” At Will’s little squawk of outrage, Casey adds, in relenting tones, “He’s also the only game in town, unless you want to hire in one of those companies from Akron to send somebody down.
And he’s fine, really; nobody here will mind or be surprised by any of Jared’s drinks.
I just…think we might be able to do a little better, that’s all. ”
God, he still hasn’t let go of Will’s wrist, is pulling him through the crowd now.
Somewhere, somebody’s started playing some music over the speakers—Noel, probably, since the music is decidedly teenage for about twenty seconds before the track is abruptly switched to something more upbeat, and involving fewer swear words—and as they walk, people around them begin to dance.
Some are just bobbing loosely to the music, but others are pairing off, laughing and swinging one another around, happy in that way music and a warm night and good company can bring out in people.
It’s so simple, and yet to Will always feels so monumental, so important.
Maybe it’s because he grew up without much of it, and struggles now both to find it and to be part of it when he does track it down, the way an animal raised in captivity can forget the basic instincts it was born with.
Perhaps it’s because it does feel like a basic instinct human beings are born with, some intrinsic part of the experience for as long as people have been people: the urge to gather, and dance, and laugh, relish the simple joy of being with others.
God, I’ve been lonely for a long time , Will thinks, and then, out loud, says, “You know, I think I need that drink quite badly now.”
“Is Noah Anderson’s dancing really so disturbing to you?” Casey asks, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“No, it’s not that—” Will starts to say, but then he follows Casey’s leading gaze to the owner of Anderson’s Bike Shop, who is doing something that is clearly an attempt at the Worm, but might, generously, be called the Unfortunate Piece of String.
He corrects himself: “Uh, sorry, it is actually that. What?—?”
“He does it at every party,” Casey says, in as low a voice as he can while still being audible, with an amused little shrug.
“Thinks he’s killing it. Nobody has the heart to tell him—ah, here we are.
” He drops Will’s wrist at last, and Will looks up in surprise at the large pile of wood they had thrown together this afternoon, sitting ready to be set ablaze.
Will eyes it dubiously. “You put a bar in there while I wasn’t paying attention?”