Chapter 12 #5
It’s a good night, a golden night, a night that makes a painful, aching hope—the kind of hope, Will thinks, that really does kill you—throb like a fresh bruise in his chest. When, eventually, he and Casey walk home together, they are bathed both in the edge-softening moonlight and the hazy wash of yellowish lamp-glow from the motion-activated lights on the side of the market, forever triggered by bugs and so on most of the night.
Will thinks, for a second, when they reach the porch, that maybe Casey might lean closer, into Will’s space, and change the rules again, between them.
He pauses at the foot of the stairs, turning to face Will, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes as their gazes lock.
Then Casey’s falls, sliding down slowly over Will’s body, and his smile falls, too, into a headier, more intent expression.
It makes Will’s mouth go bone dry, the moisture seeming to migrate to his suddenly sweating palms. Casey steps forward, and for a single, blissful second, Will thinks he’s going to feel one of those long-fingered hands against his neck, sliding up the back of his shirt, and?—
“Night, Casey! Night, Will!” The voice is Todd’s, and slightly pointed, and hugely effective.
Casey steps back with the same calm efficiency he did three days ago when they’d encountered a swamp rattler in some brush they were clearing together, his face carefully blank.
Will, certain his own face is flaming red, glances over with at least as much venom as a swamp rattler to see Todd passing, affecting an expression of exaggerated innocence, with Noel, who’s looking highly amused.
“Good night,” he calls back through gritted teeth. Mortifyingly, he thinks he hears Noel snort as they walk off with Todd.
And, worse: “God save me from teenagers ,” Casey mutters, turning away and hurrying up the steps.
He’s not looking at Will; Will, amazed, wonders if he’s embarrassed .
If maybe those damn kids really had interrupted him, crashing into this moment he spent all night building.
It certainly seems that way when Casey adds, “They’re more trouble than they’re worth!
” and disappears into the house before Will can reply.
He’s retreated up to his bedroom by the time Will gets inside, and after some consideration, Will decides to leave it alone for tonight. If Casey wanted to talk, he wouldn’t have gone up to the attic, and Will can let it lie, for now.
The morning, he decides, is the moment for him to act.
Before all of his neuroses and doubts and unfortunate quirks of personality have completely woken up; before he can talk himself out of it.
He’ll just—he’ll—tell Casey everything, maybe, or perhaps just go for broke and pin him up against the kitchen counter—better yet, let Casey pin him against the kitchen counter…
Abruptly, Will finds himself standing in front of the door to Casey’s attic bedroom, gnawing on his lower lip as he stares at the polished wooden surface.
It’s slightly ajar, the door—it often is—but Will has never gone upstairs, or even knocked.
Casey, he’s noticed, has maintained a similar tacit boundary ever since the first night Will spent in the guest room, giving his private living space a wide berth.
He can’t speak to Casey’s reasons, but it had seemed to Will like a bridge too far, to ask for passage into a space that was entirely Casey’s own.
The house, the market, the farm: Will has a claim to all of that, if an awkward and uncomfortable one.
But the last time Will saw the attic it was just unfinished rafters, and loose insulation, and more spiders than he felt was compatible with his continued presence there.
Whatever’s up there now is Casey’s and only Casey’s, and even in his most irritated and self-righteous moments, Will’s felt honor-bound to respect that.
And… it’s not that he doesn’t feel bound by honor just now.
That’s not it at all. It’s that there’s a corner of him, not particularly impressive in size but quite doggedly stubborn, insisting that those teenagers did interrupt Casey in a delicate moment.
Insisting that he, Will, is standing in front of the bedroom door of the single most attractive human being with whom he has ever shared air , let alone houseroom, on the last night before his own excuse to stay here is swept away like the Glen River Bridge.
Insisting that if there’s even a chance , even a glimmer of possibility, that those damn kids really did cut Casey off seconds before he could lean in for a kiss, that Will would be wasting the opportunity of a lifetime to walk past, call it a night.
He tries, for a second, to walk past anyway.
But his feet won’t move; he’s every inch as rooted to the hardwood floor as the trees out in the orchard are to the earth, somehow both fixed in place and growing.
He takes a breath; another one. What could it hurt, really?
What harm could it do, at this point, to see what would happen if Will just reached within himself and found the courage to ask for what he wanted?
Will reaches within himself. He lifts a hand. He knocks.
There is a pause. Then, “One second,” Casey calls, in a voice Will can’t read at all. Surprised? Pleased? Panicked? It’s not enough data , those two words—three syllables—God, Casey’s making crashing noises up there like he’s knocked something over… wait, is he taking the steps two at a?—
“Hi,” Casey says, ripping the door open to reveal a small landing, a set of stairs ascending into the attic behind him.
He sounds slightly breathless, and for a moment he looks thunderstruck, as though the world has shifted underneath him.
Then, slowly, he starts to smile as he leans against the doorframe, affecting a casual pose.
God, hell , he must have been partway through changing for bed—he’s wearing a pair of loose pajama bottoms, which Will notes with distant amusement are printed with a pattern of little radishes…
and, as far as Will can tell, absolutely nothing else.
Raking a hand through his thick blond hair, his voice threaded with an invitation that thrills Will as much as it frightens him, Casey says, “Diiiiiidya want something?”
“Did I… want something.” It’s a question, technically, but Will doesn’t say it like one.
He’s forgotten how to ask questions, and maybe also how to produce saliva , if the sudden dryness of his mouth is anything to go by.
Casey’s shirtless body is more distracting than Will would have expected it to be by such a wide margin that it’s a little disquieting.
It’s just a torso , first of all, and Will has seen it before : in fleeting glimpses as Casey exited the bathroom after a shower, and in far less fleeting glimpses while Casey was just wearing a tank top.
And those tank tops are practically nothing!
Gossamer thin, some of them! No one alive, surely, is more aware of this fact than Will!
But somehow none of that has allowed Will the chance to really…
take it in, to catalogue this part of Casey the way he’s catalogued everything else.
It shouldn’t be surprising. This is the torso that makes sense for someone who throws around sacks of feed as though they’re full of feathers—no beefed-up vanity muscles, just a solid wall of strength—but being so close to it short-circuits the bulk of Will’s brain.
Actually, maybe it’s more accurate to say that it reroutes most of the energy in his brain… somewhere south.
The little part of Will remaining up top to run the ship thinks, You’ve been quiet too long – words, William!
Surely you’ve heard one or two in your life!
It’s not particularly helpful in terms of pulling any up , but his mouth opens anyway: “I, um. I just wanted…” Helplessly, his eyes flick from Casey’s warm, open, inviting face to his chest, which also looks, to Will, warm, open and inviting. “Sorry, uh. I mean, I want…”
All at once Will realizes this is humiliating , that he is making a fool of himself standing here babbling, all but drooling , like he’s…
he’s… one of the stupid gawking townspeople who talk about Casey like he’s a piece of meat!
Like he’s Noah Anderson ! It’s shameful, is what it is, and Will should be ashamed of himself.
He should have to do the Unfortunate Piece of String as a punishment.
But when he drags his eyes, with some force, back up to Casey’s face, there’s a smile on it that Will’s never seen before. It’s a good smile: one that has a lot of delightful things to say, very few of which would be repeatable in company.
“Jesus, I’m… sorry,” Will stammers, scrabbling to hold onto wh at he’s supposed to be saying in the face of that promising expression.
“I don’t—I’m. I probably should’ve thought through what I wanted to say before I got up here, huh?
But I didn’t, so.” His gaze drifts down again for a moment; he wrenches it back up.
“Now I’m struggling with the, uh. Talking? ”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. There’s some problems you don’t solve with talking.” Casey starts shifting his weight, leaning off the doorframe and towards Will, one arm snaking out. “Anyway, I figure I know what you want.”