Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
That evening, I don my athleisure and start up my Strava app to track mileage before departing my house on a solo bike ride. My laptop and Wi-Fi hot spot are in my backpack with a frosty bottle of San Pellegrino, a few fashion magazines, and a very large, very old monogrammed towel that debuted at my third birthday party.
I catch the Johnson Creek Greenbelt, cross the bridge at Red Bud Isle, then tool back over the river and along the trail that runs beside Barton Creek. The air smells like warm molasses and smoky charcoal. The wind dries my sweat against my brow, stiffening my skin.
I zoom past Will at one of the creek bed outlooks where turtles sunbathe on the rocks. He’s standing a few feet behind a family with young children, but when I get close enough, Will’s eyes switch from the turtles to me.
He looks unsurprised, even pleased to see me, like he’d been expecting me to come find him somewhere along this route.
Will catches me less than forty seconds later, his pedaling evening out to match my pace. Our gazes lock, our breaths labored.
“Can I ride with you?” he asks with his voice. And with his eyes: You came to find me. You knew I would be here because you told me to be here.
“Sure,” I say with my voice. And with my eyes: If I didn’t want to be distracted, I wouldn’t have come, so I guess I want to be distracted.
We’re quiet after that, focusing on the speed, the pace, the greenbelt beneath our tires.
Ten miles later, I rest my bike in the grass, the view of downtown Austin snagging on the skyline beyond the river.
Will loops his leg over his bike and sets it beside mine, pulling his hands above his head. His skin is glistening with sweat. He’s in loose training shorts, an old T-shirt from NYU that pulls up to reveal his tanned, muscular stomach when he stretches. He unclips his helmet and tosses it, runs a hand through his damp brown hair. It sticks back like a wave frozen before the crash.
“That pace was no joke.”
I pull up my Strava app. “We were only going twenty miles per hour.”
“Only,” he repeats, smiling. His voice is husky, his breath still rough.
I take off my backpack and spread out the oversized towel, then collapse onto it, staring at the washed-out sky. It’s maybe seven o’clock. Only an hour and a half of daylight left.
“Sit down,” I offer.
Will sits on a corner of my towel, drawing his knees up to his chest, hooking his fingers around them. I loll my head in his direction, and he looks down at me. We stay like that for ten breaths. In, out, in, out.
I roll onto my belly and pull my magazines and seltzer out of my backpack. Will takes a long drag of water from his aluminum bottle. We maintain normalcy for another two minutes as our heartbeats drop to resting rates. I glance at him every twenty seconds. His eyes never leave my face. But I go about my business, intent on proceeding with my evening.
“Would you consider this free time?” Will asks cheekily.
“If you weren’t here, I’d already be watching CEO classes by now.”
“So I’m distracting you,” he concludes, “from the important stuff.”
I grab a magazine and open it but glance at him over the top. “It was nice of you to stay,” I say. “Maybe I don’t want you to be alone tonight since Camila asked you to stay in town this weekend. You must be on your own dime for your hotel for the next two nights.”
Will glances at the cityscape. “I wanted to stay. I like spending time here.”
“I’ve noticed. You talk like you love New York but need constant breaks from it.”
“I do love New York,” Will agrees. “And I do need constant breaks from it. The lifestyles are different, here and there.”
“What you mean is, instead of clubbing with hot girls in bodycon dresses while you drink dirty martinis on your Friday nights, you get to look at turtles, and then go on sweaty, dorky bike rides with me—a coworker —in the least exclusive location possible,” I joke.
“I think you’ve got bodycon covered, so nothing lost there.” He nods at my outfit, smirking. Bike shorts, an athletic tank, not much else. My ass is aimed straight up since I’m lying on my stomach. I blush, thinking of adjusting, but that would only draw his attention back to it. “But yes, to the rest of it.”
“Wait. Are you confirming you drink dirty martinis with hot girls in exclusive clubs when you’re in Manhattan?”
Will winces. “Not willingly.”
“Yes, what a chore.”
“Lately it feels like one.”
“So, it still happens with semi-regularity?” I’m intrigued beyond belief.
“There’s a lot of networking that goes on with my job,” Will explains. “Showboating, salesmanship, taking clients out on the town. I find it demanding and overwhelming and uncomfortable. I feel like I can breathe when I’m in Austin.”
“Are you sure that’s not a difference in air quality?”
“It’s at least fifty percent a difference in air quality,” Will allows.
“And the other fifty?”
“Stuff like this.” He jerks a thumb at our bikes, tangled up like old friends. “We just rode almost fifteen miles on the same greenway without being forced out onto a city block.”
“Amazing how much space there is when you’re not on an island,” I quip.
“I had,” Will goes on, “the best barbecue of my life today. And it was this new place, less than a year old. I’ve never seen it on any food media list, but it should be there, right at the top.”
I smile. “You really like barbecue.”
“I really like good barbecue. Good anything. Austin has good everything. ”
“You’re making me hungry.”
“There’s a food truck over there.” He points, and I follow his eyes to a taco truck across the field, the line fifteen people deep. “Do you want something? My treat.”
No more personal favors, I remind myself. It was the rule we established in my office, to curb this, and Will agreed.
“I mean, if you were already going,” I say. “But I’ll pay you back, of course.”
He dips his chin. “What kind of tacos do you like?”
“Get me whatever the most vegetarian thing they have is.”
His head cocks. “The most vegetarian?”
“Least meat forward?”
“So, you’re a vegetarian, but not a purist?”
“I guess so,” I say with a shrug.
He shakes his head, laughing beneath his breath as he stands. “Do you remember when you said you’re incredibly easy to read? That was untrue then, and it’s untrue now.”
“Are you saying I’m complicated because I’m semi-vegetarian?”
“Complicated is not the right word,” he says.
“Intricate?” I offer. “Convoluted?”
“Layered,” Will retorts.
My heart flares as he walks away.
I watch him cross the field for an embarrassing number of seconds, his body firm and sure and strong, before pulling out my laptop and connecting to my Wi-Fi hot spot. I click play on my latest CEO class and flip magazine pages while I listen.
Will returns twenty minutes later with cauliflower tacos for me, barbacoa for him. I pause the online class.
“No, keep watching,” he says. “I’m the one crashing your night. I want to listen.”
“You want to listen to a lecture on effective project management.”
“Dying to.” He takes a bite of his taco and honest-to-goodness winks at me.
I hit play, and we keep coexisting in silence. Will polishes off his dinner and I do the same. He sticks his feet out, crosses them, and then lies all the way back on the towel. We’re head to foot right now, two opposite charges neutralizing each other.
The class ends, and Will sits back up. I take a few notes on the app on my phone, answer some discussion questions online, and then look back at him.
It’s dark now, the sky tinted purplish black. The park has started to clear out. It’s one of the rare weekends where there’s no concert, no event here at all.
“You make sense here,” Will says, the blue in his eyes darkening to match the night. “In Austin, I mean. It fits you.”
“Thank you,” I say, perking up at this compliment. “I think so, too. Nashville was too… restrictive, I guess? I didn’t want to go back to the mold I’d made for myself during high school, with my family.”
“Have you ever been kayaking on the river?” he asks. “I saw a whole slew of people out there a couple weeks back.”
“No,” I say.
“That’s too bad.”
“Camila and I have matching paddleboards.”
Will grins. “That tracks.”
“Is it horrible of me to say I’m not sure you make sense in New York?”
Will shakes his head, his gaze flicking back to the cityscape, lights illuminating every building. “It’s not horrible of you to say. I definitely think I used to. When I was eighteen and I’d just started college at NYU, I loved Manhattan. It was the perfect escape from the family drama of the previous year. A totally new experience for me.”
I wait in silence, hoping he’ll go on. He does.
“Once Zoe moved up after she graduated, New York became our place. We were at that life stage where you’re finally in charge of everything and nothing’s gotten messed up yet. We’d always been close except for that one bad year, but New York is where Zoe and I became friends as adults. You know when you learn to not just love your sibling, but to like them, to respect them as a person you choose to be around?”
I shake my head. “I’ve never been close with my brother. But I love that for you two.”
Will’s eyes pity me. “I don’t know who I would become if I lost touch with my sister again. She’s one of the most grounding people I know.”
“Maybe you don’t want to leave Manhattan even though you might be ready to, because of that reason,” I suggest.
“That’s probably true,” Will says. “But I can also admit the things I want have changed.”
I cock my head. “What is it you want now?”
His eyes dart away from mine, and he wets his lips. “I don’t know. Not to waste my retirement fund in rent, and maybe to get a kitchen with a gas-top stove?”
“Shoot for the moon, why don’t you?”
Will smirks. “You make it look effortless. Having the lifestyle you want, pairing it with a job you love.”
“It’s not effortless,” I inform him. “It in fact requires every drop of my effort, and then some. The only reason I keep my head above water is because I’m basically a nun at this point.”
I flush red as soon as I say it, but Will looks intrigued. “You don’t date?” His voice is low, almost affronted.
“Never.”
“Not even casually?”
“Especially not casually. That’s the kind of dating that requires the most effort.”
Will laughs. Audibly. “That’s true.”
His leg knocks against my elbow. Neither of us pulls back. Neither of us utters out loud that this is sort of like a date.
“If I wasn’t here,” Will asks, “would you already be watching another CEO class by now?” He’s asking out of pure curiosity, not to chastise me.
“Yes,” I admit, hating myself for it. “I’m behind on the coursework.”
A moment of silence. “I’ll go now.”
“No.” I reach out and grab his leg, squeezing my eyes shut as my forehead rests on his knee. His breath catches in his throat.
It’s been so long since I’ve had this kind of company. Male company, easy company, the kind of company you could waste hours with.
I’m battling a war in my mind—push forward, get the work done so I can enjoy Garlic Fest tomorrow guilt free. Or lie here, talk to Will about nothing productive, nothing that bolsters the bottom line, and start my weekend.
Tentatively, almost shakily, his hand rests on my back, and he starts to rub. I feel the warmth of it everywhere. My muscles unclench, my spine straightens, my skin relaxes. I’m embarrassed and confused, so I keep my head tucked low.
“Play the next video,” he murmurs. “I’ll stay. We’ll watch it together.”
The issue, I think to myself, is we can do this for one night. Maybe Will even finds it endearing. But it doesn’t solve the problem in the long run. Because I can’t ask an actual romantic partner to fill the microscopic holes in my busy life forever.
I can’t ask that of Will Grant. I respect him too much to let this happen past tonight.
But I hit play anyway and let him rub my back like a lover would. And promise myself I’ll be productive in the morning.