Will
Chapter Twenty-Five
Why the hell did everyone in this town want something from me all the goddamn time? I was only one man.
The customers wanted me running circles to meet their demands.
My parents wanted me to take care of Ava’s emotional well-being.
Ava wanted—hell, I couldn’t even begin to guess anymore what exactly she wanted from me.
And Theo? Apparently wanted me to play matchmaker between him and a girl I’d rather he stay far away from.
The pressure was weighing on me like never before. I wanted everything to just…stop.
The expectations. The errands. The absurd requests from people who wanted me to clear out their attic, or find them the number for animal control because they couldn’t see without their reading glasses anymore, or drop them off at a doctor appointment because they lived alone with no children, and after all, I’d always been like a son to them, anyway.
I looked around the café, finding it mostly dead save for a few regulars that I knew could fend for themselves if need be, and I threw open the door in desperate need of fresh-air.
I was running on the weirdest night’s sleep I’d ever had and a sense of restlessness coursing through me that I needed to dispel.
I started moving toward the town square, hoping that a few laps around it might ease some of the tension radiating off me. I pulled my baseball cap off, wringing it between my hands as if I could take out the stress I was feeling on an old Red Sox cap.
Somehow, it didn’t do shit for me.
I needed to take a break. Go somewhere far away, where no one could bother me or ask me for anything. I just needed peace and quiet and solitude. Mostly, I just needed to be alone—
“Elsie?” I heard myself say her name, only audible to my own ears, when I saw her across the square.
You could spot her from a mile away. What with the hair and everything, she didn’t exactly blend in.
“Elsie,” I said again, louder this time.
My feet were already moving toward her before my brain could keep up.
She paused, hearing her name and turned in my direction. In her arms she carried two big bags that looked humorous against her small frame.
“Will?” She squinted, giving me the once over as I approached her.
“What are you—” I started to ask, but she startled me by making a loud noise of surprise.
“Gasp!” she said, eyes widening. “The baseball cap isn’t glued backward on your head?”
I rolled my eyes, something I found myself doing a lot in her presence.
“Sorry.” She laughed. “I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it. Who knew you were hiding a full head of hair under that hat?”
I ran a hand through it self-consciously before tugging the hat firmly back into place.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, because for some reason whenever I saw the girl, I wanted to talk to her. Even though I hated talking. And hearing people talk. But with her, all my prior tendencies were thrown out the window.
It was unnerving meeting this version of myself I hadn’t ever encountered before. It threw me off balance in a way that didn’t feel comfortable.
But before I opened my mouth, she beat me to it.
“I can’t be seen talking to you in public like this,” she said, looking over her shoulder like a woman being hunted.
Why the hell not? Was my first instinctive thought.
Because for some reason, my brain only felt calm and quiet lately when I was around her, as if her noise drowned out the rest of the world in a way I was entirely okay with.
“Don’t tell me Ava already got to you,” I said, hoping I didn’t look as pissed off as I felt.
“What? No.” She furrowed my brows. “The good people of Colbridge, however, had a lot of opinions about our friendship. So, I’d rather not add fuel to the fire.”
“Like what?”
“Like, we’re apparently dating.”
“What?”
“Oh, yeah. And that us falling asleep at the café last night was the grand finale of an utterly romantic night, worthy of a John Hughes credit.”
“John Hughes movies aren’t romantic, but I get your point.”
“What? They totally are.”
“Not a single one of them is,” I argued.
“How would you know?” She scoffed. “Apparently, you don’t even date.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“Because the women in the grocery store told me. After they accused me of dating you.”
“Unbelievable,” I muttered, momentarily hating this town and everyone in it.
“Care to tell me why every woman aged eighteen to seventy is so interested in your romantic life, William?” She stared at me expectantly.
“Because this town is crazy,” I said, tapping a finger against my head. “They have nothing else going on in their lives and have to make shit up to pass the time.”
“Well, tell them to leave me out of it,” she said, as if it were that easy. “I can’t have any more women in this town out to get me.”
“No one’s out to get you,” I told her.
And if they were, I’d take care of it.
“They will be if they think I’m stealing you out from under them!” she exclaimed, shifting the weight of the bags in her arms.
“Here,” I said, reaching out to grab them. “And you can’t steal me out from anyone because I’m not with any of them.”
“Whatever.” She waved off the comment. “The point is, I don’t want to be involved in some weird town scandal, since apparently all you people do is stare out your windows and take note of other people’s coming and goings.”
I started to respond, but the sight of something in her bag made me pause. I looked down, examining its contents more closely.
“Elsie.”
“Will?”
“Why do you have cat litter?
“For my cat,” she answered simply.
“You don’t have a cat.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve been to your house.”
“Well, as of today, I have a cat.” She beamed. “He’s cute, too.”
“Are you telling me,” I started slowly, “you woke up at the café this morning in a panic, shoved everything in your bag to leave, and what—ran to the shelter to adopt a cat?”
“No,” she bit out. “The cat’s visiting.”
“Visiting?” I gaped at her. “From where?”
“Well, I don’t know, Will,” she said, as if I were an idiot. “When they develop the world’s first cat-to-human translator app, I’ll make sure that’s the first thing I’ll ask him.”
“Does the thing have its shots? Vaccinations? Does it have fleas? You can’t just bring a stray cat into your house, Elsie.”
“He’s fine.” She waved me off, reaching forward to take the bags back. “He’s too cute to have fleas.”
“Not how that works, but—”
“If you don’t mind, I’ve got to get going before I see some paparazzi shot of this encounter on the frontpage of the Colbridge Gazette tomorrow morning.”
“How are you going to carry all these—”
“Hey, Will,” Theo called from somewhere behind me, and I stiffened. “Oh, hey Elsie. Long time no see.”
“You people in Colbridge use expressions I only ever hear on old television shows.” She laughed.
He smiled, looking at her as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her, and I had the strangest urge to step in front of her before he had time to figure her out.
“Do you remember me? We met in the hardware store the other day,” he said, and for half a second, I hoped she’d tell him that nope, she had no recollection of their entirely unmemorable encounter.
But, being Elsie, overactive brain and all, she had no such gap in her memory.
“Theo, right?” She smiled. “Ava talked you up the whole rest of that shopping trip. Apparently, you’re quite the catch.”
What the hell? Was she flirting with him?
In front of me?
Why wouldn’t she be flirting with him in front of me? It wasn’t like anything was going on between the two of us.
“Oh, I’ll have to thank Ava for lying on my behalf.” He laughed easily, and I felt the strongest urge to put a stop to whatever the hell was happening in front of me.
“What are you doing here, Theo?” I bit out, unable to hide the disdain that slipped through.
He stared at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, because Theo was probably the closest friend I had, and yet I was contemplating the very real urge I had to punch him in the jaw.
“I just wanted to check on you. You kinda rushed out in a hurry, which isn’t like you, so—”
“Aw,” Elsie cooed. “What a good friend to come check on grumpy Will, even though he’s being so rude to you.”
“Am not,” I gritted out.
“Are too,” she said pointedly.
“It’s okay,” Theo said easily. “Will had a tough morning. He gets to be a little cranky if he wants.”
Elsie laughed, and I felt sick.
Why was she laughing because of some other man?
“Those look heavy.” He leaned forward, grabbing her bags. “Let me take those for you.”
“Thanks,” she said, stretching out her arms. “I underestimated how heavy cat litter was.”
“I’m surprised Will let you stand here all this time holding them yourself.”
I ground my teeth.
“Hey, do you need a ride back home?” he asked suddenly.
“Aren’t you working?” I glared at him.
“The café’s dead,” he said, “and I figured you’d let me leave a little early because of what we talked about earlier.” He widened his eyes and glanced subtly at Elsie.
Just to be a jackass, I wanted to pretend to have no idea what he was talking about. But Elsie opened her mouth—
“That would be so great, my arms feel like they’re about to fall off.”
“Great, my car’s just outside the café,” he said, already moving in that direction, as if he were afraid she might change her mind.
“Wow, I’m so lucky to have so many big, strong men in town willing to help a girl out.”
How can I stop this?
I couldn’t offer to drive her myself. Theo would be pissed. Ava would be pissed. And it was my café, after all, that I’d be leaving in someone else’s hands again.
It just didn’t make any sense.
No, there was nothing I could do but let it happen.
Theo loaded her bags into the back of his car and hurried to open the door for her before she had a chance to reach for it herself.
She looked at him in surprise, thanking him before climbing in.
“Thanks for letting me leave a little early, boss.” Theo winked before climbing into the driver’s side.
My chest tightened.
“Thanks for helping out today,” I responded flatly, watching him start the ignition.
“Bye, Will.” She waved from the passenger seat of another man’s car.
“Bye, Elsie.” I nodded back at her, wondering why it felt like some final farewell, despite the fact that I saw this woman nearly every day lately.
Theo pulled out of the parking spot, and like the sick masochist I was, I watched the car until it pulled down the street and turned the corner.
It’s just a ride home, I told myself.
But I knew what being stuck in a car with Elsie Cameron could do to a man, and I under no circumstances wanted Theo to suffer the same fate.