Chapter 10 – Willa
TEN
WILLA
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” I ask, biting my lip as I stare at the UTV now parked outside my new place. Nat’s in the back, a twelve-pack of toilet paper beside her, and Hallie’s in the driver’s seat. Once again, she pats the seat next to her, where I guess I’m supposed to be.
“No.”
My eyes go wide, and panic is written all over my face. When Hallie sees it, she lets out a bark of a laugh. “It’s a great idea. Come on, Willa. It’s basically an American tradition.”
“Wasting toilet paper by throwing it all over people’s houses?”
“Yes. And right now, Leo is at my place with Jesse, so we have time to get the job done.”
The premise is simple, something I’ve seen in movies a million times but never realized people actually did.
Once I was grudgingly on board, Hallie went over to the main house on the Three Kings property to get a dozen toilet paper rolls, since, according to Hallie, Mrs. King hoards them.
Nat stayed with me so I wouldn’t chicken out.
She returned quickly and handed them over before juggling keys to a UTV she stole from her fiancé.
According to her, Leo got wrangled into poker night, so we had some time.
“He doesn’t get to tell you what to do, Willa. You’re here to have fun, and he’s just going to have to deal with it,” Hallie says, and I stared at her for a moment, running through my options. But after a moment, I realized she was right: who the hell was Leo Sinclaire to tell me what to do?
I nodded, then slid onto the seat beside her.
She squealed with excitement, and Nat clapped, hooting once when we took off.
Hallie drove us through the woods, a half mile to the east, until we got to Leo’s place.
Now we just need to deck out Leo’s place with the toilet paper and leave before he gets back.
According to Hallie, we’ll be in and out before Leo gets home, much less before he’s able to realize who actually did it.
I sigh, knowing there’s no talking her out of this. “So, how do I do this?” I ask, holding the toilet paper roll she handed me. From the corner of my eye, Nat is already at work, wrapping the fence in white streaks that glow in the dim moonlight.
“So you grab this end,” Hallie instructs, taking her own toilet paper roll and grabbing the loose end.
“Hold it tight, and then chuck the roll up.” She does as she instructs, and I watch the roll rise, loop over a tree branch, and come back down, leaving a long strand of toilet paper in its wake.
She grins mischievously, then repeats it on another branch.
“Keep going until we’re all out.” We both stare as it sways in the gentle breeze, and I try to fight back the childish excitement bubbling up, tempered by a healthy dose of skepticism and common sense.
“What happens when he comes home?” She shrugs as if it’s no big deal.
“He’ll probably call Madden or Jesse.”
“And they’ll…?” I ask.
“Play dumb. Tonight, Jesse will probably interrogate me to figure out if it was us. I’ve got a good poker face, but not with him,” Hallie says with a grim face that doesn't look nearly as fearful as I think it should.
“What she means is Jesse will tease her and practice orgasm withholding until she confesses,” Nat says from a few feet away, tossing her own roll up and over the porch of Leo’s house.
“What?” I ask, eyes wide. Hallie just beams in my direction, bright and happy and full of mischief.
“Can’t lie, Will, this is kind of a double-duty task for me. You get to be bad, and I get to be bad.”
I continue to stare at her, baffled, but clearly, Nat is not as shocked as I am.
“Please take notes; I’m dying to know all the dirty details,” Nat says. “You never tell me anything anymore.” She’s nearly pouting, and Hallie rolls her eyes dramatically before throwing the roll of toilet paper again.
“I can’t share when Wren’s around. We made a pact.”
“You guys…share?” I ask, somehow even more confused and shocked. But Nat shakes her head.
“We trade sex stories. Got any good ones?”
I think back on my lackluster experiences with random celebrities and one-night stands.
About four years ago, I decided it wasn’t worth it: I had much more fun with a vibrator than I ever had with a man.
I have to admit, I thought that, just like soulmates and toilet papering houses, amazing sex lives and girlfriends trading stories were some kind of myth, a fake pastime movies and shows made up.
But that suddenly feels unbearably embarrassing, so instead, I move on with the task at hand, choosing the lesser of two evils.
“Aren’t we on a time crunch?” Grabbing the edge of the roll, I toss it up. The roll moves to the roof and then pauses for a moment.
“Jesus, Willa, you’ve got a freaking arm on you,” Hallie says with a laugh.
“I take Pilates classes five times a week and strength train twice a week,” I say offhandedly.
“Well, if the music thing ever stops working for you, consider a career in softball.” We watch as the roll slowly moves again, rolling back down and leaving a long line of toilet paper. When it falls back to the ground, I can’t say I don’t feel a bit of a thrill at the way it looks.
It’s going to be a huge mess for Leo to clean up, but it’s the least he deserves. I mean, if he’s going to accuse me of being trouble, I might as well live up to the accusation.
I’m giggling as I pick up the roll and throw it again, and then again, and again, until the house and surrounding property are absolutely covered in the stuff.
“Shit,” Hallie says as I finish my last roll. Everything is covered in thin strands of white paper, and I keep giggling to myself as I look around.
I can’t even begin to remember the last time I had so much fun.
“Shit?” I ask, turning toward where she is, but I don’t need her to explain, not when I can see pinpricks of light in the distance, quickly getting larger. I’m frozen for a moment before I realize a pair of headlights is approaching, moving up the driveway toward us.
“Go, go, go!” Hallie says loudly, waving her hand toward the UTV at the edge of the woods, and it feels like some kind of military drama. My heart drops and my pulse races as I realize what’s happening: Leo is back, and he’s about to catch us in the act.
I bend, scooping up the trash of empty toilet paper rolls, but Hallie shakes her head and starts running. “No! Leave them! Go!”
I don’t question her, not as the light begins to move up and over the driveway, illuminating my legs.
“Ahh!” I shout as if it’s a sci-fi movie, with the light a laser.
That’s when I start running in earnest. Nat is a few feet ahead of me, and I’m moving quickly and closing in on her when I drop my phone.
“No!” I shout, moving back to grab it.
“Willa!” Nat yells, pausing to look back at me.
“Go on without me!” I yell dramatically. If my pulse weren’t pounding a million miles a minute, I might laugh at how bananas this is. But instead, I wave towards her. “I’ll catch up!” She nods, then turns back towards the woods, sprinting towards the UTV.
“Hallie! Start her up!” Nat yells.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Leo calls from a distance, keys jangling as he jogs toward us.
I reach for my phone and start back toward where Hallie is sliding into the UTV seat and starting the engine, Nat just a few feet away from freedom. I start moving again, forcing my legs to pump harder, to go as fast as I can, but suddenly, I’m not moving.
Suddenly, the distance between the UTV and me is no longer lessening because a hand has grabbed my wrist, and I’m being pulled backward, into a brick wall.
No, not a brick wall.
A chest. A hard chest. A heaving chest. My hand slams into it as I stumble a bit, and on instinct, my head tips back. I meet Leo’s eyes, and my breath catches in my lungs.
I’m tall.
Not crazy tall, not six feet or even five-ten.
Just five eight, but considering women in Hollywood tend to be cute and petite, considering the average height is much shorter, it’s rare that I have to tip my head back to look at someone.
I remember that on my second fake date, the guy had to wear lifts to be taller than me in my heels for red carpet appearances.
But in this moment, I find myself thinking I wouldn’t have that issue with Leo.
No, it wouldn’t be a problem, because Leo towers over me, and I fight the urge to ask him how tall he is. I bet I could wear six-inch heels and still not be taller than him.
It’s not something I should be focusing on, especially not with the adrenaline coursing through me or the angry look on his face, but it’s all I can think of. That, and the way his chest is hard and warm beneath my hand.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he rumbles.
I stare at him, shocked into silence as I take in his face.
It’s confused and angry and so fucking handsome that I can’t focus.
His arm burns a line along my lower back, and my lungs are panting, though I don’t know if it’s from the way he’s looking at me or the run or the adrenaline coursing through me,
When I don’t respond, he repeats his question. “What are you doing here, Willa?”
“Having fun,” I say, the words coming out as an almost-whisper, and even in the dim moonlight, I see his eyes widen in shock and disbelief.
“I told you to stay out of trouble,” he says.
That familiar irritation rolls through me, and I speak without thinking.
“You can't tell me what to do.”
His face changes again, and part of me says to run. He’s not holding me tight, and it wouldn’t be too hard to slip out of his hold and book it towards Hallie and Nat. I tell myself that I’m not so Hallie and Nat can get away, but I don’t even know if I’m buying that right now.
“Well, someone has to.”
My heart rate speeds up, my gaze dropping to his full lips without my mind’s permission.
“And you think you’re the man for the job?”
He seems to be just as shocked as I am, but it doesn’t last long before he volleys back at me. I fight a smile. This…this is what it felt like in that coffee shop all those years ago, the ease of it, the humor, the banter. This is why I was so torn up when he didn’t even notice me.
“I can’t think of anyone else better for the job,” he says, his voice low, and my pulse starts to pound in a way that has nothing to do with the adrenaline coursing through me from our sprint.
His eyes are burning in a way I’ve never seen directed at me, and my breathing goes shallow.
His veiled threat settles low in my belly, churning up ideas that I thought I’d long, long buried.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I murmur.
“You’re such a brat.” He smiles when he says it, like he thinks he’s winning this battle, like he thinks he’s caught me off my guard.
“What are you going to do about it, Leo?” My words are loaded with innuendo, and when his eyes widen and his lips part, I’m pretty sure each one landed.
We stand like that for a moment, both of us stunned into silence, and he shakes his head.
His eyes drop, moving from my eyes to my lips, then down my body, scanning and assessing, before coming right back up. Each inch he covers, my pulse pounds harder. It feels like some Wild West showdown, and I don’t know whether I want to win or lose.
“GET ON!” a voice calls, snapping me back to the here and now, and I whip my head to the side to see Hallie and Nat coming our way on the UTV.
She stops, reaches over, grabs my wrist, and tugs until I’m sliding my ass onto the seat as she hits the gas and we’re moving.
“Later, Leo!” she says with a laugh. Looking over my shoulder, I catch Leo watching us drive off, the same shocked and confused look on his face as before, but there’s no irritation there anymore. Instead, just a hint of amusement.
“What the hell was that?!” Hallie yells, a wide, excited smile on her lips as she drives through the woods, Nat laughing as we go. “With Leo?”
“I….” I say, still dazed now that the high of battling with him has worn off, confusion taking its place. “I have no idea.”
“Told you,” Nat says with a laugh. “I’ll make sure to get the popcorn ready.
” This time, I don’t ask what she means.
Instead, I play the look he gave me over and over in my mind, dissecting it, trying to find excuses and meanings that fit my previous understandings and experiences, and somehow missing a piece.
That night, I don’t go to bed at my normal early hour.
That night, I throw my entire routine out of whack, and I stay up late, basking in the glory of getting one over on Leo, of a night of chaos with my friends.
But most importantly, I stay up late, eagerly writing down lyrics and lines, snippets of a new song.
It comes easily, as if my muse has returned with a vengeance, and when I finally pull my exhausted body into bed, I think that moving to Holly Ridge just might have been the best first choice I’ve ever made.