41. Will
41
Will
“ S he’s in shock.” I wave a hand in front of Alice’s face.
“She’s going to have to sign an NDA,” Zoe says, her hands on the hips of her power suit.
“Why did you follow me again?” I gripe, peering back at my friend inside this copy room closet with me and a still-seated, still-silent Alice. Why didn’t I take her to my office? There’s bottled water in my office. Why was this abandoned storage closet my go-to?
“You were pushing Alice down the hall as if she were in a wheelchair. I could see you from my office. I came for backup.”
“Well, go away.” I crouch in front of Alice. “Sweetie? Can you talk to me?”
“Will, are you planning on coming clean with the world?”
“No,” I balk. I don’t have time for this. Alice knows. Does she hate me? Will she leave? What is she going to do?
“Then she needs to sign something. You know that.”
“Zoe,” I growl. “Out.” She isn’t wrong. I’m not telling my secret to the world, so Alice will have to sign something. It’s just standard practice in my life. But I can’t talk about that now.
Zoe throws up her hands as if she’s washing herself clean of my mess. I can’t say that I blame her. I’ve got myself into quite the predicament.
I wait until she’s left this oversized closet to talk to Alice again. I face her in her chair, kneeling in front of her. “Hey.” I peck her lips. “Are you okay?”
She blinks like I’ve woken her. “You’re Billy.”
I swallow and nod. “I am.”
Her eyes swim behind unshed tears. I’ve kept something from her. My secrets are making her cry. I?—
Alice shakes her head, and my thoughts pause, waiting.
“I think I knew,” she manages to say. “I knew, but I didn’t. I?—”
“Alice, are you okay?”
“Me? You lost your parents. You bought that circus to remember them. You do have trust issues. You’ve hidden who you really are and you’ve—” She hiccups, and tears spring from each of her eyes and slip down her rosy cheeks. “You’ve been alone all this time.”
My throat aches. I hold her face in my hand and wipe away one of her tears with the pad of my thumb. “Not alone.”
“No one knows you, Will. You have no family, no real friends?—”
Dang . No one can accuse her of sugarcoating.
“You are alone.”
“Do you hate me?” I shouldn’t ask. I shouldn’t put the idea in her head. But I have to know.
Her brows furrow, thinking. “Should I?”
If I owe her anything, it’s honesty. Honesty—now. My vision blurs as I hold her face in my hand and she wraps her hand around mine. “Maybe,” I say.
Another tear slips from her sweet blue eyes.
“But I pray that you won’t. My hope is that you will be who you’ve always been—a woman unmatched by anyone else I know. Someone who might find it in her huge heart of kindness and compassion to forgive me. Like your grandma said, with compassion we grow stronger.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket just as Alice’s pings in her lap. I blink away from her face with another ping.
Her eyes drop to her cell. “It’s the marketing group thread.”
I’m waiting for her answer, waiting for her to tell me she’s leaving and never returning. But Alice picks up her phone.
“Mason wants to know if we’re okay. And Theo would like to know if we’re finished for the day.”
“Alice, I just need to know what you’re thinking. What can I do? I know I’ve screwed up.” My voice cracks. “But I don’t want to lose you.”
Another buzz from our phones. I groan but pull mine from my back pocket.
I see Mason’s and Theo’s text. And a new one from Mason.
Mason: Were we supposed to follow you?
A new one pops up from Mateo before I think about responding.
Mateo: Follow? Is this a Billy object lesson? Is Alice the only one passing?
“I think I’m going to go home.”
“Home, as in Idaho?—”
“Home as in Echo Ridge.” She stands—not even wobbly—and I stand with her. “I need to think,” she says.
I nod, but the word think makes me nervous. “Sure,” I force myself to say. “That makes sense. Can I bring Chinese by after I’m done here?” For the first time in months, I fear she’ll tell me no.
“Sure,” she says, the word slow and tepid, like she’s ill. Like I’ve made her ill. My stomach rolls with the thought. “We can talk.”
I’m not sure I like the sound of that either. Talk might be the scariest word in the English language.
“Alice,” I say before she can reach for the closet door. “I—I love you.”
Her hand cups my cheek and she gives me the smallest and saddest of smiles. “I know.”