9. This Halloween Is Mine
Chapter Nine
THIS HALLOWEEN IS MINE
William and I take things slowly, but it’s not because William hesitates. He doesn’t.
And certainly not because I’m unsure whether I’m attracted to him. I am very sure I am.
The difference is that by the time we finally date, William already knows me. We spent most of the year becoming friends. He has seen me furious, exhausted, laughing, lonely, and covered in tomato juice after one of his garden deliveries split in my kitchen.
I know he drinks his coffee black, hates mayonnaise, calls his older sister every Sunday, and secretly watches home-renovation competitions while acting like he doesn’t understand why anybody finds them entertaining.
We aren’t strangers rushing toward something because I’m newly single. We’re two people who waited until we didn’t have to hide from anything.
Our first real date is the night after my divorce. William drives me to a small Italian restaurant forty minutes away because I once commented that Maple Oaks’s idea of fine dining is adding parsley to chicken-fried steak.
He chooses the restaurant, checks the hours, and makes the reservation. He tells me what time he’ll pick me up, and I nearly fall in love with him over logistics.
The kiss afterward helps.
We’re standing outside my front door when he touches my cheek. “Can I kiss you?”
I smile. “You waited eight months to ask that?”
“I waited eight months to ask you to dinner.”
“That’s true.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
William kisses the way he speaks, with no wasted movement and no performance. One hand rests at my waist, the other against my jaw, and the kiss deepens slowly until I’m a little bit dizzy.
When he pulls back, he says, “I’ve wanted to do that since the hardware store.”
“That long?”
“Before that.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You were married.”
By late October, we’ve been officially dating for almost two months, but the relationship feels deeper because the friendship came first.
He surprises me with a drive to an apple orchard one Saturday because I mentioned going there as a child.
He keeps a phone charger at my house only after asking. I laugh so hard when he asks that he thinks I’m making fun of him.
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“You said I could leave one.”
“You can.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“Long story.”
He remembers his own appointments, buys his own mother’s birthday gift, and plans things without asking me to finish them. When I tell him I’m tired, he doesn’t interpret that as a cue to give me three more tasks.
I begin to understand how much energy I spent anticipating Justin, and William requires almost none of that. He doesn’t need managing. He wants company.
The town is holding another Halloween event this year, although nobody is entrusting Justin with the venue. The downtown merchants are hosting a street festival with food trucks, a costume contest, local vendors, and a haunted house benefiting the high school band, and I’m helping organize it.
I’m being paid for my work, and that still gives me a small thrill.
After the community-center disaster, Carrie Milton asked whether I’d coordinate logistics for the bank’s holiday charity drive.
I almost said no automatically. Then she said, “What’s your hourly rate?”
I invented one on the spot, and she paid it.
Since then, I’ve taken on a handful of small events outside my insurance job. Nothing huge. Just enough to prove the skills everyone treated as Brooke-being-helpful have actual value.
Friday night, the evening before the festival, William cooks dinner at his house. His kitchen is smaller than mine but better organized, and not because some woman organized it.
I’m sitting at the counter drinking iced tea while he pulls roasted chicken from the oven.
“You’re staring,” he says.
“I like watching you cook.”
“Why?”
“I’m attracted to competence.”
“That’s romantic.”
“It is to me.”
He sets the roasting pan down and arches a brow playfully. “Tomorrow’s schedule is on the refrigerator.”
Indeed, a printed copy is secured beneath a magnet shaped like a trout.
“You printed your own schedule?”
He frowns. “How else am I supposed to remember where you need me?”
I press one hand to my chest. “Keep talking.”
“You’re making fun of your ex-husband again,” he says.
“I’m flirting with you.”
“Okay then.” He comes around the counter and stands between my knees.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Testing the flirting.” His hands settle on my thighs, and heat spreads beneath them.
We’ve stopped here before. Kissing, touching, wanting. I haven’t been afraid exactly. I simply needed my body to catch up with the rest of me.
For thirteen years, sex belonged inside my marriage. Then my marriage ended behind my back before it ended in court.
I don’t want this next step to be any sort of revenge, or proof of my attractiveness, or an attempt to erase Julia. I want it to belong entirely to me.
William kisses me. His mouth is warm and slow at first, and when I curl my fingers into his shirt, he deepens the kiss. When his hands slide higher along my thighs, he pauses.
I know what he’s doing. Waiting for me.
I wrap one leg around his hip, and his breath changes.
“Brooke.”
“Don’t.”
He lifts his head. “Don’t what?”
“Stop.”
His eyes search mine. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” There’s no hesitation in my answer.
His expression grows hotter. Desire has always been there between us, but now the restraint holding it in place loosens.
He kisses me again, harder. I slide my arms around his neck and pull him closer. His hand moves into my hair, and a soft sound escapes me.
He breaks the kiss just enough to ask, “Still sure?”
I laugh breathlessly. “You’re going to irritate me into changing my mind.”
“That would be counterproductive.”
“William.”
He looks into my eyes. “Yes?”
“Kiss me.”
He does.
When he lifts me from the stool, I laugh against his mouth.
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you carrying me?”
He starts toward the hallway. “Competence.”
“Show-off.”
In the bedroom, he sets me on my feet, and our laughter fades.
His hand touches my cheek. “Tell me if you need me to slow down.”
“I will.”
He kisses my throat as his hands slide beneath my sweater, warm across my skin. I tug his shirt upward, and William helps me pull it over his head.
For a second, I only look. His chest is strong and broad. He has a body that isn’t trying to impress anyone and does anyway.
“What?” he asks.
“I’m appreciating.”
“Take your time, then.”
I trail my fingers over his chest, and his stomach tightens. That small involuntary reaction sends a rush of heat through me.
“Brooke.”
“Hmm?”
“Take slightly less time.”
I laugh as he pulls my sweater over my head. The humor in his expression disappears when he sees my bra. There’s nothing theatrical about the way he looks at me. There’s only pure desire, unmistakable and fully focused on me.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
My throat tightens unexpectedly. “Don’t make me cry.”
“That would be a disappointing turn.”
“Kiss me instead.”
His mouth finds mine, then slowly trails to my neck. His fingers work the clasp of my bra, and I help him. When it falls away, he inhales. His hands cup me, and I arch toward him.
“More.”
He gives me more. He lowers me onto the bed, kissing his way down my body. His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my jeans, and he undresses me without hurry. His mouth traces my thigh, and my breath catches.
“William.”
He takes my hand, and that nearly undoes me before anything else happens. Then his mouth moves higher, and I stop thinking.
I grip his fingers, then the sheets, my whole body tightening beneath the patient attention of a man who seems far more interested in what I feel than in how impressive he can be.
When I tell him what I like, he listens. When I move against him, he adjusts. When pleasure rolls through me, I say his name loudly enough that I’m grateful his nearest neighbor lives half an acre away.
William kisses my stomach afterward. “Okay?”
I laugh shakily. “That’s an insulting question.”
He smiles, and I find that a smug William Sawyer is unexpectedly appealing.
When I catch my breath, I sit up. “My turn.”
His smile disappears when I touch him through his pants. His breath stutters, and I enjoy that enormously.
“Brooke.”
“Still arrogant?”
“Less.”
We laugh, kiss, undress the rest of the way. Eventually William reaches into the nightstand for a condom, and the sight of it makes me smile.
“What?” he asks.
“You’re prepared.”
“I’ve been optimistic for several weeks.”
“Not presumptuous?”
“Never.”
“That’s the most William answer possible.”
When he moves over me, the joking fades. He kisses me before entering slowly, and I close my eyes. I’m here. I chose this.
He moves slowly at first, then deeper when I tell him I’m ready. I wrap my legs around him, and the sensation of being wanted without being used overwhelms me more than I expected.
His mouth at my neck. His hand sliding between us. The way he watches my face.
I don’t have to perform. I don’t have to take care of him emotionally while he touches me physically. I only have to feel.
When I come again, I cling to him. He follows soon after, my name rough against my ear.
For a while, we stay tangled together, then he kisses the tip of my nose. He disappears into the bathroom and returns a moment later with a warm washcloth. He cleans me gently, then goes away again. When he comes back, he has two glasses of water.
“Thank you.”
“Hungry?” he asks.
“There’s chicken.”
“There may have been chicken.”
My eyes narrow. “You burned dinner?”
“You distracted the cook.”
“You carried me away.”
“Shared responsibility.” He pulls on sweatpants. “I can make grilled cheese.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting in his bed wearing his T-shirt and eating a grilled-cheese sandwich he cooked while I did nothing. No dishes, no asking whether he remembered to put the chicken away, no automatic shift into caretaker mode because intimacy ended.
He takes care of me after taking care of me, and it takes some getting used to, but I let him.