Wrapped Up in You - Talia Hibbert Page 0,21

trying to seriously date you.”

“We live completely different lives” was her next line, reeled out with something like desperation. “You’re a celebrity. I’m an office manager, and I like it. You live in LA, which seems like a literal nightmare, by the way, and I live here—well, home, and again, I like it. We’re from different worlds.” Wasn’t that always what they said in films and tragic novels?

Will clearly wasn’t impressed, because he rolled his eyes. “We’re from Forest Fields, and I only left because I had a better chance at making money from my face than I did from my so-called brain.”

Abbie narrowed her eyes, distracted from her current turmoil. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. The fact you made such calculated career decisions and ruthlessly exploited your own strengths is using your brain.”

“I know,” he said softly. “You taught me that.”

She blinked at the tenderness in his voice and at the fact that—well, technically he was right. She did remember telling him something like that, when they were young. That using what you had to get what you wanted was the smartest thing a person could do. She couldn’t believe he still remembered that, or that he’d taken it to heart.

It really shouldn’t make her breath catch like this, the idea that he’d taken it to heart. But it did.

It also drained all the panicked, cornered-animal fight out of her, and once that was gone, all Abbie had left was harsh reality and the root of her issue.

She shouldn’t be this scared right now.

Shouldn’t feel this much panic, or this much hunger, because a man had shown interest in her. The stakes shouldn’t be this high, this soon, based on this little, and the fact that it was Will made things even worse. She’d started relationships before, and while you could argue she’d done them wrong, they had been easy. But this would not be remotely easy. This was already terrifying, and if easy had ended up a nightmare, where would terrifying take her?

“Will,” she said, her voice a ghost in the cold air. “I … I can’t do this.”

The words thudded between them like birds shot from the sky. He took a breath, and his eyes slid shut. When he exhaled, his hand slipped away from her face, and he straightened, and suddenly there was space between them. Not a lot. But enough that he was no longer all that she could see.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice cracked, for some reason, some terrible, embarrassing reason.

“It’s okay, Abbie,” he said quietly. For a moment, the expression on his face was enough to slice her heart into tiny pieces. Then he smiled, and that was even worse, because the smile was so fucking sad. “I’m sorry. I think I fluffed this up from start to finish, but—as long as we’re still friends?”

God. She very nearly almost collapsed to her knees. Somewhere in an alternate universe, some incredibly different version of herself was saying, “You will always be my friend, Will Reid, before you are anything else, because I have loved you for what feels like all my life, and when I loved you first, it was for the friendship you gave me.”

Abbie, unfortunately, wasn’t capable of saying shit like that. Fear of her own emotions tied her tongue and locked her jaw and made her flinch away, which was good and smart and safe—or at least it had always felt that way, until this very fucking moment.

“Of course,” she said, feeling as if she’d just ruined her own life somehow, sometime in the last five minutes. “Of course we’re still friends, Will.”

“Good,” he replied, and his smile was so beautiful and so honest, she could almost ignore the shadows in his eyes. “Alright then. We better hurry up with this shopping before we end up snowed in at a supermarket.”

She tried her best to laugh.

* * *

Will knew he’d royally fucked up somewhere down the line, because it was only 11:30 a.m. and he’d not only revealed his entire plan and been thoroughly rejected, he’d also made Abbie cry.

Well, not exactly. There had been no actual tears; Abbie didn’t do that. If she had, he might’ve called an ambulance. But outside, in the cold, when she’d said, “I can’t do this,” there’d been a ragged edge to her voice and a flash of sadness in her eyes that gutted him. No matter how little time they actually spent together, he knew this woman. He knew her well.