Discreet by Nicole French
11
Grabbing something to eat with Will turned out to be a little different than I imagined. We stopped at a diner on the way back to the lake for some breakfast sandwiches. But instead of waiting in line with me, Will took one look at the interior of Norm’s Burger Barn, turned on his heel, and went straight back to the truck.
“What are you doing?” I demanded as he slouched into the front seat. “Something wrong with this place?”
He pulled a wad of cash out of the glove compartment and thrust it at me. “I just don’t feel like waiting in line. Do you mind?”
I looked over my shoulder. “There are literally two other people in line to order, and one group of kids eating in the corner booth. It’s not exactly hopping in there.”
Will sighed. “Lily. I just don’t want to stay in there. You saw the place. The owners are weirdos.”
I frowned. The diner was decorated with a pretty standard mishmash of Hollywood paraphernalia and old car photos. Nothing to write home about. “Kate and Norman are super sweet,” I said. “I’ve known them since I was a kid. Come on, I promise they won’t be weird.”
But Will just stared at the steering wheel, sticking his lip out like a toddler.
“Are you for real? Will. You’re going to fry in here.”
His truck didn’t have air-conditioning, and he had refused to open his window while we drove. There was a bit of morning traffic circling the main road through Otis Orchards and Liberty Lake—the suburbanites making their way to the lakes for some Sunday fun. Will had glared at all of them.
He just set his jaw stubbornly. “Then you’ll have to hurry, won’t you?”
Seeing that I could either go without food or leave him in here to melt, I rolled my eyes and slid out of the car. Will clearly had major issues being around people, and this wasn’t the time to fight them. But seriously? Sitting in a car in eighty degrees instead of waiting five minutes for a breakfast sandwich? It was a little nuts.
“Be serious,” I tried again. “This is so dumb.”
Instead, I just received a green-eyed glare. “I told you I don’t like people, Lil.”
“But, Will—”
“‘Pine cone,’ Lily.”
I sighed. He had me there.
“All right, all right,” I said, pushing off the truck. “What do you want?”
“Any kind of egg sandwich will do. Nothing with meat, thanks.”
I nodded. “Coffee?”
Will shook his head. “I’ll wait until I’m home.”
“Okay.”
I went inside grumbling to myself, and walked directly up to the counter to order.
“Heya, sweetie,” Kate said from the till. “We heard you were back in town. We were wondering when you were going to pay us a visit.”
She and Norman had owned the place since I could remember, and had made a name on their huckleberry shakes and endless baskets of fries. But I happened to know they made a kickass fried egg sandwich.
“Two breakfast sandwiches, please,” I said. “Hi, Kate. How are you and Norm doing?”
“Good, good.” She rang me up and took the cash with a smile. “Ellie in the car?” she asked knowingly.
I sighed. I couldn’t count how many times I’d come in here on the way to school and bought breakfast while my mother nursed a nasty hangover in the car. Norm’s was also one of the few diners anywhere in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area that had a twenty-four-hour drive-through. They were well acquainted with Ellie Sharp’s late night munchies, as well as the assorted men who helped her satisfy them.
Kate didn’t wait for my answer, just chortled away with a knowing smile to Norm, who was working the grill.
I loitered to the side, waiting for the sandwiches while Kate helped another customer. I tried to see just what about the restaurant Will found so objectionable. Red vinyl booths, all of them clean. Black-and-white photos of old cars, movie stars, Hollywood posters. Most of them were old, but some were new, too. They even had a row of signed headshots on one wall—“famous” people who had come into the diner. Most of them were bit actors, local politicians, etc., but there was even a photo of Dolly Parton.
I checked out the movie posters—Kate usually changed them out every few years to keep the place current, but they were still a fairly even mix of the last fifty years or so. There were classics, of course: The Godfather, Titanic, Star Wars. And there were newer ones that I didn’t even recognize. It was funny—I didn’t think I’d been to a movie in close to ten years. I never went in New York, where tickets cost close to twenty dollars a pop. In college, I had just been too busy with school (not to mention too poor), and when I left and tried to make a go of it with music, all of my attention had gone into that. Not to mention the tips I made waitressing went to my overpriced apartment. I knew absolutely nothing about the film industry other than what popped up here and there in the supermarket aisle or the news.
“Hey, Kate,” I called out.
She moved down the counter. “Whatcha need, hon?”
“Have you seen any of these?” I asked, suddenly feeling the urge to stay in. Maybe binge a little on the pop culture I’d missed, ironically, trying to become a pop star.
“Oh yes, every one of ’em. I don’t buy the posters for movies I don’t see, y’know. And me and Norm, we’re regular movie buffs. We watch ’em all.” She sighed. “Now that one there was probably my favorite, a few years back. Did you ever see The Dwelling?”
“No,” I said with sudden interest. “I haven’t.”
I squinted at the poster, which was a picture of a blond man, so gaunt you could see the vertebrae sticking out of his back, curled on the ground in a messy apartment. He looked over his shoulder at the camera, a searing green-eyed expression that seemed strangely familiar.
“So good,” Kate sighed. “I tell you, Maggie, I didn’t know anything about AIDS or alcoholism really at all, until I watched that movie. That actor, Fitz somethin’ or other, isn’t he dead now? Such a shame. He was so good.”
I took a step closer. There was something about the poster. Maybe I had seen the movie. Something about it was intensely familiar.
Brrrrrinnnggg!
“Order’s up, hon!” Kate called out.
I turned, my stomach growling, all thoughts of The Dwelling or any other movie gone. “Thanks, Kate. Say hi to Norm for me.”
“Tell your mama to take it easy,” she replied before turning to a new customer. I just nodded and went back to the truck.
“Thanks,” Will said, looking appropriately sheepish when I handed him the sandwich. We both tore into them almost immediately, starved as we were after our run.
“Thank you,” I said as I set his change in the center cupholder. “Thanks to your weirdness, you paid. But was it really a pine cone situation?”
There was a pause, and tin foil crinkled in place of conversation.
“It was,” Will said a moment later, then started the car. “It just was.”
We drove back to the lake as we ate our sandwiches and enjoyed the breeze through the window that Will had finally allowed me to open. But given his demonstrated phobia of people, I was surprised when he got out of the truck instead of just dropping me off at the stairs leading down to my house. He followed me to the top of the steps, then paused.
“Swim tomorrow morning?” he asked.
His hand fluttered out and almost touched mine again before he pulled it away. I wished he hadn’t, but at the same time, the butterflies in my stomach after our run still hadn’t died down, and I wasn’t sure what I thought about that.
“Sure,” I started to say, but was interrupted by Lucas’s truck rumbling down the gravel. I could sense a new layer of tension radiating from Will as we watched the shiny blue Ford kick up dust and then roll to a stop next to us. Lucas stepped out carrying his toolbox and blinked between Will and me.
“Ah, hey, Mags,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Went for a run, huh?”
I glanced down at my shirt, and Will snorted, earning a dirty look from me. I turned back to Lucas and nodded.
“Yeah, we went early, up and down the Spokane,” I said. “Lucas, this is my friend Will.”
Lucas turned to Will, openly looking him up and down. “Will. Lucas. Nice to meet you.”
He extended a hand, and Will stared at it for a moment before slowly returning the handshake. Lucas stepped back and stuck his hand in the back pocket of his jeans. “Thought I’d get started on the plumbing work on the bottom cabin,” he said. “Your mom here? She wasn’t at church this morning.”
I blushed and gestured to the empty parking spot next to us. Lucas knew exactly why Mama didn’t show up at church. “She’s still at Barb’s, but she’ll probably be home by lunch. You know how she gets.”
Will frowned, though Lucas nodded with understanding.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll just get started, then. We also have to move that wood pile before it rains again.”
“It’s nice of you to do all this work for free,” Will said a little too quickly, before he clapped his mouth shut and glowered.
Lucas paused at the top of the stairs, looking between us again. “Just doing what needs to be done,” he said with a darkened expression, though his eyes softened when they landed on me. “Mags, hey. About last night…”
“Already forgotten,” I said, waving the memory away. I really didn’t want to think about it, especially not right now.
Beside me, Will tensed, but thankfully he didn’t say anything. Lucas nodded, and with another suspicious look at Will, walked down the steps.
I turned to Will. “Do you want to come down, have some iced tea or something? I have to start on the wood pile, like he said, but I have some time.”
Will shook his head, though he wasn’t looking at me—instead, his fierce gaze was still zeroed in on Lucas’s broad back, now down by the water, closer to the house. “He comes here every day?”
I shrugged. “He has been. He has his own job and a business to run, so I doubt it will be every day. But Lucas is a good guy. He’ll show up consistently until everything is finished.”
Will turned back to me. “And you really think this is just out of the goodness of his heart?”
I pressed my lips together. “Maybe, maybe not. But this is what people do here, Will. They help each other out, no questions asked. Maybe they talk. Maybe they get all up in each other’s lives. But when it really comes down to it, they are there for each other. That’s just how it is.”
Will chewed again on his upper lip, watching Lucas lugging his tools down to the bottom of the hill. Then he stepped back to his car with a mournful look.
“Rain check on the iced tea,” he said, already getting back in. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lily pad.”
I raised a hand. He started the engine. Though he hadn’t said, “pine cone,” I knew he was in a hurry to leave.
“See you,” I said, but he was already pulling away.
* * *
Several hours later,I was in the front yard with Lucas, lugging freshly chopped logs to the wood piles while Lucas made quick work of a big heap of trees that had fallen during the winter storms. Mama was inside futzing around in the kitchen after slinking in sometime past eleven.
“I’m probably done for the day, Mags,” Lucas said as he wiped his brow. “It’s getting late.”
He set the ax on the pile, then placed one last log on top of the two I was already carrying. The lake had calmed since the midday traffic had filtered out, with people returning home to get ready for the week.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably good. Thank you again.”
Before Lucas could answer, a splash sounded at the end of the dock. Lucas and I turned to watch a man emerge from the ladder. It was Will, shining like a brilliant gold statue under the bright light of the sun and the dancing surface of the water. He emerged from the lake, his hair slicked back from his face, droplets of water clinging to his beard, sliding down his torso, falling from his abs. My mouth dropped. I couldn’t help it. Lucas tensed.
Barefoot and clad in nothing but the clinging swim shorts now pasted to his long legs, Will walked the length of the dock directly toward me. He stopped in front of me, and without saying a word, took the logs I was holding.
“Where do these go?” he asked.
Unable to speak, I pointed toward the back of the house, and without waiting, Will immediately turned in that direction. Midway down the path, he stopped and turned.
“Also, I had your car towed to a mechanic in town,” he said without moving his gaze from mine. “They said you can pick it up on Tuesday, probably.”
“O-okay,” I managed to stutter, still stunned that he was even here.
Will gave a curt nod and continued to the wood pile.
“Second thought, I could probably stay a little longer.”
I turned around to find Lucas staring daggers at the spot where Will had just disappeared around the side of the house.
Lucas massaged his neck and scowled harder. “You okay with that?”
“Um, okay,” I mumbled, still too lost in the long, lean form walking around the house to answer properly. “Thank you. I’m going to go check on Mama.”
Inside, I found Mama watching Will and Lucas lugging firewood back and forth from one side of the house to the pile on the other like she was judging an Olympic sport.
“Maggie Mae,” she asked, beckoning with one hand until I joined her. “Who in ever-lovin’ Jesus is that?”
Like me just seconds before, she was also transfixed by the soaked column of muscle standing by the wood, looking like a dog about to shake itself off. Drops of water clung to every chiseled curve, with the light sparkling off the tiny prisms. Will looked around the property for a moment, and then found us at the window. His ever-stoic expression barely shifted, but he raised a brief hand in acknowledgement of our presence, then walked back to the other side of the yard for another armful of wood.
“That’s…Will,” I offered, barely able to get the words out myself as we watched him lift the large pieces of wood. The movement made the lean muscles in his back ripple while the sun flashed off the water drops still there. I swallowed, my tongue suddenly thick in my throat.
“Will?” Mama looked at me, her brown eyes uncharacteristically sharp as a knife. “That’s all I get? ‘That’s Will’?”
I shrugged, even though I could feel my face turning red under her gaze. “That’s all there is.”
Mama studied me for a moment, then tapped her lips as she turned back to the show. “My, my, my,” she muttered to herself. “Looks like I got some lemonade to make this afternoon.”
