Discreet by Nicole French

19

Ispent the rest of the day working with Mama on the property, trying to cheer her up and make her forget about the photo that I “happened” to toss in the garbage. It was Saturday, so Lucas and Will were both absent—Lucas working at the inn and Will because he had said he was going for a hike today. But a giant delivery of drywall, enough to redo the walls in both outer cabins appeared sometime past noon, apparently having been ordered by a Mr. William Baker. I would have called him to protest the massive gift, or at least question how in the world he could pay for it (no matter what he said he had tucked away from his advertising business). But since he didn’t have a phone, I just grinned the entire time I signed for it, and directed the men to leave it in the cabin at the top of the hill.

“My, my,” Mama said as we watched them finish. “Well, if that’s not sweet on you, I don’t know what is.”

“I know,” I said. I felt strange, like jumping up and down for joy, but also like maybe I should run a mile.

“Be careful,” Mama said. “It’s the biggest gifts that always have the greatest costs.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, she turned around to grab the gardening tools. Today we were cleaning up the front yard. Clearly there was no more time left for that kind of talk.

The summer days were heating up. We were well into June, and the triathlon was two weeks away, during the Fourth of July weekend. I was entered to do the Olympic, not having had enough time to train properly for the full marathon portion. The recent heat wave had meant training mostly in the early mornings or the evenings, and after skipping a few days, I was desperate for a swim and a run, with or without Will.

So it wasn’t until a swim and a run that evening that I found myself in the bathroom getting ready for my second date with Will. One that was official. And at his house.

Mama was overjoyed for me, all traces of her earlier suspicions vanished with the help of a drink. She was going over to Barb’s for dinner, so thankfully I didn’t have to worry about her that night. She liked Will, which should have turned me in the opposite direction. She had always liked Lucas too, but it was a preference that had come slowly over the years, given the fact that the Forsters were powerful members of a community that had often berated the two of us. Will was like her—a bit of an outcast, with a bunch of demons he was battling. Of course, maybe that was why I liked him too. Darkness was all too familiar.

So it was somewhat fitting, as the sun was starting to set, that I drove to Will’s house, parked my Passat behind his truck, and slipped. I had actually dressed up a little, much more than I normally would for anywhere else here. I had pulled out a short black dress I used to save for stage appearances, and tamed my hair into long waves down my back. My curls were returning again, more and more every day. Soon I wouldn’t be able to brush it without going full Diana Ross, but for now, they were still manageable.

I caught myself just before hitting the ground and chuckled as I stood back upright. His porch light was off, of course. All I needed was for Will to come out and make some smartass comment about me breaking down again in front of his house. I laughed louder. I would actually like that.

I approached the door, smoothing out my dress and balancing precariously in my heels, more from nerves than because I wasn’t used to them. Butterflies stirred in my stomach. I hadn’t felt this way in years.

I knocked on the door. No one answered. I knocked again. Still nothing. For a moment, I stood there on the dark, unlit porch, rubbing my arms through my cardigan sweater. That was the thing about Spokane—during the day, it could be as hot as a desert, and at night, the temperatures would drop to near freezing.

Where was Will? I tapped the toes of my patent-leather pumps on the scuffed wood porch. They looked so out of place here—no one in Spokane dressed like this unless they were going to one of the few clubs downtown, and even then, not really. Suddenly I felt silly. Ridiculous even.

I didn’t know what to think. Twelve hours ago, he had asked me to come here. He knew I was planning to run around sunset to avoid the heat, and he had confirmed he would be gone today too. It was now a few minutes past eight, and his truck was in the lot. Was he not expecting me anymore?

But the house was dark. Maybe he had forgotten. A shiver traveled down my back; the butterflies turned heavy, iron wings of dread. Maybe last night hadn’t meant as much as I thought.

I turned around to go, feeling like a fool. I’d have the house to myself. I could curl up in the shack and watch a movie on my tablet, forget about this night, maybe even forget about Will. Refocus myself on the important questions about my life and my mother’s that still needed answering.

Go, I thought. Just go.

And that was when I heard it—a cry sounding from the bottom of a hill. It was a howl—visceral, piercing, almost primeval. I would have thought it was an animal—maybe a coyote or something like that—except just after the cry, I heard a choked string of profanity.

“Fuck!” cried Will, just before a loud crash. “Fuck!”

I sprang to action, jogging down the stairs to the water before I could stop to think. Will’s pain echoed up the hill with every crash, every shout. All I could think was that I needed to be there. That he needed me.

“Goddammit!”

Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, Will came charging out of the trees, carrying a small wooden table, the kind that might have come with the big wooden chairs sitting on his deck. He wore a button-up shirt and a tie—a tie! I thought to myself, noting that at some point, he had thought to dress up too—but his hair was falling out of its knot, and his eyes were crazed, the visible part of his cheeks tear-stained.

“Fuck!” he shouted as he hurled the table at the side of the boathouse, hard enough that it splintered into multiple pieces upon contact. I froze. Breaking something solid like that was no small feat.

But it wasn’t his only conquest. The small clearing was a mess. Two of the three wooden chairs had been completely wrecked, and an ax was lodged in the trunk of a nearby pine tree. He turned around, shoulders heaving like some kind of primordial monster, and stilled when he caught sight of me stepping into the clearing.

“Will?” I asked, my voice small, unsure. What was going on? “Are…are you okay?” He didn’t say anything, and after a moment of silence, I took a few more steps toward him. “Will, what’s wrong?”

He wilted, big body sagging toward the earth.

“Everything,” he croaked, staggering toward me. “Every fucking thing.”

In the glare of twilight, I could see clearly that his eyes were bloodshot—from pain, not substance. Before I could respond, ask why, try to offer some form of comfort, he attacked me with the same ferocity that he’d used on the chair. His mouth claimed mine, tongue diving deep, sucking my lips, almost like he was fighting with me instead of the furniture. Another loud groan emitted from deep in his chest, and suddenly, he bent down, grabbed under my knees, and pulled my legs around his waist as he walked us back into the trees. He took three more steps and slammed my back against the wall of the boathouse while his mouth continued its onslaught.

“Fuck,” he whispered as his hands found my ass.

He tore at my underwear, ripping through the flimsy lace I’d chosen so carefully for the evening, then yanked down the elastic top of my dress and bra, not even pausing to look at my breasts, pale and almost white in the dim light, before he clamped his mouth around one nipple as viciously as he’d taken my mouth.

“Will,” I gasped, banging my head against the wood, unable to keep up with what was happening. We needed to talk—he was clearly not in his right mind—but at the same time, his unfettered touch was doing things to me that, on some level, I’d been yearning for since we met. He was letting go, and it was unbelievably hot. The harder his mouth worked, pulling, biting, sucking, the more ready I got.

“Will!” I tried again.

He released the nipple with a pop.

“Shut up, Lily,” he growled into my mouth once more as he ground into me.

He was big. I knew this, of course, but right now I could feel it through his pants, just as if we were both naked. He wasted no time in unzipping them, then fell against my thigh, a heavy weight of pure desire. My legs still wound tightly around him, urging him on as he continued kissing me in that way that was making it difficult to think at all. But it wasn’t until I felt the head of him pressed against my slick entrance that I managed to tear my mouth away.

“Will!” I cried out, breathless. “C-condom. I—I want to. But, um, we need to use protection.”

He panted into my neck, poised so painfully right where I yearned to take him. He would feel so good—I knew it. Perfect. Full.

But I hadn’t completely lost my mind. Not yet.

My legs dropped to the ground, though Will kept me pressed to the wall as he inhaled deeply. Then he squatted, wrapped a strong arm around my knees, and toppled me over his shoulder.

“Will!” I screeched, only to receive a sharp smack on the ass as I was carted back through the trees and up the steps.

“Hush,” Will snapped, now taking the steps two at a time. I watched the lake fall farther and farther away. Will was on a mission, robotic in his movement as he practically jogged me up the stairs. Moments later, he threw open the front door, grabbed at a small paper bag next to his key bowl, and tossed me on top of the counter before ripping a condom out of the bag. He tore through the flimsy foil with his teeth, rolled on the contraceptive with a slight hitch in his movements, then wrenched my legs apart and stepped between them.

He paused for a moment.

“Will,” I whispered.

He swallowed; the wild look returned. Then his eyes opened wider, and he shoved inside with a howl.

“Ah!” My back arched with the sudden intrusion. He was big. Big enough that it hurt a little. Big enough that even with my slippery welcome, he still tested my ability to take him.

“Will!” I gasped, digging my nails into his shoulder, looking for something, anything that would keep me from toppling over onto the stovetop. But even through the pain, pleasure bloomed.

He started to move faster, his hands vises on my thighs, keeping me from moving away. I was trapped between him and the counter. Will buried his face into my neck, my hair, groaning and grunting like an animal as he took his fill.

But I took mine too. Because the more he moved, the better he felt. Once I adjusted, it was like the shape of him was made for me, touching places no one had ever reached before, causing a thrill of warmth to ripple from my core, through my middle, down my thighs, until every part of me was alive and glowing and pulsing in time to his vicious beat.

“Oh God,” I found myself moaning much sooner than I would have thought. “Oh God, Will. I—I’m gonna come. Oh my God, I’m so close!”

His breathing was hoarse, full of grunts and shaky breaths as he continued his punishing movements, as if I hadn’t spoken at all. But he released one hand from my thigh and slid it up a few inches, drifting over the place where our bodies met. I hummed in anticipation, my body tightening around him. A rumble of acknowledgment emerged from his throat.

All he had to do was touch it. Maybe a centimeter lower from the sensitive spot his thumb was teasing right now. I arched into him, willing his hand to move. And then…just a whisper of a touch. I was already primed, and as soon as his thumb brushed over my pulsing center, I exploded into a haze of cries and ecstasy.

“Will!” I cried as my head fell backward. Every muscle in my body shook as he pounded further.

“Hush,” he snapped again before covering my cries with his mouth, absorbing them between his own harsh gasps.

“Please,” I begged, unable to take much more of this punishing drive. There wasn’t a hint of love in his movements, but I didn’t care. I wanted whatever he had to offer. Whatever was going to push me straight over the edge of oblivion, just like this, again and again.

“I don’t…I don’t…” His words were stuttered, tripping over his movements.

I kissed the edge of his brow, the ridge of his cheek, his eyelids, nose, lips, chin—anything and everything he would allow me to touch. His entire body was pulled taut like a drum, while still he punished both of us—maybe himself more than me.

Then he paused, pulled his face back, and when he looked at me, I was shocked by the visible tracks of tears streaming down his cheeks into the thick dark blond around his mouth and chin. His green eyes shone, full of pain, sorrow, anger, and a host of other emotions I couldn’t read.

“I don’t—” he choked, barely able to get the words out. “I don’t—”

“Will.” I cupped his cheek, urging him back to me. “Will, talk to me. Will, I’m right here.”

His forehead fell against mine. “I don’t want to be alone anymore,” he whispered with one last push. Then he shuddered, and with a loud, feral moan, collapsed on my shoulder as his orgasm and tears wracked through his body together.

I held him tight, as tightly as I could. My high was falling, and I was left with a man who was so visibly broken, I felt like his pain was cracking my heart in two, right along with him. I didn’t know what was wrong. I didn’t need to. All I needed to do was be here, with him.

“You’re not,” I murmured as I threaded my fingers into the thick hair at the nape of his neck and pressed him closer. “Will, you’re not alone. I’m here.”

He moaned into my shoulder, still pulsing slightly within me. But his long body finally relaxed slightly, released some of his tension as he exhaled long and low into my hair.

We stayed there for several minutes, lingering in the unity of our bodies while our breaths returned to normal. Finally, Will pulled back slightly, and I released his hair and laid my hands on his chest.

In his simple outfit of dark pants, a button-up white shirt, and a tie, Will really did look like a different man. I blinked. A tie on Will Baker was like seeing a tuxedo on a moose. His beard had also been trimmed again so that it was only slightly more than stubble at this point. He looked like the perfect mix of uncivilized and polished—a barbaric gentleman. I would have been ready to jump him all over again if he hadn’t still been so clearly distraught.

Other things began to register. Like the fact that the dining table by the windows was set for two, complete with a lit candle, though a few plates of expensive-looking dinnerware were smashed on the floor. The distinct scents of different foods hung in the air over the scents of our joined bodies. Chicken that was maybe burned a little, and some kind of sautéed vegetable. Broccoli, I thought.

Under my fingertips, his heart still pounded. It wasn’t until it had dropped to a more regular rate that I ventured to speak.

“Will?”

He didn’t answer. His hands still rested on my thighs, but he refused to meet my gaze, instead keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the floor.

“Fuck,” he murmured, clearly more to himself than to me. “Fuck.”

“Will,” I tried again. “Talk to me, please. What’s—what’s wrong? What happened?”

But he only shook his head, then stepped away, pulling out and turning around to clean himself up. It was impossible not to notice the way the shirt, simple as it was, seemed like it had been tailored to his broad shoulders, or the way the man’s ass was made to fill out those pants. But I was too worried about him now to say anything, or even to ogle for long.

“I’ll—I’ll be…” He shook his head, pushing a big hand over his brow while he looked me over with something approximating regret. I pulled down my dress and squeezed my legs together while he turned toward the stairwell, holding himself awkwardly. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched for a moment while he lumbered off, presumably to use the bathroom, then slid off the counter myself to put myself back together too. My hair was undoubtedly a wreck. But as I hopped down, a few pieces of paper fell to the floor—an envelope and a letter that apparently I’d been sitting on.

I didn’t mean to snoop. But the words jumped off the page.

Baker—

I hope this letter finds you well. You seem to be doing all right, especially with your new friend. She sounds nice, man. Good for you.

Anyway, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this way, but the off-the-grid thing has some serious drawbacks, my friend. Better I just say it.

Mike’s dead. There are probably nicer ways to get that out, but you know me—I can’t beat around the bush. And I know you—you wouldn’t want me to. So while I can’t believe I’m typing this in black and white rather than calling you like a human being, there it is. Your dad is dead, F. I’m so sorry. Your mom called me last night to tell me. Shocked the hell out of me—you know Trish and I never got along. But she said we were family friends, and she thought I’d have wanted to know. Too true.

You were right. It was the blood pressure that got him. Heart attack, she said, but I don’t know more than that. I wish I did, F. I’m so, so sorry.

Tricia is planning a memorial in about a month, to spread his ashes off the dock in Stamford. For what it’s worth, I think you should go. I just don’t think the shit between you and Trish matters anymore. She’s your mom, F. I think she’d want to know you’re all right. Especially now. And as for everyone else, well, you know I’ll help you manage that. You’re my brother, no matter what.

Call me when you can, even if it’s collect, you cheap bastard.

Much love,

Benny

I returned to the third paragraph again and again, staring at the words that were typed there so bluntly: your dad is dead. It explained everything, of course. The ruined chairs. The burned food. The crazed, angry sex. Will’s father was dead, and he had found out in a letter.

But quickly, other questions percolated too. Will really was off the grid completely. Why? And why did the writer—Benny, apparently—keep calling him F? What was going on between Will and his mother?

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I froze, letter and envelope in either hand, and practically jumped at the sound of his voice. “Oh, hey. Sorry, these um, fell to the floor.”

Will strode across the room in a few long steps. “Where did you get that?” he demanded, snatching the letter out of my hand. He crushed it viciously between his hands and threw it into a trash bin. “Were you going through my shit?”

I backed up, trapped again between him and the countertop. “I—it fell off the counter, like I said. Will, I’m—God, I’m so sorry. Truly. What can I do—”

“You can start by staying the fuck out of my things, Maggie.”

I recoiled. “What? Will, I wasn’t snooping—I just picked it up when it fell, and the words, well they were there.” I waved the envelope I was still holding. “Your dad, Will. I…I can’t imagine.”

And I couldn’t. It was then it occurred to me—really occurred to me—just how little I knew Will. It never seemed to matter when we were together, because something innate just clicked between us. But really, I knew nothing about his past. Why he was here. What drove him to live so alone. For all the moments we had shared, he was still functionally a stranger.

I took a step toward him, like I was approaching a scared animal. “Will, please. You’re obviously hurting—I can help. Please, just let me help.”

“What are you going to help with, Maggie? Short skirts and broken bicycles don’t fucking help when your parent is dead.”

His words cut, like the weapons they were. But they were coming from a place of pain—anyone could see that, and I was willing to let them go.

“It says the memorial is in July.” I glanced toward the trash bin at the crumpled letter. “Are you going to go?”

Will didn’t answer, just crossed his arms and continued staring daggers at me.

I waited another moment, then looked back at the envelope I still held. The return address was printed professionally. “Who’s Benny Amaya? That name sounds really familiar…” I frowned, then looked up. “Wait a second. Benny Amaya is a rep, isn’t he? Calliope, my old manager, knows him. Will, why is a talent manager in New York sending you word of your father’s death? Who’s ‘F’?”

The words were barely out of my mouth before Will snatched the envelope out of my hands fast enough that it gave me a nasty paper cut across my palm.

“Ow!” I cried, shaking my hand, then cradling it against my chest. “What the hell, Will?”

Will just glared at the paper, then crumpled it up and tossed it in the waste bin with the letter. “Let’s get something straight. Even if I wanted to share anything about myself with you—which I fucking don’t—I would do it myself. We’re not together, Maggie. We’re almost friends, and not even that, and the only difference now is that we’ve fucked. But I could have get off with a hundred other women, any night of the week, so don’t think for a second that giving it up like free donuts after church makes you special to me. You got that, Lily pad?”

My mouth dropped, and I curled inward. For the first time, the name didn’t sound like anything sweet. It sounded like the annoyance and anger Will had voiced when he’d found me caught up in the waterweeds to begin with. Contempt poured out of him as he stomped to the door. He opened it with a slam against the wall, then turned and glared at me.

“Time to go,” he said, gesturing rudely into the blackness of the night. “Go take care of your drunk of a mother, and stay the fuck away from me.”

My mouth gaped. “What?”

“Are you deaf?” he shouted. “I said get the fuck out!”

The harsh words boomeranged through me, and with the last one, I couldn’t wait to get out.

I marched through the door and turned around.

“You’re an asshole,” I snapped, unable to think or say anything else.

“Glad that’s finally getting through,” Will shot back, and before I could get out another word, he slammed the door in my face.