Lilly idled for a moment in front of his house before pushing open the creaky door of her car. The walk up felt odd; her last memories of this place were less than fond.
William met her before she could knock. “Welcome, come on in. If you wouldn’t mind, can you leave your shoes by the door?”
Lilly blushed, removing both shoes and socks and hoping he didn’t see the holey toes. She’d have to remember to bring her good socks next time. Barefoot, she padded into the living room and stared in awe at the place. She’d imagined this room so many times in her dreams. The reality made her imagining pale. “Your home is beautiful.”
“Thank you.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “This was my grandparent’s home. I bought it from them when they retired and started serving missions. I’ve done a bit of updating on it, but most of the framing and design is still the original look. Make yourself at home, I just need to finish up a few things.”
Lilly took a self-guided tour. The main floor circled around from the entryway through a living room, into a kitchen, and dining room, then a north-facing sitting room gave a great view of the valley and city in the distance before coming back around to the entryway. In the center of the home a planked staircase lifted to the next level. The stairs were seated between a small office and bathroom to the left and storage closets and bookshelves to the right. Another staircase down led into darkness.
She floated back toward the kitchen where William fussed over some ‘snacks’. Lilly looked at her watch. “It’s 7:45. Did Christine say anything to you about being late?”
“No.” He gestured to his phone. “Can you check and see if she messaged me?”
Lilly picked it up, but she'd only ever watched Pamela fiddle with hers. “Nope, no clue.”
William laughed, wiping his hands on a towel before reaching for the phone. His fingers grazed hers as he took it and she felt the familiar twitterpation.
He played with the phone a moment. “Well, that’s a little frustrating.”
“She’s hung up?”
“She’s not coming.”
“Ah.” Lilly considered the gas she’d spent to get here and forced down her frustration. “I’m sure she has a good reason. This was her meeting, after all.”
“She says she got busy, but she’s sure we’ll do fine at the meeting and apologizes for the inconvenience.” He didn’t sound any more convinced than Lilly felt.
What now? She stared toward the counter where too much food waited, then toward her watch. “I guess I’ll go?”
“I think she had the right idea. We need to be organized. I feel like we’re already behind schedule. What’s the game plan for the committee members? How do we want to break them up? If we just go in and report what we’ve done so far, I don’t think that’s going to motivate much. I was really hoping to nail down our expectations today.”
“I should stay?”
William waved to the food. “May as well.”
Just then the doorbell rang. William glanced toward the clock on the stove, then grumbled about something before slipping off his apron. “Excuse me for a moment.”
Lilly trailed behind him as he answered the door. The two men beyond were dressed casually, but their demeanor said business.
“Hi Rob, Peter.” He shook each of their hands. “I forgot to give you a call. Tonight’s not a good night.”
Rob caught Lilly’s eye and his widened. “Sorry! We didn’t realize you had guests.”
Something about the way he said it made William redden. “This is Lilly. She and I volunteer on the board of Hope Squad. We’ve been asked to co-chair the annual carnival event at the university and she came over tonight to plan out our first meeting.”
The explanation felt forced to Lilly. Apparently, Rob and Peter felt the same.
“Nice to meet you, Lilly. Are you a student?”
“No.” She said quickly. “I just believe in the cause.”
William turned back to the new arrivals. “Can we reschedule for next week?”
“Sure.” Rob nodded. “We’re here for you, brother. No worries.”
William thanked them and shut the door.
“Are those your real brothers, or was that some sort of mafia deal?” Lilly teased, following him back to the kitchen. The two men looked nothing like the professor.
“Some days I wonder.” He grinned back. “Take a seat and let’s chat over food. You look like you’re losing weight anyway, so eat up.”
Lilly glanced down at herself. “Really?” Did he pay enough attention to her to know? Another thrill of butterflies took flight.
William laughed and handed her a plate.
Helping herself to several of the mozzarella sticks, Lilly took a bite as she flipped open her notebook one-handed. The man could cook! She began to wonder what he wasn't capable of.
William grabbed the notebook and stared down at the page. “What is this?”
Lilly knew by his tone. “That’s from before.” She considered what Pamela would say right about now. Probably something like, ‘I told you not to write stupid stuff in your notebook.’
“Mrs. Professor Doughan?” He lifted one brow over his golden eyes.
Lilly swallowed. Half of her wanted to die of embarrassment, the other half was tired of apologizing. “Can we please move past this?”
“You’re, what, eighteen?”
“Nineteen and a third.” She huffed, accepting back her pad. “I get it, really I do. I just haven’t gotten rid of all of the evidence yet.”
“You get what?” He asked, eyes twinkling merrily.
“You sure do like to make people feel uncomfortable.” She tore out the page and crumpled it.
“I’m sorry, it’s just an odd feeling.”
“What, being stalked?” At least she could joke about it now, outwardly at least.
“No, being thought of as attractive. I dated in high school and college, but after I hit my twenty fifth birthday something changed. Women started to avoid me and I began to wonder if I was doing something wrong, or maybe I’d suddenly sprouted warts.”
Lilly couldn’t help her surprise at his sudden forwardness. “You’re easily the most attractive man I’ve ever laid eyes on.” She said truthfully, then bit her lip too late.
William chuckled, embarrassed. “Sorry, I should let it go, but my ego needs a boost now and then.”
“You have students fawning over you all the time, how can you not be regularly flattered?”
“I guess I'm just not interested in something that feels too close to fighting for teacher's pet. It doesn’t imply attraction or romantic interest.” He took a bite of his bruschetta and cheese.
“At least they appreciate your intellect.” She tried to think of a better subject. “Are you still optimistic about the carnival?”
“More than ever.” He grinned. “Christine added quite a bit of dimension to my ideas. I think this is going to be a huge success.”
Lilly couldn’t help her momentary jealousy. “Good. I’m glad she’s helping so much. I guess it was a good idea to include her in the group.” She stuffed another mozzarella stick into her mouth to stop further comment.
“Don’t get me wrong.” William saw right through her. “You’re the backbone of this operation. I have to admit that I’ve been more than impressed by your organizational skills and your attention to detail. I can’t count the number of times you’ve pointed out flaws in our plans that could have spelled disaster. You also grasp the big picture better than I do, and that helps keep perspective.”
Lilly appreciated the compliments, but she had never been good at accepting them. “Okay, so moving on, you wanted to discuss our expectations for the committee.”
“Mmm. You’ve probably already thought about this, haven’t you?” He glanced across the counter toward her notebook.
Lilly fought the urge to cover it up. “Yes, a little.”
“And?”
She outlined what she was thinking.
“Add a team for sound and stage crews and I think you’ve about covered it.” His grin was contagious. “Okay, so now what?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’ve been here for twenty minutes, and you have a forty-minute drive home, right? In order to make this less of a waste of gas, what should we do for the next little while?”
She considered him, trying to understand his teasing tone. Was he flirting with her? It couldn’t be, but the twinkle in his eye was back. “Do you have any cards? We could play poker or something.”
“I'm not well-versed in betting games, but I do know canasta, or hearts.”
“You’ve got me. I’ve never heard of canasta, and I’ve never played hearts.”
“Are you willing to learn?” He was already walking toward the closets by the stairs.
“I suppose so.”
For the next hour he patiently explained the rules and coached her on strategy. Their conversation lasted long after the game ended with a score of 100 to 10.
* * *
“Lilly?” Pamela’s jaw dropped. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today!”
“That’s because I’m not here to meet you. We’re still on for Thursday, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” She paused, considering. “please don’t tell me you’ve started stalking him again!”
“She’s not stalking me, we’re working on a project together.” William seemed to appear out of nowhere. “Although I’m glad to hear that the idea bothers others besides myself.”
“It wasn’t stalking.” She shrugged and amended, “It’s called fangirling.”
William rolled his eyes, and Pamela mirrored him.
“Pamela, right? Dr. Carter said you were considering switching from economics to accounting. If you’d like to chat about career options, let me know.”
Lilly watched her friend’s surprise. “I told him we were friends.”
Pamela accepted this. “What project are you working on?”
Lilly couldn’t help a small grin at her best friend’s curious gaze surprised that she felt neither embarrassment or nerves. “We both sit on the Hope Squad suicide prevention board, and we both happened to volunteer at the same time to head up the carnival, so we’re co-chairs.”
“And we have a meeting starting in fifteen minutes.” William touched his watch unconsciously.
“You should join us, Pam. We could use some muscle.”
“Ha. Work calls.” She waved a hand and hurried off, giving Lilly one more penetrating glance.
“I realized something today.” William's fast pace made Lilly almost jog to keep up. “We haven’t gotten anyone to sign up for the photo boards.”
“Oh, right.” Lilly sorted through the committee members. “What about Candice?”
“Christine already asked her to take on the overall decorations of the event.”
“Well, everyone’s got at least one job, so someone is going to have to double up if we want it to get done.”
“Aside from chairing the event, what role do you have?”
Was he accusing her of slacking? “Well, I’ve been filling the empty vendor slots, and I’m working with the advertising group to re-do the designs with the new theme in mind. I really like the idea of strength in supporting each other.”
“I just hope the message gets across, it’s not quite as catchy as last year’s ‘Kindness Counts’.”
“You’re suggesting that I should take over the boards?” Lilly tried not to feel overwhelmed by the idea. Chairing the event was so much more work than being an active committee member had been. Between jobs and this, she hadn’t even found a moment to do laundry in the last week. She said as much as they closed the distance to the library.
William frowned. “You use a laundry mat? Surely, with that many roommates you have a unit in your apartment?”
“No.” He still had no idea she shared floor space in the living room with about three other people, but she couldn’t beat the rent at $100 a month.
“A deal then. You come and do laundry at my place, and while we’re waiting, we’ll concept out the boards. I can cut the holes if you'll help paint the pictures.”
“Your assumption is that I have art skills in any shape or form.”
William chuckled and held open the door, then hurried to catch the inner door as well. “So that’s a no on laundry?”
Lilly huffed overdramatically. “I suppose if that’s the price to pay, I have no choice.”
She saw William grin and wondered again, but he kept himself so aloof for the rest of the night that her thoughts spun and churned instead of sleeping that night.
No comments:
Post a Comment