Practice Makes Perfect: A Novel

“You’re so freaked-out to wake up with me again,” Annie says, eyeing me when I thought she was sleeping. I’ve been awake, staring at the ceiling for the last twenty minutes and reevaluating all of my life choices. And the text message I read when I first woke up.

“A little, yeah.”

“You should be. I already called the pastor, and he’s on his way to marry us immediately.” Even though I know she’s joking, my stomach dips and tightens. Unfortunately, not out of fear.

Annie sits up, hair cascading down over her shoulder, and props her chin on my chest. “Would it help if I tell you I’m not after you?” Her voice is still hoarse and her nose is stuffy, but she sounds much better than yesterday. I want to make her tea with honey.

I frown—and lie. “Yes. Is that true? Because last night felt…meaningful between us, and meaningful scares the shit out of me.”

“I know.”

“And then I slept over here again even though I have a very strict no-sleeping-over policy—and I’m spiraling out.”

Her full pink lips curve into a delicate smile. Damn, she’s gorgeous. Even puffy eyed and a little bloodshot. “I think what happened to us last night was friendship, which also might freak you out.”

“It absolutely does.”

“Why?”

I make a tsk sound. “Your card expired at midnight.”

Annie is undeterred. “Do you really not have friends, Will?”

I sigh and turn my eyes back up to the ceiling. She’s got me pinned here. I’m not getting away without telling her the whole truth about me. “My job keeps me busy. There’s not a lot of time for friends.”

“Which is intentional,” she says putting a spotlight on my face. I knew I told this woman too much about me last night. Now she knows all of my weak points.

I cover her hand resting on my chest with my own. “Yeah. It is.” I pause and she just waits. “After basically raising myself as well as my brother, when I left home and found some freedom, I decided I was done living for other people. I was going to be selfish for a while and enjoy the hell out of it. No relationships. No one to put huge expectations on me, and I can never be let down by someone if I never let them in in the first place. This job has given me the perfect excuse to stay busy and happy.”

Annie scrunches her nose. “And now here you are. In my bed.”

She adds that last sentence because she knows that this is a severe deviation from my plan. Intimacy of this kind is never something I’ve wanted…until now.

Annie rolls away from me back to her pillow, and we both stare at the ceiling. “Annie, the truth is, I really want to close myself off from you. But I also find myself wanting to tell you everything. What spell have you cast over me?”

She laughs and slides those beautiful blue eyes to me, peeking at me from the corners. “Do you have feelings for me, Will?”

I bark a laugh. “Annie. You can’t just ask a person that. That’s against the rules.”

“Why?”

“Because…we’re supposed to keep everything hidden and angsty. Keep each other guessing and miserable. That’s just the way it works.”

Her lips curve, and she slides her hand over the covers to gently link our fingers together. “Do you like me, Will?”

I hold her gaze and squeeze her fingers as her words tug the truth from me like they always do. “Yeah, I do, Annie. Do you like me?”

“Yeah. Against my better judgment.”

I laugh fully at this and then scrape my free hand over my face. “It’s why you need to run far away from me. Kick me out. Board up your windows. Lock your doors. I’ve got so much baggage, Annie…I’m not sure I’d be any good for you. Or that I’ll ever be the marriage type.”

She adjusts, rolling onto her side but not letting go of my hand. “I can handle myself, thank you.” She grins slightly and my entire chest aches. “I’m not living in a fantasy world over here. You and I are two people who caught feelings but were never supposed to. Our lives are on different tracks that somehow managed to accidentally intersect along the way.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We pine,” she says dramatically but with a hint of amusement touching the corner of her mouth. “We stay friends.”

“Friends.”

“That’s the only option for people who want different things, isn’t it? So we’ll be friends, and pine for a while, and then one day I’ll be old and married with a slew of grandchildren here in Kentucky and you’ll be a pirate on a ship somewhere in the Bahamas with a tiny man bun.”

“Oh no,” I say gravely. “You love pirates. Are you going to be longing for me while you’re lying next to your very upstanding old husband?”

She nods. “Sadly, yes. But not as much as you’ll be longing for the woman you left behind.”

How is honesty so easy between us? Too easy.

“Either way,” Annie says, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, “you’re off the matrimonial hook, Wolf Boy. And I have to go pee—don’t listen,” Annie says before disappearing into her bathroom and closing the door like we’d just discussed what’s for dinner rather than admitted feelings.

So…good. Yeah. I’m off the hook. I should feel a great relief. Any second now the Great Relief will be kicking in. It’s not. I don’t feel relief, I feel frustrated.

I’m thinking with my emotions too much, that’s the problem. I need to be logical. And logically, I have a career that will take me away from Rome no matter what. Logically, I’ve been happy living this way since I was eighteen. These feelings are just passing unexpected speed bumps on my open road of freedom. So what I need to do is ignore them and continue on with my plan. Have fun with Annie and then say goodbye with a clean break and no hard feelings when I leave. Even she thinks this is the best decision.

Yes. It’s good. This is good.

A minute later, Annie surfaces from the bathroom and comes back to bed, not hesitating even a second before curling up next to me. “Do you want some coffee?”

I take in her long blonde hair, her soft blue eyes, and the curve of her mouth, and I throw all of my plans out the window and consider doing the one thing that scares the hell out of me: staying. Forget the open road of freedom. I think I have everything I could ever need in my arms.

But then Annie’s phone vibrates on the bedside table. I grab it for her, but the screen lights up and I see the name: Brandon Larsdale (flower shop guy).

Wordlessly I hand it to Annie, and I don’t even realize I’m hoping this guy is nothing but a flower supplier until she opens the text, not even trying to hide the screen from me at all, and I see the words: “Are we still on for our date this afternoon?”

So, not a flower supplier.

“You…have a date?” I ask her, frowning and hating how pathetic I sound asking it.

“Yeah. Kind of. I meant to tell you, but…I couldn’t find the right time.” She looks up at me. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”

My stomach sinks. Annie has a date. “No, that’s…totally fine…great even.” I sit up and throw my legs over the edge of the bed.

“Will…” Annie says in a tender tone.

I give her a quick smile over my shoulder to try to keep her from feeling my weirdness. “It’s all good, Annie. Really. This is the right thing. We just said that we’re on different tracks and this is the exact course yours is supposed to take,” I say, focusing extra hard on sounding normal and not like I’m filled with the jealousy of a thousand suns. Like I want to find this guy and shove him against the wall with my fist and warn him not to touch Annie or he’ll die.

I go into the bathroom and splash water on my face and prepare to finger brush my teeth just so I can get a grip. She’s got a date. Annie has a date this afternoon. With a guy. A guy named Brandon. A guy named Brandon is going to take Annie on a date.

Not sure why I’m listing all of these facts off like they belong on a wall with little red strings connecting all the clues. My behavior right now is ridiculous. Pathetic. It’s not as if I didn’t see this coming. It’s literally what we’ve been working toward.

She told me up front her goal was to find her soulmate. Oh God, what if this Brandon guy is her soulmate? He gets to be her soulmate and I’m just her practice person.

I squeeze the toothpaste container too hard and the paste rockets across the bathroom onto the wall.

Annie enters the bathroom at that exact moment and wordlessly wets a washrag and wipes away the bright-colored toothpaste. I have to scrape my hands over my face because she looks so authentically beautiful and calm, and that only serves to make my nerves zing more frantically. Why am I acting like this? I’m never jealous. I never care if a woman I’ve been seeing goes out with another man.

I care if Annie does.

“Wilton,” she says softly, taking my shoulders and angling me toward her. “Let’s talk.”

“We don’t have to.” I manage not to sound immature somehow. But I want her to know that she doesn’t owe me any sort of explanation. She is her own woman and I am…just her friend.

“You came over and made me soup. And took care of me. And snuggled me. And told me you like me. And then saw a text that I’m going out with another guy. Of course I need to tell you what’s going on.”

“We’re not together for real, so…it’s all good. You don’t owe me anything.” See? This is why. This right here is one of the reasons I don’t want marriage or a relationship. You can never predict what a woman’s next move will be or when she’ll do something that hurts like hell.

Annie seems determined to make me look at her. She takes my jaws in her hands. “But do you want to know who that was?”

“Is he your date for today?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think I’m caught up.”

She drops her hands away but continues to skewer me with her relentless gaze. “He’s a guy who came into the flower shop last week while you were out of town. He’s a vet and just moved into the town next to ours.” She pauses. “We hit it off and he asked for my number. I told him up front that I wasn’t looking for anything casual right now, and he said he feels the same, so I gave it to him because—wasn’t that the goal the whole time? I want to get married. I want a family. I need to do this, Will. You don’t understand, but I have to get married. I have this gaping hole in my heart, and I can’t close it up. This is the only thing left to try to close it even though I’m pretty sure it’s not going to work, and you’re going to leave, and I’ll get married, and it’ll still be in there just empty and hurting.” She’s starting to cry.

I put my hands on the outsides of her arms tenderly. “It’s really okay, Annie. You don’t have to explain. I understand. You’ve got to do this for you.”

She continues, though. “Brandon and I have been texting a little this week, and he asked me out for today. I didn’t tell you even though I’ve wanted to because I was scared it would push you away, and, selfishly, I don’t want you to go away yet.”

I breathe out as I gently grip her biceps and tug her a little closer. “If there’s anything I understand fully, Annie, it’s acting out of selfish need.”

She gives a sad smile. A brave smile. “He seems nice, though. We have the same goals. I had to say yes, Will. There was no reason for me not to.”

I can’t even get upset at that—because she’s right. I’m not a reason. I told her up front I’d never be a reason. Whatever strange connection we have is a blip on the timeline of our lives. An interlude we’ll look back on fondly. And soon, hopefully, I’ll get back to real life, and Rome and Annie and everyone in this absurd town will only be memories.

I force a smile that I don’t feel at all. “I’m happy for you, Annie. Really. And this is great timing, actually, because I’ve had something I’ve needed to tell you too.” I pause. “I’m leaving soon.”

She frowns lightly. “What?”

“After the wedding.” I try to say this as casually and unattached as possible. “Don’t worry—you’re not pushing me away. And it’s not because of your date with Brandon.” The lie slips out easily. “My boss approved my reassignment to Washington, D.C., and I accepted.”

I have to look everywhere but her face. If I look into her eyes, she’ll see the truth. Amelia called my boss yesterday and said she was okay to be reassigned a new EPA (which feels like suspicious timing), and so the text I read this morning confirmed I’ve been cleared to move on to a new job after the wedding.

The thing is, I haven’t actually said yes yet. I had planned to respond to Liv and ask if I could have a few days to think about it because I might want to stay in Rome after all. But this—Annie’s impending date—is exactly the kick in the ass I needed to remember that whatever is going on between us is fleeting. I shouldn’t change my entire life plans for a person I only met a few weeks ago. I’m following my own advice to Ethan and pumping the brakes. Or…I guess a more accurate metaphor would be flooring the gas and getting out of here.

“But…Amelia doesn’t want a different bodyguard.”

“Executive protection agent,” I say weakly. “And she told my boss she was okay with it. It’s going to be hard to move on from…her, but it’s time. I need a faster-paced life. I can’t stay here any longer or…” Or I’ll start wanting things that scare me. Or I’ll contemplate doing the things I’ve promised I never would. “I’ll get bored.”

In the movies, this is where Annie would feel hurt. It was meant to wound. To cut us both so I’ll stop having these damn feelings and to show her that I’m not the good guy she wants. I’ve got a messed-up past and a messed-up heart that I keep clenched tightly in my fist along with a string of women throughout the country who will attest to the fact that I’ll never release it to anyone else.

But this is Annie. And she does nothing as anticipated.

Her smile tilts into one that’s so damn close to pity that my teeth clench. No one—and I mean no one—has ever been able to read me. But Annie does. It’s like she has the subtitles turned on for my brain, and she doesn’t feel hurt. She feels sad for me that I’m standing here and lying to her.

She looks down and clears her throat. “Okay, well good. I’m happy for you, Will.”

“And I’m happy for you.”

We’re all happy, happy people!

After a painful silence, I finally ask, “So where are you going on your date?”

She narrows her eyes. “Why are you asking?”

I pull an offended look. “What do you mean, why? I’m your dating coach. It’s my job to know everything about your dating life. This has nothing to do with the”—I lean in and lower my voice like I’m sharing a huge secret—“feelings we talked about earlier. Those are officially going back in the box where they belong from here on out.”

She laughs quietly. “Well, if you must know, we’re going to his nephew’s Little League game.”

My eyebrows fly up. “Little League? For a first date?”

She shrugs. “He’s a family man, apparently.”

When I laugh, I sound like a villain. “How perfect. I guess he’s looking for a wife to make him pot roast on the weekends too?”

“I hope not. I don’t know how to make pot roast.”

I hate him. Whoever he is.

But you know what? Brandon isn’t here with Annie now. I am.

“So…do you think he’ll kiss you today?”

Her eyes fly wide open. “I don’t know. Maybe? Oh gosh. Do you think he’ll try?”

I cross my arms and shrug. “I would kiss you on a first date.”

Her eyes hold mine—and they glint. She’s reading my mind again. She knows exactly what I’m doing and approves. “Well…maybe we could practice a first date kiss? You know, just so I’m not caught off guard.”

“Sure. Right.” I nod thoughtfully. “As your dating coach, it’s my responsibility to make sure you’re prepared for that kind of thing.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

I edge closer. “So how do you want to do this? Like…role-play it?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I repeat while my heart pounds. “Time in,” I say, already pressing toward her.

She takes her fingers and presses them quickly to my lips to halt me. “Wait. I have a cold. I had a fever yesterday. I don’t want you to catch it.”

“Do you feel bad right now?”

“No, I feel a lot better today, but—”

“Then give me the damn cold, Annie,” I say quietly next to her ear. I feel her shiver lightly, but I know it’s not from a fever.

I slide my hands around her lower back, inching along the terrain I’m beginning to find familiar. I have this small divot memorized. The one right above her perfect ass. I know that if I splay my hand against it and press her to me, she’ll gasp lightly and then melt into my arms. I do it now, and after hearing the soft gasp that I’d like to capture in a jar and keep sealed away for eternity so no one else has the pleasure of hearing it, I begin. “Picture this: Your date is coming to an end. You’re sunburned from sitting for hours on the bleachers, and while standing next to your truck, he hands you a Capri Sun he snagged from Pam’s postgame snacks cooler…”

Annie laughs and shoves my chest playfully. “Stop it! That is not how it’s going to go!”

“Fine. I’ll be serious.” I make my face somber. “Annie…I had a great time with you watching children never hit a baseball for five and a half hours—”

“Useless! You’re useless!”

We’re both laughing and Annie is trying to tickle me, but instead, I scoop her up and carry her into her room to throw her on the bed. “Do you think there will be a bed at the baseball game?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thought so.” I hover over Annie and dip my head into her neck, running my lips across her skin. “Annie, thank you for the best first date of my life. Can we go out again?”

She sighs as I lightly lick the tender skin behind her ear. “I think that might be acceptable—yes.”

“Wonderful. How about next weekend? I know of a bouncy castle going up for an eight-year-old’s birthday.” I slant my mouth over hers before she has time to give me any sharp retorts, and she matches me kiss for kiss. Her tongue slides against mine, and her hands scale up my back. I’m shaking from how much I’m holding back. How much I want to peel her clothes from her body and consume her completely. It would be so good. We would be so good together.

But Annie’s not mine.

So I ease up and somehow manage to pull away from her—taking in her sad expression when I do. I kiss her cheek and her temple and her forehead. “I should go.”

Annie nods and sits up with me, following me out of her room and standing in the open front door as I walk out. Before I go, I can’t help but look back at her one more time. “Have fun on your date, Annie.” I pause. “Maybe he can take you out for some chicken nuggets afterward.”

She groans and rolls her eyes. “Shutting the door now!”

“Do you want to borrow a dollar for a soda in case he forgets his Velcro wallet?”

Bam!