Practice Makes Perfect: A Novel

I’m definitely sitting in a strange vehicle right now, next to Will—that much I know. And it’s a truck, judging by the bench seat and the distinct smell of old gasoline, aka the scent of my life. But the question is, whose truck is this? Because Will drives his company’s SUV usually.

Nothing makes sense.

And this blindfold is hot.

And I think I’m going to hyperventilate.

“Okay, wait. Can we just pause?” I ask, wanting so badly to go along with whatever this is, but because it’s been a really long emotional week, I’m finding my natural tolerance for random fun set too low.

Will must hear the panic in my voice. “Of course.”

“So I can take off my blindfold?”

“Yes, absolutely,” he says gently, which feels like a balm to my nerves.

When I pull down the black fabric, my eyes blink against the fuzzy picture of Will in a black T-shirt and jeans, his hand casually thrown over the steering wheel of an old truck as we drive down a dark back road.

First things first. “Whose truck is this?”

“Mine.”

“But you don’t have a truck.”

He clicks the side of his mouth and winks. “Ah, but I do. Well, this is actually an old Bronco. Got it for a steal, because I can’t be in this town and not drive a truck. You should know this better than anyone.”

I feel dizzy. I’m going to throw up. “What’s going on, Will? I thought you were gone. I thought you’d left town this morning, never to be seen again—and now, here you are…driving a truck as if my world hasn’t been crumbling this entire day.” My voice is climbing the rungs of a ladder into a land of the hysterics.

He briefly looks at me and then back at the road. “Your world was crumbling?”

“Well…” I raise and lower my shoulders. “Sort of. Internally. Yeah.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that. Maybe I’m showing my cards too soon. But I don’t even know what game we’re playing because I thought he was gone about five minutes ago. And now he’s mansplaying in his Bronco and having the audacity to look casual.

He shakes his head. “Why did you think I’d left town? Or that I’d ever leave without saying goodbye to you, for that matter?”

I laugh a stunted laugh. “Um, let’s see. Maybe because you weren’t there when I woke up this morning, and then you never texted or called or left a note, and then Mabel said you checked out of your room this morning too. What else am I supposed to think?”

Again he glances at me with furrowed brows. “But I did text you…this morning. I told you I wouldn’t be able to make it to the wedding, but I’d see you tonight.”

My mouth falls open. “No. You didn’t.”

“I did.” He fishes his phone from his pocket and tosses it in my lap. “Look.”

I tap the screen on his phone, pausing briefly to marvel at his new wallpaper photo: me standing in the flower shop the night we kissed for the first time. My heart shakes, and so do my hands as I slide open his phone and look at our text thread. Sure enough, there’s a message he sent me saying those exact words. But above them is a little red exclamation mark.

“It never went through.”

“What?” He cuts his eyes to his phone screen and back to the road, grimacing. “Damn service. I’m sorry, Annie.” And then like I’m outside of myself, I watch his hand—my favorite hand in the world, reach over and lie across my thigh. “I would never ever leave without telling you. Never.”

A heavy knot in my chest uncoils. I begin to breathe normally. “Good.”

He smiles over at me. “Good. Now…can I finish my kidnapping, please?”

My dizziness spills into my stomach and turns into butterflies. Something is happening right now. My thoughts run to play catch-up now that all sense of dread is sliding away. Will kidnapped me for fun. He bought a truck. He hasn’t left town. His hand is on my thigh.

I try but fail to smother a grin as I raise the blindfold back up over my eyes.

A few short minutes later, Will is putting the truck in park and cutting the engine. “I’ll come around and get you,” he says before getting out of the truck.

During his short walk around the cab, I try to imagine what in the world all of this could be about—but I can’t come up with anything. Or maybe I’m just too scared to dare to. Either way, when Will opens my truck door and slides my hips to the edge of the seat, my thoughts are lost as he leans in and lightly kisses my mouth. “Come with me?”

I nod. “Anywhere.”

There’s a heavy silence, and in it, I lift my hand to feel his smiling mouth against my fingertips. And then he hoists me over his shoulder, again quoting impossibly cheesy lines I recognize from a few of my favorite pirate romances. All ones in which a heroine gets kidnapped by a rogue pirate. I can’t help but smile thinking of how much Brandon would scoff at this. How much my sisters would make fun of me. But Will doesn’t just support my love of historical fiction—he reenacts them.

I hear his footsteps thud against wood and then a door opening and closing again. The faintest amount of warm light floods through the fabric of my blindfold. Will slides me off his shoulder to the ground and holds my waist when I sway slightly from all the blood rushing from my head. He turns me toward him and then I feel his fingers tenderly brush against my face as he lowers the blindfold.

Again, I blink the world into focus. My breath catches.

We’re in a mostly empty house—except for all the things Will has clearly added. Warm twinkle lights all around the room. Candles lit inside the empty fireplace. And the most wonderful part—all different kinds of flowers strewn across the floor. A carpet of petals. A cloud of foliage. And surrounding it all, a cushy-looking pallet in the middle of the room.

Will takes my hand and when I look at him, wondering what this is all about, a piece of silver in his ear glints. I gasp. “You’re wearing an earring!”

He chuckles. “Just for tonight. And just for you. I’ll be your pirate, Annie.” He smiles and it’s so devious and sexy it makes my stomach swoop like a swinging ship. He takes my hands. “I couldn’t make it to the wedding today because the trademark of every good romance novel is a grand gesture. And I wanted to give you one.” He looks sort of shy and unsure as he gestures toward the room.

“Will…” I start, but he cuts me off, stepping closer and taking my face in his hands.

“Annabell, I need you to know, I’ve fallen madly in love with you.”

I hold still. “But you don’t believe in love.”

He brushes the back of his fingers affectionately over my jaw and down my throat. “It was easier to say I don’t believe in love, rather than admitting to myself that I was afraid I wouldn’t be loved back.”

I splay my hand over his chest. “Heartbreaking, Will. It’s impossible not to love you.”

He smiles and presses a finger to my lips, silencing me. “And then I called my brother, and as we talked, I realized that leaving this town without you was the scariest thought I’ve ever had. I need you in my life like I need air, Annie. You have wrecked me in the best way I could ever imagine, and I’ll never be the same. Never want to be the same.” He kisses my forehead. “I love you. And I know marriage is something that’s deeply important to you—and what you want is deeply important to me, so…marry me, Annie. No one else.”

I laugh as tears stream down my cheeks. Is this happening? It must be a dream.

“No,” I say with a huge smile while shaking my head. “I won’t marry you.”

He stares at me for a second, wondering if he’d heard me wrong because my expression and my words are in conflict. “You…won’t?”

Again, I can’t keep from laughing as joy spills out of me. I step up to Will and link my arms around his middle, angling my face up. The dark rim around his irises has never looked more dangerous. More compelling. More lovely.

“I love you, too, Will. I love you more than I thought possible to love anyone. And that’s why I won’t marry you.”

“Confusing.”

“Isn’t it?” I smile. “First, I want you to know that I heard you that night you explained why you’re hesitant to get married—and knowing all that I do about you now, I would never ask you to jump into something headfirst and just trust me. I don’t think that’s true love. In fact, it would be crappy of me to ask you to put all those fears aside for my happiness. And second,” I rise up to kiss him once softly on the mouth just because I need to. “I’m relearning who I am and why I love the things I do. So I’d like some time to do that before I decide to get married.” I kiss him again. “But what I do want is to have a relationship with you—to go day by day and earn your trust while you earn mine, and we figure out who we are in this messy life together. If you’re up for it?”

He grins. “I did already buy the truck.”

“It’s a great truck.”

“Are you sure, though? Because, Annie, if marriage is really what you want deep down…”

“I’ve never been surer of anything. Besides, Will…” I laugh. “I only met you a month ago! Even if I wanted to get married, I wouldn’t want a proposal this fast!”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Well, you are southern.”

“Not that southern.” And then I realize something as I gaze around the room he’s so thoughtfully sprinkled with flowers and lights and cozy blankets. “Wait. Whose house are we in?”

“Mine.”

“But you don’t have a house.”

“I do now,” he says matter-of-factly.

And back on the spinning teacup I go.

“Oh my gosh. I’ll pinch you, Wolf Boy!”

“Captain Blackheart.”

I poke him in the chest. “Tell me what’s going on! From beginning to end.”

He relents with an easy smile. “Well, technically the house is mine in thirty days once I’ve officially closed, but it’s pretty much mine already because Mary said it’s fine if I go ahead and move in. It’s been on the market for forever and needs a ton of work. Don’t look too closely at anything.”

“Willmont. You bought a house,” I say, turning away from him to admire the place with new understanding.

He laughs. “Yes. I bought a house, and I quit my job, and I’m not going to D.C., because I couldn’t. I didn’t want to anymore. I found roots in this incredibly frustrating town, and I don’t want to leave. I love it here. And I love you. And it sounds like a great new adventure to stay put somewhere—at least until we pick where to travel together first. Because I’m absolutely taking you all over the world.”

“You’re not a bodyguard anymore?”

“Executive protection agent.”

“Will!”

He smiles one huge smile, with those perfect brackets around his mouth. “No, I’m not an EPA anymore. But I am officially registered for the fall semester at Rome’s finest community college,” he says like it’s no big deal. Like this isn’t life changing. “I haven’t been able to get what you said out of my head that night when we talked on your couch. And I realized going back to school and earning my degree did sound pretty great—with the plans of…becoming a teacher when I graduate.”

Okay, but it’s adorable how embarrassed he looks all of a sudden. If there was a little rock in front of him, he’d kick it.

I touch my hand softly to his face with the wateriest smile I’ve ever had. “It makes sense. You’re a good teacher.”

He laughs. “But I think I’ll stick to teaching math or science from now on.”

“Probably smart.”

“Annie?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

I breathe in the smell of flowers and Will Griffin. My two favorite scents in the entire world. “I love you, too, Will.”

“So if you won’t marry me—will you be my girlfriend?” he says, dropping a kiss to the crook of my neck. “Before you answer, you should know that John is interested in you. At Hank’s the night we kissed he asked if we were serious, and I told him no and I’ve regretted it every single day since.”

Fireworks explode from my head. Hearts flood my eyes. My skin sparks from head to toe. “John who?”

“Good answer.” Will swoops me up in his arms and carries me to the pallet, where he sets me down and lies beside me. He trails his finger languidly over my collarbones in no rush—because…we’ve got time. Forever.

“Did I ever tell you why I never talked to you before that day in the alley?”

“No,” I say, feeling like I’m in a dream as I gaze up at Will bathed in the warm lights and smiling down at me like the secret to his happiness lives inside my bones.

“Because I knew once I did—it would be over for me. Some part of me has always known I would love you.”

“Stop,” I say, dragging out the word like I’m in pain and clutching my heart. “I can’t handle any more emotional declarations, or I will die of bliss.”

He smiles, dips his head to replace his finger with his lips, and murmurs against my skin. “There are worse ways to go. But I’d prefer you stick around. And I have several ideas of how we can fill our time.”

Will’s hand reaches under the pillow at my head and pulls something out. I laugh when I look down. He sets the book he stole from my room this morning onto my stomach and grins deviously at me. “I highlighted the portions you might be interested in reenacting. They will, of course, require you taking off your pretty dress. Here, let me help.”

I laugh until his mouth covers mine.

And no kiss has ever tasted this sweet.