Page 119 of Whatever It Takes
Garrison’s eyes soften like he’s trying to understand me. “Would it be bad if I touched you?”
I can hardly look up at him, my gaze dropping to the floor. “Um…” I swallow. “I don’t think so. It’ll just be new, and sometimes new things are frightening.” My heart thuds so hard and so fast.
“Willow,” he murmurs.
I look up, our eyes lock, and he sets his hands on my shoulders. I hold in a breath. His palms—they slideslowlyto my biceps, his skin heating my skin, and then they slip around me, to my back. He draws me tenderly to his chest.
My feet just barely cooperate and step closer.
Garrison leans his head down, his jaw skimming my cheek, his arms wrapped around me, and mine hang uncertainly.
He helps me. He lifts one of my hands and places it on his waist. I follow with the other. My touch is feather-light, but he doesn’t seem to care.
Garrison pulls me tighter, his body warm and comforting. In comparison, mine is awkward and stiff. He holds the back of my head, and his breath tingles my ear as he whispers, “This okay?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, so softly.
“You’re shaking.” He draws his head back, just a fraction, and I realize my arms and legs are trembling, out of anxiety.
“It’s just a lot…not bad.” I wish I could express my feelings better, but maybe that’s the problem. So much has suddenly poured through me, so many foreign sentiments, that my system is basically overloading.
Willow Moore at approximately 115% capacity. Delete or reboot.
I don’t want to delete anything with him.
Before he speaks, I ask, “Am I hurting you?” My hands are barely pressing on his ribs, but I just want to make sure.
“No.” He pauses. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.”
He nods a couple times again. Then he lets me go, his arms falling—then mine do too, but he never takes a step back. I worry about the second hug, now that the first has ended. I wonder if I’ll grow used to this embrace in time.
“Will you alert me?” I ask him. “Next time you hug me again?”
“By plane banner and smoke in the sky.”
“I don’t think I’ll be looking up.”
He nearly smiles but feigns surprise. “You’d miss an aerial ad? No way.”
His sarcasm isn’t the mean kind. It pulls my lips higher.
Garrison never takes his eyes off me. “Willow,” he says in a quiet, calm moment, “can I hug you again?”
My chest swells. “Yeah.”
Garrison wraps his arms around me once more, and my arms almost stop trembling. His lips to my ear, he whispers, “How was that alert?”
“Perfect.” I try to relax a little more.
He rubs my back, his hand soothing as it travels in a short up and down wave. And he says, “Thanks for inviting me.”
I look up at him. “You were already invited to the party.”
“Not by you.”
This is the day, the very moment, that I realize how much Garrison Abbey is glad to be in my company. Mine.
