Page 69 of The Problem with Falling
She placed her hand in mine, and I pulled her to her feet. We walked to the dance floor as a slow song was playing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Peter down his whiskey, then head back to the bar for another.
As Willow and I made it to the dance floor, she wrapped her arms around my neck, and I placed my hands against her hips. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I’d never slow danced with a woman before. But something about Willow made it seem effortless. It was as if my feet knew where to go, and she followedme without any thought behind it. Her eyes stayed on me the whole time, along with that soft smile against her full lips.
“Thank you,” she whispered, tilting her head up to meet my stare.
“Have you two spoken since the incident?”
“No. I’ve been going out of my way to avoid him.”
“So I guess you and I have something in common,” I joked. She smiled still, but it looked a little sad. “What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing, I just…” She lowered her head. “I’ve been thinking about what Peter said. How I was coming onto him. How I was putting out signals. Maybe it was my fault, and I overreacted. Maybe I came on too strong or seemed flirty, and he just read the signs wrong. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe I was too much at the beginning.”
“Do you do that often?”
“Do what?”
“Overthink everything.”
She nodded. “Oh yes. I’m a professional overthinker. If there were an Olympic medal for it, I’d take gold.”
“I’d probably give you a good run for your money.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “You’re an overthinker, too?”
“When you talk as little as I do, all there’s left to do is overthink.”
“Hmph.” She kept swaying with me. Was this dancing? Was I a dancer? “I just thought when you were quiet, you were thinking about fishing.”
“To be fair, that is ninety-five percent of my thoughts.”
She laughed.
I loved the sound.
“You didn’t do anything wrong with Peter,” I told her. “He’s always been like that. You could’ve been as disinterested as ever, and he would’ve assumed you were playing hard to get.”
“Noted. I’ll remind my overthinking mind of that repeatedly,” she said. I smiled. “If you could do that more often, I’d be forever grateful.”
“Smile?”
“Yeah. They look good on you.”
I wondered if she knew she was the reason I’d been doing the smiling thing more often. I shifted in my shoes. “Grandma and PaPa seem happy today.”
“That’s all I wanted. I know things have been hard for them both…speaking of, how are you doing with Harry’s health?”
I frowned. I parted my mouth to speak, but no words came out. The sting of emotions behind my eyes burned slightly.
Willow stopped her movements. She placed a hand against my chest, against my heartbeats. “It’s okay, Theo,” she whispered. “I can tell when some things are too hard to speak about.”
I nodded. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Thank you for sharing.”
I huffed out a chuckle. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You said a lot. You just didn’t use words.”
