Page 76 of Dare Me

Smiling, he knew his aunt loved to chat, but if he was going to leave town for a few days, there were things he needed to do.

“Tell you what, I’ll take you to dinner tomorrow night and I’ll show you pictures and tell you all about it. How does that sound?”

“Like I’m a terrible aunt who couldn’t help you when you needed it,” she said with a small huff.

“Nonsense. You’re the best, and I can’t wait to see you tomorrow night.”

“Safe travels, Will, and please let me know when you land safely.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Once he hung up, he immediately finished booking his flight. There was one that would depart at 5:30 in the morning and the airport was an hour away, so…he would not get much sleep tonight—or any sleep. Rather than obsess about that, he paid for the ticket and downloaded everything onto his phone and then went about getting laundry done and packing.

He texted Liam at around midnight to let him know he had a situation that he had to take care of and he’d be gone for several days. Calling him wasn’t an option because he wasn’t in the mood to talk and he hoped his friend was asleep and wouldn’t get the text until morning. When there was no reply, Will felt himself breath a bit easier.

Next, he emailed Liam some of the designs he’d worked on so he could look them over and see if there were any modifications he wanted to add or any tweaks he saw that were needed. Either way, he wasn’t leaving him in a lurch by going out of town. There was so much to do and with some of the design plans in hand, he knew work could go on without him while he was gone.

Once that was done, he crawled into bed and stared up at the ceiling. He would have to leave for the airport no later than three a.m. so that meant he could grab a two-hour nap. It wasn’t much, but it was probably a smart thing to do.

If his brain would just shut up for a little while.

He was packed, he’d handled the business stuff, and handled all the travel needs—flights, rental car, and hotel. Everything was good to go.

You didn’t tell Arianna.

Yeah. That.

The last thing he wanted to do was start a dialogue with her at this hour and there wouldn’t be time before he left, so…

Groaning, he knew he’d have to send her a text before the plane took off and then have to wait until he landed in California to respond.

With his arm draped over his eyes, he cursed the fact that tonight of all nights they had to fight. It was bound to happen. Every couple fights once in a while. It was just the timing of it that sucked.

Although cowardly on his part, it made it easier for him to pack up and leave for a few days. He was a firm believer that a little time apart could be a good thing. And not being able to see each other to talk was possibly even better.

Still, he missed her already.

Their entire relationship had been as untraditional as you can get, but it didn’t matter to him.

She did.

He wanted to take care of her and protect her and encourage her to let the world see how fierce and amazing she was.

“Kind of hard to do that when I’m barely allowed to even acknowledge her,” he murmured.

Thinking like this was getting him nowhere and he really needed a couple of hours of sleep so he could make it to the airport on time. He’d have plenty of time to think on the plane and hopefully by the time he had everything worked out with the storage company and was back at his hotel for the night, he and Arianna could talk things through.

Chapter Twelve

“Okay, you can totally slug me, but…you look like hell. Are you okay?”

Yeah, those were the first words Liam said to her when he picked her up for lunch on Monday.

The jerk.

With a half-hearted shove, she forced herself to smile. “Thanks for pointing it out. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Wrapping his arm around her, he led her over to his truck. “Then it’s a good thing I’m here to make sure you eat a good lunch and maybe get you to drink something caffeinated.”

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