Matched(26)

Will twenty billion, Lindsey zero.

Again.





Chapter Eleven



LINDSEY WAS SCARCER than snowflakes in a Georgia summer on Saturday. Will didn't hear her get up, didn't hear her leave, didn't know when she was fixin' to come back.

So he called Mikey and got scarce too, settling in for working on some songs at Dahlia's house.

Dahlia.

Mikey's not-bad match, according to all that stuff Lindsey wouldn't say. Will wondered if Mikey had figured that out. Probably not. Probably wouldn't want to know either. Still, Mikey had spent more than a normal amount of time with Dahlia this week.

Her house was across the street from Vera's final resting place, so Will stopped and said a few words. Wanted to cross the yellow tape, go digging, see for himself if he could find any of her strings, but Mikey pulled him over to Dahlia's sparsely furnished ranch before Will got into places he wasn't supposed to go.

"Dahlia's a little tight on money right now," Mikey said. "She runs this funky ice cream shop in downtown Bliss. Has a dirty flavor tasting next Saturday. We should go."

Huh. Mikey was acting nervous. Like a girl.

"Holy shee-ite," Will breathed. "Girl's got you smittened."

"Shove it, Billy," Mikey grunted. "You comin' for ice cream or not?"

Lindsey had nailed this one.

Will's heart triple-timed it on a two-beat rhythm. "Miss seeing your ass mooning over a girl? Never. Be like hiding from the show at the end of the world."                       
       
           



       

Lindsey was better than she would admit. Maybe she could see the good matches too.

Or maybe Dahlia had heard Lindsey pegged her as a not-bad match for Mikey and was taking advantage of the situation. "She using you?" Will asked.

"Don't talk shit about shit you don't know anything about," Mikey growled. "Dahlia's good people. I'm getting tickets. Telling everyone you're going. She needs a boost. Shut up and be there."

Will grinned and pulled out his Yamaha. "Sure thing, Mikey boy."

They worked until Mikey had to disappear and meet someone at The Milked Duck-named by Dahlia's great-aunt, Agnes Mallard, Mikey said-and then Will went to check on Wrigley.

Saturday night, Lindsey was still hiding out somewhere. Mikey was hanging with Dahlia, so Will took himself over to Bliss and went to Suckers. Pepper was there, along with the odd but strangely adorable Kimmie Elias. When Will assured Kimmie that his management had sent him to anti – mind-control training, and that he wouldn't let her mother brainwash him into marrying Kimmie so her mother could get her hands on his money, she talked about freaky fortune cookies instead of her dreams about Will creating a turtle-rito, whatever that was.

All in all, not a bad night. And the food was pretty decent.

When he got to Lindsey's house, he found a note on his guitar saying that Wrigley went out for potty shortly before 10, but nothing else.

After dinner last night, and that near-kiss, and watching Lindsey love on Wrigley, living in the bedroom she'd decorated special for her nephew, and now hearing stories from Pepper and Kimmie about what Lindsey had done for Natalie and CJ and various other people around town, it was clear the lady was more than a divorce lawyer with a secret gift for matchmaking.

To hear her friends and family talk, she was sounding more and more like the girl he'd fallen in love with.

But she didn't show him that part of her. Not today.

Then, he'd known she had secrets. But she'd still let him in.

I love you, she'd whispered in the dark, skin to skin, body to body, heartbeat to heartbeat.

He'd heard her.

Not just once.

He'd felt it too, in the stroke of her hand, the brush of her lips, the burn of her gaze when she'd led him across that final bridge from boyhood to manhood.

She'd loved him.

Of course, her dumping his ass cold the next night, talking into that microphone for all the tavern to hear, on a stage where he'd sang her a song from his heart and proclaimed his undying love for her, that hadn't been love. That had been hell to recover from. Took him months to be able to look at a microphone again.

But she'd had something that had been missing from all the girls he'd known growing up: big dreams, confidence in her smarts, her acceptance that he wasn't the bookish type she was, and a desire to spend time with him anyway.

An unwavering belief in his dreams for him, right until that moment onstage.

You can do it, Will. You're amazing. You need a plan and a little courage, but one day, you'll be a superstar.

He'd thought fifteen years was enough to let go of how they'd ended, but the memory of loving her so hard, so deep, of believing she loved him too and then doing a complete one-eighty, kept nipping at him. It bugged him all of Saturday night on into Sunday morning. She'd slipped out of the house early again. Mikey had texted a do-not-disturb-except-in-case-of-dire-emergency message, which Will took to mean he was planning to score with Dahlia-poor girl-and which meant today would be another day of just him and his dog.

But by late morning, Wrigley had used up all his energy and was snoring by the fireplace, and Will wanted a human to talk to. He knew Suckers was open, and they had good food.

Plus, going there again fed the rumors that he was camped in Bliss rather than one town over.

And it wouldn't ruin his day if Lindsey was there.

This early on a Sunday, the place was brighter and near empty. Lindsey wasn't there, but Natalie and her little boy were. The lights were high and the music was low while she swung her foot and flipped through a dress catalog. She looked his way when he approached.

"Well, hey, Billy," Natalie said. "Pull up a seat. You hungry?"

Will nodded.

Noah sat on the ground near her, singing to himself and playing with dinosaurs dressed in pink and holding baseball bats. Lindsey had mentioned the little boy's dress fascination and his dinosaur obsession over dinner Friday night, and it wasn't hard to see why she'd talked about her nephew with a big smile. Kid was cute.

CJ popped out of the kitchen. "How you doin', man?" he said to Will.                       
       
           



       

"Getting by. Y'all enjoying married life?"

CJ and Natalie grinned at each other, and Will's heart gave a hollow thump. He'd always thought he'd get the wife and kids while making it big would fade into a dream. Instead, he'd made it big and now wondered if he'd ever get a family of his own.

"It's okay," Natalie said.

"I was gonna say fair," CJ said, but they were grinning bigger at each other.

"Y'all make a good burger?" Will said. "Could go for some of them cheese fries too."

Natalie and CJ shared another one of them looks happy couples could pull off.

"Lucky you, the cook's here," Natalie said. "CJ's idea of gourmet is putting Spam on a plate, and the burning water gene runs deep in my side of the family. Which you've probably already figured out."

Huh. Now that she mentioned it, he hadn't seen Lindsey cook much more than breakfast.

"Burger and fries, coming right up," CJ said.

He went to the kitchen. Natalie tossed her short, dark hair and gave Will a speculative look. "Did you really take a dog into Lindsey's house?"

Now there was an interesting topic to discuss with her sister. "Those two are soul mates."

"You're a handful, aren't you?"

"Goes with being this irresistible." Will grinned at Noah. "Bet he is too."

Natalie gave the little boy behind her an indulgent smile. "Most days." She peered closer at him. "Noah, did you have an accident?"

Will glanced back again too. The kid had a wet streak all down the front of his shirt.

"Mo-om," Noah said. "I don't have accidents. I use the toilet." He grinned big. "I even wipe myself."

Will nodded. "Me too, man. Me too."

"I meant with your drink," Natalie said. She grabbed a handful of napkins and pressed them to Noah's chest and belly.

"Are you married?" Noah asked Will while the boy was getting wiped down.

"Nope," Will told him.

"Are you going to get married? My mommy makes pretty dresses. If you ask nice, she'll-"

"Oh, no!" Natalie lunged for a glass next to a coloring book and crayons, scooped out some ice, and tossed it on the floor. "Meteors are attacking your dinosaurs! Run, dinosaurs, run!"

Noah scrambled to his feet. His laughter echoed off the walls, "Oh, no!" he wailed in a falsetto voice. "Meteor-droids!" He took off skipping around the tables, making his dinosaurs fly.

Natalie brushed her hair off her forehead and slid onto her stool. "Kids," she said with a wry smile. "We're working on teaching him not everything in real life revolves around weddings, but it's tough, living here."

"Imagine so," Will said.

CJ reappeared with a glass of water for Will. "He ask if you want Nat to make you a dress?" he asked.

"No, honey," Natalie said in that sing-song, you're-in-trouble voice. "Meteors attacked his dinosaurs first."

"Guess you lucked out," CJ said with an unrepentant grin. "Get you anything else to drink?"