Page 105 of Love Expert

“Because I’m sick to death of watching you two spin in circles.” With a smug swagger, he wanders across the diner and slides onto the stool beside Devina. “I wouldreallylove some of that coffee.”

“Here.” Brienne slaps the coffee pot onto the counter. Then she searches her apron pockets and snatches out a straw, still in its paper wrapping. “Now shush.” She swings beautiful eyes back to Billy. “Talk. Now.”

“I-I’d actually rather you didn’t?—”

“I don’t want you to sell your house and leave Plainview.” Billy remains a full twenty feet away, his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands on his hips. It feels like I haven’t seen him in months… years… though in reality, I see him every single day. I sit in my house and watch him and Jeremy leave for school in the mornings, or I hang around in my backyard in the afternoons and wait for them to come outside and play. I can’t let even a single day go by where I don’t see them at least once, but that doesn’t stop me from studying his unshaven jaw now, and the muscles flexing behind the short stubble. Or his lips, thick in all the right ways. Kissable…

God, why didn’t I appreciate those few times I got to kiss them?

He draws a long breath, filling his chest and looking me up and down. “I was trying to keep to myself. To let you live your life and, if you chose to stay, then great, but if you wanted to leave, I wouldn’t stop you.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“But I can’t do that anymore. I can’t sit by and watch you climb into your car again, never truly knowing if that would be the last time you drove away.” He takes a single step forward. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I—”

“Jeremy doesn’t want you to go. Ollie and Rose and Eliza and Alanaand Ramone and all our friends…” He shakes his head. “None of them want you to go.”

“Billy—”

“I’ve been in love with you since I was eight years old, Magnolia. I loved others in that time, and I don’t regret the love I gave them, but I never let you go. Not once in all my fuckin’ life.”

“Ahem.” Elson clears his throat, glaring and tipping his head toward his wife. “Language, please, son.”

“No, I wanna hear what he has to say,” she adds cheerfully. “Go on.”

Billy’s eyes, wide and round, swing back to mine. “Magnolia… you’re fired.”

“I…” My stomach drops. “What?”

“As my love expert.” He takes another step closer. “I don’t want you to set me up with anyone else ever again. I don’t want to go out on another first date for the rest of my f—” He looks toward Elson’s table and reconsiders. “Effing life. I don’t want to meet another woman and explain to her she’s wasting her time, because I’m head over heels, stupidly in love with my next-door neighbor. I don’t want to risk hurting her feelings, because she’d done her hair and makeup and slipped into a pair of sexy heels just for me, because do you wanna know what, Magnolia? Telling a woman who did all the things, dressed up for a date, and then drove an entire hour out of her way to see me, that I’m not interested is risky.” He lowers his hands, covering his crotch. “Really, really risky.”

Snickering, Brienne turns and hitches herself up to sit on the counter.

“You set those dinners up, and in one case, you cooked and created a picnic basket for us?—”

“Actually.” Brienne raises her hand. “I prepped the basket. Maggie was crazy busy that day, so I packed a bunch of stuff up for her so she wouldn’t have to do it when she got home.”

“You just…” He looks between the two of them. Brienne and Devina. Brienne and Devina. “You both lied, so we’re gonna deal with that shortly. But for now.” He shifts his eyes back to me. “Devina and I ate from that basket and talked about you the whole damn time, Magnolia.”

Devina nods. “He’s kinda obsessed with you. Shook my confidence a little.”

Billy swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the action. “My son has cried himself to sleep too many times lately, because even though you never stopped spending time with him, he felt the shift between us anyway. He fell head over heels in love with the beautiful witch next door,and then he told his dead mother all about how he’d trade me for you in a heartbeat?—”

“Billy…” I shake my head. “No. He wouldn’t.”

He barks out a loud laugh. “Uh, yeah. He actually would. He shouted it in my face on the weekend while you were selling all your shit at a yard sale.”

“I’m not actually?—”

“He wished you were his mom, too, because then you’d be stuck and you wouldn’t be able to leave him.”

“Oh God.” I choke out a sobbing breath. “I’m not?—”

“He said he wished I had died, instead of Aria. And I know he didn’t mean it,” he adds quickly, lifting a single hand in a stop-motion. “He apologized right away, and then he felt awful. He got that DNA from me, Magnolia. Those genes that would have him emotionally spiral and spout off unkind words in the heat of the moment. But he’s already better than me, so much better, because he’s only eight, and he knows when to admit he’s wrong, and right after that, how to apologize and make things better.”

“He learned those thingsbecauseof you,” I rasp. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”