Page 32 of The Time It Takes
“Does he silence all the loud thoughts in your head? Does he make you believe in it?”
Love.He didn’t have to say it.
“Does he make you want—”
Jesus. I had just started seeing the guy.
“I get the point,” I cut him off.
Oliver’s gaze fell toward the sand as he scooped some up into his palm, letting it escape through his fingers. “Then stop wasting your time.”
I fell back into the sand with a sigh. “I’m seventeen, that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
He balled his fist, trapping the sand inside. “Don’t waste it on him.”
“Ollie—”
“If you want to waste time, then if anything at all, waste it on…”
“You?” I teased, looking over at him with a smile, but it fell when I saw the look in his eyes.
When he looked down at me, his green eyes poured into mine and the intensity in them made my breath catch. “Yes, Will. Waste it all with me.”
I almost said yes. I almost whispered back to him,I’ll waste all my days with you, every damn second of them.
Instead, I said, “You’re so dramatic sometimes.”
I watched as he swallowed, and I wished I had said anything but that.
Finally, he forced a laugh, wiping a hand down his face. “I’m high.”
I smirked. “That too.”
He said nothing and minutes passed between us.
“You want to know something?” I asked.
He glanced over at me and dipped his chin.
“Sometimes I’m jealous of your heart,” I said quietly. His eyes bubbled with amusement, and I tried not to cringe at myself. “And your soul. I am impossibly average, and you’re…you’re one of the good ones. Why can't I find someone like you?”
Something shifted in his face, but it was gone too fast for me to catch it. “You’re good too.”
I shook my head as my life played back like a recorded TV show in my head. “Can’t you just take the compliment?”
“You compliment me.”
I pushed him gently with a strangled laugh. “Oh my God, you’re so lame.”
He watched me intently and for a moment I let him. For a moment I looked at my best friend and wondered if his lips tasted like the sea. If his hands felt like the tide that could carry me home. For a moment I—
“Willow,” he whispered, pulling me out of my dreamy thoughts.
It was the way he said my name that had me being thrown overboard and drowning. All the air had been pushed from my lungs and then I was freefalling because I believed wasting time with him was something I could do forever. I wanted to discuss this further. I wanted to hear how me looking at him like this made him feel. I wondered if when I wasn’t looking, he looked at me like this too.
I shook away the thought from my head. “Where were you all week?”
He licked his lips, his gaze somewhere far beyond the horizon. “I went on a business trip with my dad.”
