“It won’t happen again?” He took a step toward her. She took a step back and found herself pressed against cold brick. “So if I say it again—if I tell you I have feelings for you—you’ll give me an honest reaction instead of freaking the fuck out?” He was looking at her like he couldn’t see anything else—like, if he tried to shift his gaze even a half inch to the right to stare at the brick, it physically wouldn’t work. Like she was a black hole and he couldn’t escape. Which wasn’t that far off how Abbie had always seen her own hunger for this man, except she’d never imagined he’d look so eager at the prospect of being swallowed. He was supposed to flinch away from this kind of intensity. Everyone else always had, and Will was the lightest, brightest person she’d ever known.

She cleared her dry throat and pressed her palms against the icy, rough brick to keep herself in the here and now when she felt like floating away. “Er … maybe?” She sounded so uncertain, and she hated it. But when she searched for her favourite unconcerned, ironic mask, she couldn’t find it. “I—just—Will. This whole thing is entirely out of the blue, and it doesn’t make sense.”

“There we go,” he said, and took another step toward her. “That’s what’s really bothering you, yeah? So say that, Abs. Just say that.” He took one final step, and they were chest to chest. She was trapped between the wall and his searching eyes, perfectly aware that she could push him away and he would go quite easily.

She didn’t.

“You panicked,” he said.

Her treacherous mouth was so used to being honest with him, it said “Yep,” before she could stop it.

He smiled, and it was like daybreak. “Wow. Well. I had no idea I could make Abbie Farrell panic.”

Her stomach folded up like hopeless origami. God, she loved his smile. “Don’t get too excited,” she told him sharply, because nothing about this conversation erased her need for control. She wouldn’t be a dick to him, but she wasn’t going to let him look at her like that, either.

Didn’t he know how dangerous it was to look at her like that?

“But I am excited, Abigail. Because I know you well enough to realise that you freaking out always means something.” He was seeing through her again in that way he had, like her forehead was transparent and her thoughts were scrawled out in glyphs only he could decipher with just a little effort. “I told you I have feelings for you, and you flipped your fuckin’ lid. What does that mean?”