Hollywood Hills and Suburban Thrills

My eyelids felt especially heavy the next morning. I stretched, each of my stiff joints cracking and aching as I did so, before reeling back my eyelids slowly and gazing upward at the white ceiling of Will's bedroom.

He was still sleeping beside me, his breathing slow and steady, and I gazed at him for a moment. I wondered vaguely if what I was doing--going to New York, that is--was the right thing. I wouldn't give a moment like this away for anything, but in a matter of hours, I would be walking away from it of my own free will. I pondered my sanity for a short moment before Will took a deep breath and I involuntarily stopped thinking. A smile was forming on his face in his sleep and his arms tightened around me, pulling my body across the sheets and closer to him. He buried his face in my hair, his nose and lips against my neck, and he inhaled again.

"Dani," he murmured in his slumber, his mouth moving against my skin and I fought a shiver that threaten to rumble down my spine. He pressed closer again, repeating my name a couple more times, before he fell silent again and his breathing resumed it's fixed pattern.

I stared at him for another long moment, trying to ignore the goosebumps that were being raised on my arm as his index finger circled my hip bone through my shirt, progressively shifting the fabric away from area as he did so. I focus on his closed eyes and thought about what could be going on his that head of his. His face was completely relaxed. No signs of a distressful dream of nightmare was evident on his face. And the way he had been saying my name made it obvious that whatever was going on was nothing short of pleasurable.

Then, Will shifted again, moving his face so that it was near my collar bone and his lips connected to the hollow of my throat. The hand that had been circling my hip bone was now laying flat on my stomach, sending heat waves over that entire area of flesh. His lips continued to kiss around my throat until finally he was resting on the pillow beside me again, his face mere millimeters from my jaw.

He was still fast asleep; I could tell by how even his breathing still was. And then, he said, in a whisper so quiet I thought maybe I had imagined it, "I love you too,"

My stomach instantly fell to my knees and my eyes widened as I stared at his closed ones. There was still a small smile on his face, but it slid off and he was deep asleep again.

I turned my gaze to the ceiling above me, thoughts burning through my head like wild fire. He loves me? I found myself thinking repeatedly, the words not sinking in like I would've wanted to. He loves me?!

It was too much to think about while having to keep still. Quietly, stealthily, I twisted out of Will's warm embrace and tip toed out of the room, closing his bedroom door silently. And then, I bounded on my toes toward my room and shut the door to it quickly.

I paced in circles around my room, stopping only now and then to look disconnectedly out the window at the bright suburban morning sky. It was ten o'clock and my flight left at one. I berated myself for letting something like this ruin my morning like it just had, but I couldn't help my reaction. Had he really just said he loved me?

Am I the first one he's said that to? If not, how many other girls in his day as he said that to? Did he mean it or was it just a subconscious thought? What if I just imagined all of this and he said something completely different? Olive juice?

I was getting ridiculous and I had to face the fact: Will had said that he loves me. But do I love him back?

Something panged in my stomach as I suddenly realized something. He had said 'I love you too'. My pacing quickened and I was almost trotting around my room as I pondered. But the only way for him to say 'I love you too' is if I had said...

I stopped dead in my tracks, my eyes widening and my jaw dropping open as the blurred memory of the previous night came flashing back to me in high definition.

"I love you," I had said last night, delirious and half asleep. That had been why he was looking so shocked when I glanced out him before I konked out. That's why he said 'too'. Should I be freaking out like this?

I started pacing again, but when I turned sharply on my heel and stubbed my toe on my bed frame, I decided maybe it would be best if I sat down and thought this through.

My head hit the pillow and I stared up at the ceiling, fiddling with the comforter absent mindedly.

It was true; I did feel more for Will than I had for any other guy in my life. He was sweet, smart, funny, genuine, caring and generous, talented, and not to mention adorable. Who wouldn't want a guy like Will?

Then another unsettling emotion set into my stomach. Any girl on earth would kill to have a guy like Will (or even Will himself), and here I was, questioning his emotion for me. I narrowed my eyes in detest for myself. I'm blowing this whole thing way out of proportion, I decided as I wiped my bangs out of my face. But the fear and anxiety was still there. So I chose to let him bring it up again because I sure as well was too much of a coward to do so.

And I hated myself for that.

I lay in my bed, silently mulling over my own thoughts, when the door to my room opened slowly. Will was poking his head in when I looked up and I couldn't help but smile at him.

"Morning beautiful," he says with a bright smile as he shut the door behind him and walked to where I lay. I twitched my eyes away from him and back to the ceiling. The way he was looking at me made the chemicals in my blood seem stronger—like a poison pumping through my veins.

He hopped onto the bed to bed beside me, making my bounce slightly where I lay but I didn't switch my gaze. My stomach trembled with the fear of not knowing what emotion might lie in those chocolate eyes that I could feel were staring at me. I still did not dare look at them.

Since I was lying on my back and Will had settled on his belly, I shouldn't have jumped when I felt his arm slide across me, hitching around my hip to pull me closer to him on the mattress. I tried in vain to keep my head clear, but his breath on my neck was making hard work of that.

"What're you thinking about?" he asks after a long moment of planting kisses on my jaw line.

I blinked, debating on what I should tell him, and then replied, "A lot of different things actually," His silence told me that he was doing one of two things: thinking or waiting for me to continue. Against my attempts not to, I looked over at him, and I saw all the emotions I wished I would never see: confusion, nervousness, and a little bit of hurt. But once I was looking into them, I couldn't look away, and I knew I couldn't hold my thoughts in for much longer.

His eyebrows furrowed. "What kind of things?" he prods, sitting up on one elbow, his other arm still keeping me close. I tore my eyes away viciously, switching to the comforter that was beneath us. Will sighed, and something in my chest twinged; that sigh showed that Will knew what was going on in my mind.

"Dani, last night you said you loved me," he says, his voice scarce of any emotion, but I could still feel his eyes on me, and I met his gaze slowly, gulping and not replying. He gaze one long blink and then sighed impatiently. "I’m having a hard time understanding you, Dani."

This conversation had suddenly taken an odd turn and I couldn't voice a response so I quirked an eyebrow instead. He smiled slightly, but it looked somewhere strained, and I wasn't convinced that this conversation was going to get better any time soon. He took on hand in mine and ran a thumb over my knuckles slowly. "Any other girl on the face of the earth would gladly talk about their pent up feelings, but here you are, bottling it up and blocking me out."

How can he say he was having a hard time understanding me when he obviously read me like an open book? I still didn't say anything, only stared into his eyes.

"Dani, I would trust you with anything. There isn't a doubt in my mind about that; but I can't quite grasp why you can't do the same?"

The response was boiling out of my heart and was behind my teeth before I could have second thought about it. And then, I said it out loud.

"I'm afraid,"

His eyes, which had been gentle and cajoling, were now perplexed.

"I'm terrified of trusting anyone more than is needed. I've trusted in the past and it's lead to nothing, and if it ever did lead to something, that something was always agony." He was listening to me as I poured the deepest, darkest contents of my soul in front of him, and the whole time he kept a straight face, never looking about to interrupt. His eyes never left mine. "But then I met you…" I trailed off when I felt his hands tighten around my fingers, "and I knew that you would be different. And I want to trust you and I want to know that you're not going to be like everyone else in my life. Like my mom or my dad or any of them. I want you to be different just like I believed you would be when I first looked at you."

He stayed silent for a long moment, not letting his gaze leave mine, and when he didn't answer, hurt infiltrated my heart immediately. I had let down my guard to him, I'd let him in, and he had just done what I had hoped—prayed—he would never do: say nothing. This must've been what it felt like that night on the beach when he kissed me. But this is unlike that night in one way: this hurt worse.

I rolled away from him, eyes prickling, and made to get off the bed, but his hands tightened around mine again and he pulled me back to face him, cutting my protest off short by kissing me gently.

"Dani, I'm not anything like your parents were, or are, for that matter," he whispers to me, wiping away a traitor tear that was slipping down my cheekbone. "It would kill me to see you in any form of pain by my doing. Just seeing you here beneath me with those tears in your eyes is breaking my heart."

"Will, do you--…"

He cut me off. "Dani, please, trust me. I won't ever hurt you. Ever."

I gave a watery smile. "I know you won't, but Will, do--…"

Once again, I was cut short.

"Please, stop crying. Dani, why are you smiling?"

He gave me an odd glance when he saw that I was giving him a small grin.

"Will, do you remember that night after we got together? That night that I granted you one chance to win my trust?" He still appeared bewildered as he nodded and I continued. "This was your one chance." His befuddled mask broke into one of devastation, until I smiled at him, that is. "I'll give you an B-,"

Rolling his eyes, he nestled his face into my neck and mumbled, "I don't get you at all." He placed a few kisses on my cheek before looking me in the eye again. "And I think that's one of the many things I love about you."

I smiled sardonically at him. "I love you too,"