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No matter what.
“I feel like it can’t be true, what you just said,” Wil replied. “I’m thinking your life goes your way more or less all the time.”
Cy grinned at her. “It’s pretty good, but I want to complain about this.” Cy turned his attention to Katie, pointing across the plane at her and raising his voice so she’d hear him. “Katie Price! You’ve known this woman the whole time!”
“Yes and no,” Katie said. “It’s complicated.”
“No,” Cy said and laughed. “It’s not.”
He met Wil’s eyes, and Wil did, in fact, at leastfeelwhat he had seen. Because even though this was Cy Newhouse, and she, along with millions of other people, had been arresting on the vision of his oiled, naked body in athletic shoe ads for many years, what she’d found out in the last half hour was that he was amazing to talk to. Insightful, kind, and funny.
Cy was very good friends with Katie. In fact, he and Katie had already made New Year’s plans, as they did every year when Katie was home and the Packers’ schedule put Cy in Green Bay.
Wil hadn’t known that. But she liked it.
Even more, she liked realizing that she, herself, would love for Cy Newhouse to become a friend.
In the years since she’d moved back to Green Bay, Wil had grown close to Beanie. She had a big network of hometown people from growing up who were glad to see her or meet her for a drink. She’d had housemates—so many housemates—who had been the usual mix of fantastic and cringe, and a lot of them were still people to grab a meal with or catch up with periodically. Doing her job, she often met people she liked, and she had coworkers she was friendly with. But she, Wil Greene, famously social, hadn’t eventriedto make real friends. Deep friends. Ride-or-die friends.
What’s more, it hadn’t been on her list.
Yet it turned outCyhad been wanting to stand across from her in her living room and let her kiss him.
Wil would have absolutely kissed Cy Newhouse. Before.
The entire last thirty-six hours had felt like no time and endless all at once. Then she was in a car with Katie, being driven to a private hangar at the Green Bay airport while finishing a conversation she’d barely started with Beanie over text in which Beanie was trying to be supportive and not worried while Wil was also trying not to freak out because Katie wasn’t herself.
Or, at least, she wasn’t the Katie who Wil was familiar with. Maybe this Katie was perfectly herself, and Wil hadn’t met her yet. Which was fine. Except the tight feeling in her belly didn’t think it was fine. It thought Katie not being herself was a reason to be as worried as Beanie that Wil was flying with Katie to Los Angeles because it was the only way to know if…
It was the only way to know what they needed to know.
All of that was a lot to keep up with, and they hadn’t even closed the plane door yet. But Wil kept checking in with herself, and except for being worried about Katie not being entirelyKatieenough, Wil kept discovering she was good. Better than good.
She hadn’t felt thisinterestedin her own life for so long.
Looking into Cy’s pretty blue eyes, Wil smiled. Cy had famously told the press he would leave the NFL when he met his true love, which had earned him the nickname “Cynderella.”
“I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think I’m your Prince Charming,” she told him.
“Damn it.” Cy studied Wil’s face for a moment. “No, yeah, I think you’re right.” He put his palm over his heart. “Stings, though. I’ve been nurturing a serious Wil-You-or-Won’t-You crush for ages. But fill me in.” Cy leaned forward. “You’ve known each other and not known each other this whole time? Because if I’d hadany idea there was someone out there who made Katie let down her guard this much, I would have played matchmaker so hard.”
“We’ve known each other our whole lives. But parallel.” Wil gestured a side-by-side trajectory with her hands. “Then, senior year, something happened.”
Cy took Wil’s hands and smashed them together. “Something like that?”
Wil laughed. “Then, we didn’t really see each other or talk for thirteen years, until last week.”
Cy leaned back and crossed his ridiculously long legs. “You two must have had a lot to say your senior year.” He held up his hand when Wil started to try to fill in more. “You don’t have to. This is the kind of thing Iget. The media likes to play, but I’m serious. When I find my person, then That. Is. What. I’m. For. I don’t want anything else taking first place.” He aimed his million-dollar smile at Wil. “So what are you doing now that you’ve found her?”
“I’m making her take me home with her. I’ve cashed in all of my vacation, sick, and PTO time at work, but I don’t think I’m coming back. To my job, I mean. I couldn’t tell you, right now, what LA will be for me in any kind of long term.”
“You’re scattering her defensive line.” Cy nodded. “It’s not as deep as she thinks it is. But I think you already know that.” He put his big hand on Wil’s shoulder, squeezed it, and smiled.
Wil smiled back, but her heart had done a flip. He made it sound simple. He made it sound like the story of Katie and Wil was always going to end the same way.
She hoped so.
The flight attendant, an adorable, auburn-haired white person who had introduced themself as “Mace, nonbinary, they-them,” emerged from the cockpit, and Cy waved and began sauntering in their direction. Katie and Angela were sitting together, their heads bent toward each other, looking at pictures on Katie’s phone whileKatie told Angela something about her California garden and an avocado tree. Wil watched as Joel Starr leaned down to kiss Angela on the temple and said something quiet in her ear.