Aly covered her sketch like she was trying to undo it.
“But I think what people hear is that I can’t make the decisions necessary to do it.” Will rolled his eyes.
“You don’t seem to have an issue with making decisions and bossing people around,” she muttered.
He tossed his head back and laughed.
“Sorry, but it’s true.”
He let out another bark of a laugh before clearing his throat. “Exactly. It’s never been the issue.”
Aly leaned forward and crossed her arms, covering her designed completely. But he reached out and pulled the pad from below her elbows. He studied it again, this time understanding exactly what it was, seeing how the colors blended and pulled in the edges while not overwhelming the room. This woman was more talented than he realized.
“When my mom was around, the kitchen was where we all congregated. We’d talk around the island, play games at the table. This was where we came together.” Will frowned thoughtfully. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized Beth had used her kitchen in the same way. His might have been the shrine to the idea, but Beth’s continued the practice without being locked in the past.
He shook his head. Moving on meant change.
“I’d love to see how you’d redesign it. But I want it to be the heart of the home.” He unfisted his hand and ran his fingers along the knotted wood of the table. The one place that had been a constant in his life. “And the table stays.”
“It’s pretty.”
“My grandfather made it. Ninety percent of the furniture he made is in Grant’s house, but he made my parents this table as a wedding present.”
“He made it?” Aly asked, studying the table more closely. “Like from scratch or from a kit?”
Will chuckled. “Scratch. And he would have loved you. People who worked with their hands were his favorite type.”
Her gray eyes flicked from the table to him before she glanced away again.
“Do the whole room.” It left his mouth as an order, and he winced. “Would you mind? Doing the whole room? Like show me what you’d do. Work around this.” He tapped his finger on the table. “And this.” He tapped her sketch.
Aly shrugged. “I’ve been seeing it in my mind for days. I’d be happy to draw it out for you.”
Will relaxed against the back of his chair. “How’d you get started with this?”
“So complicated.” She pressed her lips together in a wry smile. “I’ve always drawn stuff. Art was my favorite class.” She pulled back and examined her nails but didn’t go on.
Will reached out, stopping her. He used his other hand to tilt her chin so she was forced to look at him. He could accept that he wasn’t allowed to toss her onto the table and fuck her. He got that they shouldn’t complicate things further, but he wouldn’t let her put up walls between them. “How’d you end up on the show?”
She blew a breath out through her plump lips. “My mom. She applied for me. I had done some tile work for art club at school and for a couple of community things. I went to trade school after graduation, and I was doing well. But she thought I was destined for more.” Aly looked away for a long moment before turning back to him. “My mom always thought I was headed for greatness. Not in the stage mom way. Just in the ‘Aly, you were born to be awesome’ way.”
“But you didn’t want it?”
She tilted her head from side to side. “I wanted consistency. My mom was the queen offor now. It was fun sometimes.” A hint of a smile pulled at her lips. “Like when I got to miss school to travel with the renaissance fair so mom could sell jewelry. But like with everything else, she got sick of it after a few weeks.” Aly shrugged. “Then I was back at school and way behind in math. She was always that way. Flitting from one thing to the next. When you said Andy clung to consistency? I get it, Will. I craved it too. And as hard as it is to be on the show—the schedule, the call times, the demands—I’ve flourished in that environment because my home life has always been chaos.”
Before his eyes, Aly shrank, like she was once again that confused little girl. She struggled with her brother more than he did because she never had an example of what a good parent looked like. What consistency looked like.
“I hate chaos,” he admitted, pulling her attention back to him. “My parents were the definition of chaos. In a lot of ways, I had the perfect childhood, but I hated the craziness of having so many siblings. Not to mention the athletes who often stayed with us. I used to daydream about living alone for the rest of my life just so I could make sure nothing was cluttered or loud.”
Aly chuckled and scanned the room with a warm smile on her face. “You’ve achieved the anti-clutter goal.”
“My house is streamlined,” he agreed.
“I wondered if you didn’t have much stuff at first, but I realize now that everything has a place.”
He grinned. “Exactly.”
Aly’s stomached growled, catching his attention, and Will pushed back from his chair. “We should eat.”