Grant shook his head. “I’m not his daddy.”
“Mm-hm.” She lowered her voice, nuzzling against Crash’s fur. “We know the truth, don’t we, Crash?”
Grant headed into the kitchen, and Jules went out to the truck to get her purse and their packages from yesterday. When she returned, she handed him the cat toys and said, “You should give them to him.”
He rolled his eyes and looked at Crash, who was rubbing against Jules’s leg, looking at Grant like he wasn’t part of their secret club. “Here you go, buddy.” He tossed the catnip mouse and ball on the floor, and Crash ran after them.
While he made breakfast, Jules set out the frames and the knobs for the island—the yellow flower that she’d shown him, the gold knob with colored glass that he’d been admiring, and two of the ugliest, cheapest plastic knobs he’d ever seen. One blue, one white.
He cocked a brow, and they both laughed.
“How was I supposed to think straight with you pawing at me and saying dirty things in my ear? I’ll replace these.” She snatched the knobs.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “We’re using these knobs. They’ll always remind me of our amazing day in Seaport and the memorable night that followed.” He turned off the omelets and began putting the knobs on the island cabinet doors. “I hadn’t been there in so long, I had forgotten about those community breakfasts. Those were good times. After my parents separated, it was so awkward, and those breakfasts were small doses of normalcy I could rely on, something that had remained unchanged in a time when my life was turned upside down.”
She went to him as he finished screwing on the last knob, and when he was done, she wrapped her arms around him and said, “It makes me sad that you went through all of that.”
“I’m fine.” Steeling himself against the darkness the past was dredging up, he put their omelets on plates and set a small plate of eggs on the floor for Crash.
As he carried their plates to the island, Jules said, “You don’t have to be strong all the time. It’s okay to be sad about losing parts of your childhood, or anything else for that matter.”
The worry and irritation in her voice crushed him. He gathered her in his arms, feeling like a prick. “I’m sorry for brushing you off like that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’ll watch that in the future.”
“Thanks. I hope you know you can talk to me. I’m not going to judge you if you feel one way or another. I want to share everything with you, good days and bad. I want to be that couple who can talk about anything, and as Saul said, have each other’s backs.”
“I want that, too. I’m not used to opening up. I’ve already told you more than I’ve told anyone. Ever. My knee-jerk reaction is to shut down those feelings and pretend they don’t exist.”
“Which is why you get so angry, bottling it all up.”
“Jules, you don’t need my shit bringing you down.”
“But that’s just it. You don’t have to say it for me to feel it. Maybe I’m different from other people, but when I know you’re hurting, I hurt.”
And there it was, the very thing he’d promised never to do to her. The fact that she was different from everyone else, and cared so deeply, were part of what had drawn him to her in the first place. “Then I will make an effort not to hold things in.”
“Thank you. Especially those kisses. You should never hold those back.”
“That’s a promise.” He lowered his lips to hers, and after a handful of steamy kisses, they ate breakfast and got ready to leave.
On the way down to her Jeep, Grant promised to make arrangements to get the window seat to her place this week, and they made plans to see each other after work.
“Should I bring an overnight bag?” she asked bashfully, which was adorable, given how verbal she’d been with her desires last night.
“Unless you’d rather we stay at your place? I can bring my crutches.”
Her eyes sparked with wickedness, obliterating the bashful expression of only moments ago. “But I don’t have a shower chair, and after this morning, I really like that shower chair.”
His body flamed as images of earlier that morning slammed into him, when she’d straddled his lap in the shower and ridden him until they’d both lost their minds.
“My place it is.”
AFTER JULES LEFT, Grant climbed into his truck and called Saul’s doctor. He left a message explaining the situation with Saul and left his number for him to return the call. And then he called his father.
“Good morning, Grant,” his father said evenly.
Grant’s gut clenched. Why the hell did he still have this reaction after all these years? “Hi. I was wondering if I could stop by this morning to talk before I head into work.”
“Of course, son. Are you all right?”
No. I feel like I want to puke or punch something, but if I have any hope of staying on this island, I’ve got to get out from under the shitty black cloud that has become our relationship. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I’m at your mother’s house. We’d love to see you.”
The sincerity in his father’s voice brought a shot of guilt. How could his father feel that way after the fight they’d had and the things Grant had said?
“Great. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He pulled down his visor and a pink envelope fell into his lap with his name written across the front in glittery gold ink. This was a new envelope, as he’d put the other one in his dresser. He felt himself smiling as he withdrew the note that Jules must have put there when she’d come outside before breakfast to get her purse and the things they’d bought in Seaport.
Good morning! She’d drawn a smiley face. I discovered a new favorite thing.
Waking up in your arms.
Well, two favorite things, but the other is too private to put in writing. She’d drawn a winky face.
His chest constricted. Crazy about her didn’t even begin to describe what he was feeling. He pocketed the note, wanting to keep Jules close on this difficult morning. He drove to his mother’s house, trying to figure out what he was going to say, and Jules’s advice about flooding the riverbanks kept coming back to him. By the time he arrived, he was wound as tight as a top.
He stood on the porch flexing his hands, trying to calm down so he wouldn’t say anything he’d regret, but it was like trying to slow a runaway train. He’d never knocked at his mother’s front door, and as he walked in, he realized he always knocked at his father’s house. If that didn’t speak volumes about their relationship, he didn’t know what did.
“Hello, sweetheart,” his mother said, arms open wide as she and his father came down the hall. She looked beautiful and professional in a black skirt and pale-blue blouse, and his father looked equally dashing in a dark pin-striped suit, with a crisp white shirt and a tie.
“Hi, Mom.” He embraced his mother, her warmth settling some of his nerves.
“Morning, son,” his father said with that uncertain expression that twisted the knife in Grant’s gut.
“Hi, Dad. Thanks for letting me stop by.”