She closed her eyes, a part of her a little unsettled by the lack of kink tonight, the way he hadn’t once made her call him ‘sir’ or doled out little punishments. The sex had been downright vanilla and the way he’d looked at her, the tenderness he displayed when –
No, Gracie. Don’t start thinking that way. Gideon may care for you a lot, he may even love you, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to change his mind about a relationship with you.
She shut out her inner voice. What did she know anyway? Things were changing between her and Gideon, and the small flicker of hope within her still refused to be extinguished.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gracie checked her phone again, chewing her bottom lip. Where was Gideon? His baseball game was over by three, and he’d promised to be at the storage facility by three-thirty. It was almost four and she hadn’t heard a word from him.
She tried his number again, this time calling instead of texting, and muttered a curse when the phone just rang and rang. She ended the call and took a deep breath. He was fine. Things had been a little tense between them the last few days, mostly because she’d asked him again to talk to her about his parents and he had painfully and obviously changed the subject. But, still, that didn’t mean he was ditching her. He was probably just stuck in traffic or something.
Stuck in traffic? On a Sunday afternoon? Maybe in tourist season but, girl, it isn’t even close to tourist season.
Okay, so maybe not stuck in traffic. But his game could have run late or maybe he was called in to work. She hesitated and then called the non-emergency number for the sheriff’s department.
“Harmony Falls Sheriff Department, Wanda speaking.”
“Hey, Wanda, it’s Grace.”
“Hey, sweetie. How are you? Have you found a new place to live yet?”
“Not yet, but I’ve been looking at a few places,” she lied. “How are you?”
“I’m doing well. Hey, did you get my email yesterday? Rayna and Arianna booked the Harmony Falls Community Hall for the dinner and silent auction, and I was hoping that you and Gideon could collect some of the silent auction items this week and bring them to the hall? Rayna said there’s a back room that locks and Melissa, she runs the hall, said we’re more than welcome to store the items there until the dinner. She’s already given Rayna the key for the room. It’ll be a lot easier to categorize the auction items and organize them if they’re all in one space.”
“Oh, um, sure, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll talk to Gideon about what night works best for him and coordinate with Rayna about bringing them to the community hall.”
“Perfect, thanks, honey. Oh, and I’m sending out another email tomorrow but just a heads up that I’ll be canceling the meeting this week. Murray’s doctor appointment got moved up to Wednesday and I think we’re going to spend the night in New Cassel rather than drive back after.”
“Sure, okay. Hey, is Gideon there? He was supposed to meet me after his baseball game, but he hasn’t shown up and he’s not answering his phone. I thought maybe there was a work emergency.”
“Hmm, Gideon isn’t here, but… oh, hold on. Ian just walked through the door and I know he was playing ball with him this afternoon. Ian – do you know where Gideon is?”
There was a muffled reply and then Wanda said, “Ian said Gideon went for drinks with Preacher after the game.”
“Oh,” Grace said.
“He must have forgot. It’s been a busy week and with the anniversary of his parents’ deaths just a few days ago, he hasn’t really been himself. You want me to see if I can get a hold of him on the radio? If he’s still in his car, he’ll hear it.”
“No, no, that’s okay,” Grace said. “Thanks, Wanda, I’ll talk to you later.”
She stuck her phone into her back pocket and stared at the mess of tubs and boxes in the storage unit. She’d rented the storage unit and she and Gideon had cleaned out her townhouse of all of her personal stuff that might be salvageable. She’d been putting off going through everything to decide what could be saved and what couldn’t ever since.
She couldn’t put it off forever though and made the commitment to start going through it today. She was going to ask Kira to come with her, but Gideon had volunteered to help her after his game was over. She’d been stupidly grateful. It would be a painful and heartbreaking process and having Gideon’s quiet, calm energy while she potentially threw out a large portion of her life was something she desperately wanted.
Yeah, too bad he completely forgot about you.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to open another box of stuff. So far, she’d gone through almost six boxes and tubs and filled five large garbage bags. Her hope that she might have a few things worth saving had died a box and a half ago.
The strong smell of smoke wafted out of the box and she coughed, her throat already burning, before beginning to pick through the box. It was mementos from high school… her signed yearbooks, the corsage her prom date had given her, a few photos of her and Kira standing in front of their lockers, the very first A she’d gotten on an essay from her favourite teacher, Mrs. Beringer. All of it smelled strongly of smoke and everything was water damaged.
Fighting back tears, she dumped the entire box into the garbage bag and opened up the next box. God, this was awful. So many memories just gone.
You know he didn’t actually forget, right? You just aren’t as important to Gideon as you think you are. Why would you be? Of course he’d rather have drinks with his best friend than help you go through your pathetic life. You don’t matter, Grace. You don’t matter to your parents and you don’t matter to Gideon. You never will. You’re just not worth it. You spend all this time trying to make the people around you happy because you hate being alone, because you need to feel valued and for what? You’re never going to get what you truly want. You will never be a priority to Gideon or to anyone else. Hell, even your best friend dropped you the minute she got a boyfriend.
She rubbed at her temples. That wasn’t true. Kira loved her and she was still there for her. She was just in a new relationship and she wanted to spend her time with Connor. Gracie understood that, she did.
As for Gideon… she knew where she stood with him. She always had. She could pretend all she wanted that things were changing between them, but this proved they weren’t. She would always be an afterthought to him, just like she was an afterthought to her parents.
* * *
Gideon dropped his equipment bag in the hallway and slipped out of his shoes. Tank jumped around him, whining happily, and he petted him before heading to the kitchen. “Grace? I’m home.”
He stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. Grace was washing her hands at the sink and he wrinkled his nose at the smoky smell emanating from her. “Hey? Why do you smell like… fuck.”
Guilt flooded through him as Grace said, “Hi. How was the game?”
“Gracie, baby, I’m sorry.” He walked to her and tried to pull her into his embrace, but she backed away.
“I smell like smoke. You don’t want to touch me right now.”