Which is why I’m glad when she says, “I opened the card he sent with the roses everyone was talking about. I hadn’t read it all day. I was sort of avoiding it, especially after I told him I was done. But I read it when I came home tonight.”
Home. My home. Now hers, I guess.
“What did it say?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me when she doesn’t follow that up. Done. She told him she was done. That shouldn’t make me as happy as it does.
“It said, She meant nothing. You mean everything. I miss you.” Then she laughs, dropping her head back onto the cushion of the sofa, her eyes closing.
“I’m confused.”
“For all his whining that he misses me so much, he never came here yesterday. He never tried to find me until this morning at work. Maybe because of you and your mighty fists, but the man is a coward. A total coward who sends roses to my place of work, sends me texts, and confronts me there. A man who would rather fuck strangers—strangers he’s still texting with, mind you—than his fiancée. He’s not the man I thought he was all these years. The man I told myself I was in love with was a figment of my imagination.” Her head pops up, her eyes finding mine. “So, no. I’m not sad anymore, Carter. I’m angry at so many, many things, but I’m also relieved. Think of the mistake marrying him would have been. All my friends, especially you and Oliver repeatedly pointed out all the ways he was wrong for me, and I never listened. Now it’s like my eyes have been opened wide and I never want to shut them again.”
“Then don’t. You have so much freedom now, Grace. You can do anything. Be with anyone you want.”
“There is a very good and distinct reason that smart, successful women tend to stay single longer and marry later.”
“Why’s that?”
She stares at me like I’m an idiot. “Because men are intimidated by us. Tony certainly was. That’s what he said this morning. I’m a brilliant doctor and I didn’t need him the way those girls did. Only I did need him, just not the way he wanted me to. I think that’s what men don’t understand. Just because we don’t need them to take care of us financially or play the part of always minding what we do and how we do it, doesn’t mean we don’t need them on a different level.”
“Men like Tony are weak. All ego. They fail to recognize that having an intelligent, confident, talented, successful woman as their counterpart will not only challenge them intellectually but is sexy as hell. Any man who feels emasculated by the woman he’s with because she’s all those things isn’t worthy of her. It could be worse though.”
“Worse?” She laughs the word. “How so?”
I point to my chest. “Try being an Abbot-Fritz.”
She rolls her eyes derisively at me, straightening her legs out in front of her. “Yeah. My heart bleeds for you. Smart. Successful. Rich. Handsome.”
“I knew you thought I was hot.”
I get an elbow to the flank for that. “I forgot to mention arrogant, obnoxious—”
I pinch her hip and she squeals, smacking my hand away.
“For real though, you know the issues we have with dating.”
“Yes. I do. Fame and money make you targets. Boston’s billionaire bachelors. The Abbot-Fritzes. Only made worse by Oliver and Amelia hitting front-page news every other day. You boys make dating a sport the fans of Boston love to cheer for.”
I smirk at the way she describes that if for no other reason than the truth behind it. Being a Fritz in this city is both a blessing and a curse. We’re their favorite sons. Their royalty. Amelia calls us influencers and I hate to admit she’s likely right.
“Now you know why I bring my dates here for dinner instead of taking them out.”
“Oh,” she remarks, an irresistible sparkle to her eyes. “I assumed it was easier to fuck them that way. You know, less work for you.”
“Well, you’ve effectively cockblocked me by moving in, so it seems now I’ll have to put in some effort.”
“If you’re as lazy in bed as you are with your dating habits, your dates will thank me. Besides, I don’t fully live here yet. I have to get the rest of my stuff first.”
“Trust me, Grace. I am the opposite of lazy in bed.” I grin devilishly, loving how her cheeks tint up with just the slightest hint of a blush. “How about we move you in on Friday?” I offer, changing the subject back to safer territory. “Both of us have the day off.”
“We? You’re going to help me on your day off?”
“Sure. What’s the big deal?”
“Saturday, we start a twenty-four-hour shift.”
I shrug. “Exactly. It’s not like I had big plans going into that anyway.”
“No hot dates for Carter Fritz?”
“You sound jealous, Grace. You wanna be my hot date?”
She makes a scoffing sound, her voice dripping with sarcasm when she says, “Yeah. I’m all for being someone’s hot date right now.”
I stare at her, my eyebrows pinched. “Why wouldn’t you be? Because you miss Tony?”
“No. Not because I miss Tony because I don’t even know if I do, which sounds weird and bad to say since we were engaged, but it’s a truth I can’t deny either. Maybe because we hardly ever saw each other to begin with or because I’m as angry as I am, it’s eclipsing any heartache, but I can’t say it’s that either.”
“So why aren’t you a hot date then?”
She bites into her bottom lip, trying to look away when I catch her face in my hand and drag it back to me. She doesn’t want to say whatever is plaguing her mind and in reading her expression, I don’t need her to. I know what she’s thinking and it’s so fucking wrong.
“You’re hot, Grace.”
“What?”
“Tony isn’t a man worthy of stealing your confidence in that. You’re my resident and my brother’s friend and now my roommate. I shouldn’t tell you this, but you’re hot. Seriously fucking beautiful. Sexy and smart and funny. You’ve just been with the wrong guy. That’s all.”
Her eyes sparkle at me, glittering as they stare into mine, deeper than I think she’s ever looked before. Deep enough that I feel her gaze like a fist, clenching my heart and squeezing my lungs. This would be the moment. I’ve thought of nothing but kissing her all night and if I lean in a few inches…
She smiles at me like I’m the sun after a rainstorm, her head falling onto my shoulder. “Thank you, Carter.”
Disappointment slams into me with the force of a freight train. I open my mouth, needing to alleviate this strangling sensation by saying something stupid like no problem or a variation of it, but I’m stuck on what she just did. I’ve seen her do this move with Oliver hundreds of times, and I don’t know how I feel about her doing it to me now.
I am her friend, I guess, but it’s also the last thing I ever want to be to her.
Attending. Best friend’s brother.
I could live with those.
They were tolerable—just barely—but tolerable all the same. I was fine when being near her was just at work, or when we were mixed into a group.