But being here alone with her is different.
I’m so acutely aware of all things Grace. I listen for her movements about the house. I think about what she’s doing in her room. Hell, the place already smells like her, and it’s only been a few days.
I can’t escape the woman I’m crazy about and she just friend-zoned me with one simple move.
She fucking Olivered me.
And with that, any residual hope that had been impossible for me to kill just died.
Story of my life, right there. The guy always wanting what he can never get. Left in a permanent state of aching. The friend. The good guy. The one everyone turns to when they need something only to move on from just as quickly.
I’ve loved two women… The first, I took for granted though if we’re speaking in truths, I always knew in my heart and the back of my mind that Alanna never felt the same way for me in return. It’s why I never made a play until I was set to move back to Boston. I knew she’d reject me, and I didn’t want that to ruin our friendship or residency together.
Still, it hurt. It hurt when she said we were just friends and it hurt when she found someone else.
Now there’s Grace.
And I think my romantic woes with her are well established by this point.
I just wish… for once…
I sigh, sagging back against the couch and closing my eyes, my chest heavier than I think it’s ever been as I let her take her comfort on my shoulder.
Maybe one day I’ll meet the right woman at the right time. I’ll act when I should act. She’ll want me the way I want her. It’ll be perfect. Maybe.
But that woman is obviously not Grace. No matter how much I had wrongfully, foolishly, desperately hoped it would be.
10
The moment we step over the threshold of her apartment Friday afternoon, Grace lets out a bitter snort. “Well, I see that missing me is going well. I wonder if whoever this belongs to was with him when he texted me that last night.” She points to a woman’s bra hanging haphazardly off the end of one of the chairs. “You realize that means she went home without it on. What woman leaves a place without her bra on?”
She rolls her eyes, stepping over an empty bottle of tequila.
The kitchen table is a mess of empty shot glasses, the saltshaker spilled over on its side, and sliced lime wedges sticking to the wood.
“That was my table set. I think he can keep it now.”
My jaw locks up at the sight of this place. It’s a fucking disaster and smells like a shitty strip club, complete with stale alcohol and cheap perfume. “Did you tell him we were coming today to move you out?”
“Um. No.” She rolls her head over her shoulder and meets my eyes. “I was afraid he’d be here if I did. I’m not sure which scenario would have been better. This or him.”
“Him,” I grit out. “I could have hit him again then.”
“Have I mentioned how much I like this feral alpha side of you?” she teases.
“Cute.” I give her a small shove in the direction of her bedroom. “Let’s get your stuff and get out of here.”
“Agreed. I’m afraid to touch anything and that’s including the floors. At least my STI screening came back negative.”
I freeze mid-step. “What?”
She turns back around to face me, her eyebrows pinched, as her head tilts. “I can’t tell if you’re surprised it came back clean or you’re surprised I got myself tested.”
“You didn’t mention anything.”
“I didn’t realize we were on that level of girl talk yet, Carter. If it helps, I didn’t tell Oliver about it either. A woman’s vagina, as I know you know, is a sacred vessel.”
I shake my head. She’s right. Nothing I’m saying right now makes any sense. “Sorry. I just hate that you had to go through that.”
“That makes two of us, but I’m glad I did. By the look of this place, I dodged a bullet. If he had given me something, they never would have found his body.” She glances around, staring at one piece of furniture, followed by the next. “Good thing all my textbooks are in boxes in the basement. Most everything else that’s here we bought together, and I no longer want any of it. I thought I would want my table and chairs or maybe the couch I brought with me when I moved in with him, but I don’t. They’re just reminders of how far and how bad things have gone from what they once were.” She points to the corner of the room by the big bay window. “He proposed to me there. Right in front of our first Christmas tree. He slid this ring” —she holds up her diamond between her fingers— “and I remember thinking how lucky I was. How happy. Now all I can think about is how stupid and blind I’ve been. How angry I am at all of this.”
She drops the ring into one of the empty shot glasses with a resounding clink and then she’s marching back into the bedroom.
“Jesus,” she hisses at the condom wrappers strewn about and the sheets that are in total disarray before heading straight into her closet. She jumps up, grabbing a suitcase from a high shelf and drops it to the floor, unzipping it. “Just fill it with everything you see.”
Then she marches out of the closet, and I set to work, doing the same thing I did a week ago when this all started. I have everything in the suitcase, zipping it up when I hear the sound of some twangy music and then what can only be glass shattering. Racing out of the closet, I search around the disheveled room only to come up empty. Another sound from the bathroom catches me and I go running in, only to discover Grace smiling as she slams a bottle of what looks to be expensive cologne onto the floor.
It explodes, shards of glass and liquid flying every which way, and then I realize what the twangy music is. “What the hell are you doing?”
She peeks up, smiling from ear to ear. Then shrugs before grabbing another bottle, this one some kind of face cream or something and doing the same.
“It’s good enough for Carrie Underwood. Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats,” she deadpans, and I crack, laughing so hard I’m nearly wheezing with it. “You wanna do one? He’s got all kinds of expensive products. The man primps way more than I do. I mean, what self-respecting straight man has kelp facemasks and tinted moisturizers? He spends thousands of dollars on this crap.”
I step further into the bathroom that now reeks horribly and survey what’s left as Carrie Underwood sings her heart out about smashing a guy’s car in. I spot a glass bottle of the facemask she mentioned and pick it up, tossing it up and catching it in my hand to feel its weight.
“Give it a good throw. Let’s see that pitcher’s arm in action.”
I grin. “How do you remember I was a pitcher in high school?” And college, but by that point, I never saw her anymore since I was gone and she was still in high school.
“I have a memory like a steel trap. Come on, Fritz. Impress me with that mighty arm of yours. Show me what all us girls used to swoon over.”
“All you girls? Does that include you, Hammond?”
“I am neither confirming nor denying.”
I chuckle, shaking my head at her, but do what she asks all the same. This is her party after all and whatever I can do to get that smile on her face instead of the frown that’s been perched there since we stepped into this apartment, I will.