by Anthology
Grayson
“Did we get married?”
She’s hyperventilating.
I don’t know what to tell her, because I’m wondering the same thing. I seriously need a detailed credit card copy of my purchases from last night.
“Do you have one?”
I reach for her, but she jerks away. “Don’t touch me.” She faces the wall as she readjusts her sheet in the front. A breathy gasp confirms what’s on her hip too.
Until now, I thought last night was fucking awesome. I can’t be married.
Quinn is hunched over, sucking in breaths like there’s not enough oxygen in the room. I squat down in front of her.
“Calm down, okay? Look.” I hold up my left hand. Wiggle my fingers. “No ring. You don’t have one either.”
Her eyes flash open, and for an instant I swear I see flames. “Because they’re permanently tattooed onto our bodies!”
I take her face between my palms and breathe with her. She’s scared, and the only thing I can think about is how to make her not scared. “I’m going to fix this, all right? Just because we have tattoos doesn’t mean we signed anything. And if we did, we’ll get an annulment.”
Her eyes soften a little, and when she looks at me, I’m surprised to see tears. I expect her to yell, call me an idiot, and make another death threat. To flinch away from my touch and tell me this is all my fault. But she doesn’t.
“Permanently on my skin, Grayson.” She almost whispers the words.
“It’s on mine too.”
She shakes her head. “This is a disaster.”
I grin. “My mom used to tell me the most beautiful things come out of the biggest disasters.”
She swallows. “Has this ever happened to you before?”
“I’ve never been married, no.”
“I mean, this. Getting sloshed and not remembering anything?”
I brush the loose strands of hair from her face. “A couple of times. But it wasn’t anything like this.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, first, I still had my clothes in the morning. And my truck. And I knew where I was after a few conscious minutes.” I want to tell her the company was never as good either, but that might be going too far. I have her attention now, and I don’t want to lose it. “There was this one time back in high school. After a football game, someone hosted this huge field party. Bonfires, kegs, live music. I woke up in my truck, and Travis wasn’t there. I ended up finding him passed out on the ground with a couple of snakes slithering over his body.”
“Isn’t Travis deathly afraid of snakes?”
“Yeah. Now you know why.” I snicker. “They were just bull snakes, but Travis will tell you they were vipers.”
She smiles. “My sister put a rubber snake in his bed once when we were all home last year. I’ve never heard a grown man scream the way he did.”
“Dude’s a drama queen.”
“That was the first time I ever thought I might want what Emma has.”
“First time?”
She blinks, her stare hardening instantly. She stands up, and my hand falls away. “When’s Travis going to be here?”
“A couple of hours. He said to shower and get ready, because we won’t have much time once we get back.”
“Great.” She brushes past me into the bathroom and locks the door.
I hope she doesn’t think this conversation is over. In fact, it’s far from it.
Chapter Six
Quinn
I need to get out of here. I’m losing my damn mind.
I crank the water on as hot as it will go. The glass wall of the shower fogs, and I breathe in the steam. I don’t want to think, but images of Grayson flash through my mind. Toned muscle, caramel skin, blue eyes. And his voice just now as he spoke to me. Like he cared.
I can’t let this man affect me. I’m soon to be Dr. Quinn Lawson, a molecular biologist on the verge of a major medical breakthrough. Grayson Radcliffe doesn’t fit into my world. We’d have nothing to talk about, nothing in common—it would never work. Plus, he’s freaking Travis’ best friend.
Sighing, I tip my head up and let the water fall onto my face. It’s stupid that my brain is even taking me in this direction. I’m back on a plane to Berkeley tomorrow, back to the lab and more research. Yes, that’s where I belong.
My days are easy there. Predictable. I’ve had the same routine for three years: I get up at 6:15 a.m. every morning. Eat toast with avocado and an egg. Shower and go to class. I stay at the school all day and most of the evening. When I go home, I have dinner and sink into a warm bubble bath. I don’t need anything else, or anyone else.
Did I sleep with him? That mistake regrettably isn’t new. Stupid hormones. I’ve made it a couple of times, and alcohol was involved then too. Wasn’t like this, though.
A condom was involved somehow. But for all I know, we filled it with vodka and played hot potato while jumping on the bed. One night of stupidity and there’s a real possibility that I’m married and pregnant. I’ve hit a new low in my life.
I roll my head from shoulder to shoulder as the hot water beats down on my neck. It’s relaxing and numbing, and I wish I could stay in here forever. Steam warms my skin and clears my pores. I imagine I’m not in New Jersey, but somewhere exotic with open skies, turquoise oceans, and no people around for miles. No Grayson, no Emma, no Travis. Just…me.
“I don’t care what anyone says. Redheads are way more fun.”
My eyes fly open. I wrap my arms around my chest. “How did you get in here?”
He pulls the towel off of his waist and tosses it out. “Picked the lock.”
“Get out!”
“You need to shower, right? So do I. Figured we’d save some time if we do it together.”
“One showerhead. Get. Out.”
Oh, the audacity!
He’s not leaving. He’s standing there, naked and grinning. This man is shameless and doesn’t fucking give up.
“Whatever.” I turn around, and I wish it was because I don’t care if he stays or goes. But honestly, it’s because I can’t look at him. My heart is pounding and something flutters in my stomach. I have to get a hold of myself.
I’m breathing deep, focusing on slowing my heart rate. Getting my shit together when Grayson’s presence fills me back up. I feel him there. Right behind me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Why do you put up so many walls?” His voice is low, deep, and floods into my veins.
I glance over my shoulder. He’s standing inches away from me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You had a couple of shots at the first casino, and suddenly you were a different person.”
“I thought you didn’t remember last night.”
“I don’t…after the second stop.”
“Before that?”
He nods. “I remember.”
I don’t know what to say to that. The last thing I remember is Grayson losing a hundred bucks at a craps table. I’m not even sure when it happened.
“Step back.”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “I won’t touch you, I swear. Unless you want me to.”
“I won’t want you to.”
“Okay.” He pauses, not backing up. I face the wall again. His presence is both annoying and soothing. My subconscious must’ve made some kind of connection with him.
“You’re afraid of failure,” he says, and I stiffen at his words. “You’ve set your standards so high, and you’re scared to death of falling short. Of disappointing your father. You look up to him.”
“How do you know that?”
“You told me.”
I swallow. I’ve never said those things to anyone. “What else did I tell you?”
“You don’t believe in love. It’s a roadblock to fulfilling your goals. Love changes lives, and you don’t want yours to change. But you’re terrified of spending your life alone.” His breath wafts over my n
eck. “You think Travis is holding your sister back from her full potential, and you hate him for it. But at the same time, you’re jealous of what they have together.”
I release air from my lungs in a slow, long breath. Damn liquor. I should have known better. Some people are assholes when they’re drunk. Some just pass out. Me? I open up and say all the things I shouldn’t. I tell secrets—my secrets.
“You’re all alone in California. Your friends aren’t real friends. They’re colleagues. You don’t have friends. No one understands you, so why bother trying to understand anyone. They’ll all let you down anyway, because that’s how people are.”
All true. He knows me. He knows every fucking thing about me.
I stare forward. “Is that it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Good. Now, get out.”
Grayson
I collect the liquor and wine bottles. There’s no way the two of us could have put down that much alcohol without ending up in a hospital instead of a hotel. There has to be a few hundred dollars’ worth here.
I search for my wallet too. One of us paid for this room, so it’s gotta be around here somewhere. Probably with our invisible clothing.
I want to find another item too. We have an empty condom wrapper, but no condom. There are too many scenarios attached to this mystery, worst case being that we had sex without using it. I’m a little wigged that my goal here is to find a crusty snake of latex.
I turn out the room. Yank the pillows out of their cases, tip the mattress on its side, shake the blankets. Nada. Did we flush it before the urine and vomit took over the toilet? I’m not digging in there. Do condoms float?
The shower shuts off, so I hike the mattress on top of the box springs and wrap the towel back around my waist. I don’t know why I told her all those things. I didn’t lie; she said everything. But they were obviously the wrong things.
Last night was incredible, regardless of what happened after the second casino. She opened up to me. She smiled. Laughed. My hard-to-get nightcap dissolved into a real human being after a couple of Long Island iced teas.
I’m not used to real human beings. I’m a mechanic; I’m used to fixing machines. I lift the vehicle’s hood, tinker around until I locate the problem. A broken timing belt, leaking power steering fluid, a cracked engine head. I repair or replace, and BAM! perfect working order. Only women aren’t machines. They’re complex creatures with working parts I’ll never comprehend and issues I can’t fix. It’s why relationships don’t work for me.
But I understood Quinn last night. And the scary part is that I related to everything she said. After high school, my friends left for college and I stayed. They all have office jobs, a mortgage, and drive cars without rust. Dad wanted me to go to college, get a degree in business for when I take over the garage, but then he got sick. It’s fine. I’m not complaining. I’m happy with my life. But there’s disappointment in Dad’s eyes when I have to send monthly finance reports to our accountant.
I get her fear of love too. My mom left when I was young, and I never heard from her again. Dad never remarried. I don’t want that.
The bathroom door opens and Quinn emerges. “What happened in here?”
I throw my arms out. “No condom.”
With pursed lips, she nods once. “Oh.”
I want to touch her again. Caress her cheek and run my fingers through her hair. Hold her close and tell her it’s going to be all right. I want to kiss her, because I don’t know if I already have.
I want to tell her my story.
But her walls are up again, and I’m running out of time to knock them down.
Chapter Seven
Quinn
Grayson takes fast showers. He comes out with the half-empty wine bottle that I sampled and puts it on the TV stand with a dozen other bottles. Then he runs his fingers through his wet hair and shakes off the excess water. I avert my attention to the lamp on the nightstand. It’s nice, bright.
The bed squeaks as Grayson sits down beside me. He’s close, but not enough for his knees to brush against mine. I clear my throat and swing my focus to him. I wish I hadn’t. He’s leaning over his legs, elbows resting on his thighs. It’s like some pose from a magazine.
“Guess we wait for Travis now, huh?” he says, cocking his gaze at me.
“What about your truck?”
“It’ll have to wait until after the wedding. I’ll figure it out.” He smirks. “So are we giving up?”
I narrow my eyes in confusion. “On what?”
“Finding missing objects.”
Oh, yeah. The condom. Our clothing. Cell phones.
“I’m hoping my purse is still in your truck. The clothes I don’t care about.”
“Well, whoever paid for this room had their credit card on them.”
I snicker. “You know what Emma would say? She’d tell me that someday I’ll look back on this day and laugh about it.”
“Will you?”
“I don’t know. Will you?”
“Laugh? Probably. I mean, we have to, right? An entire night that neither of us remember is permanently inked into our skin. Right now I’m just happy I didn’t decide on some Justin Bieber song lyric.”
That sounds about right, that he’d laugh at this someday like Emma. Me, I’ve never looked back on my life and found anything to be remotely funny. I remember having fun, sure. There were swimming pools, beach parties, and family vacations. Kid stuff. But then somewhere around junior high, I put all that behind me and focused on the future, on science. I attended lectures Dad’s department hosted and read science journals, while my friends played volleyball and performed in theatre. I hung out at Dad’s office instead of the cool high school haunts.
So laughing at this? I’m not sure I know how.
“You know, I could call the front desk and see if they’ll send up a clean sheet if you want.” Grayson holds up a corner of the one I’m wearing and sniffs it. “Whisky.” He points to another stain. “Peach schnapps, I bet.”
I glance down. I hadn’t even noticed the thing is covered in alcohol. Immediately I wonder what else might be tainting the fabric.
“I can do it.”
I reach for the phone, but Grayson lays his hand over mine. “I know you can, but let me.”
Grayson’s palm is warm, and slowly I nod. I’m used to doing everything for myself, so I’m not sure why.
“Hi. Would you please bring up a clean sheet? Yeah. Okay, thanks.” He hangs up and smiles. “They’ll be right up.”
“Thank you.”
He sits back down, a little closer this time. His leg brushes against mine. “So. What exactly are you studying?”
I wave a hand. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh yeah? Try me.”
I study him for a moment. That answer is what I use to make people go away. It’s strange, but I don’t know if I want Grayson to go away anymore.
“Well, um, my dissertation is on the effects of OspC and glycolipoprotiens in human vaccines against B. Burgdorferi. Which basically means—”
“You want to develop a vaccine for Lyme disease.”
I stare at him. “Yes, exactly.”
He bobs his head, a half-grin emerging. “That’s awesome.”
“I think so. How did—I mean, you know what I said?”
“I’m not sure what Ospc or the glycol-thing is, but I understood the rest.” He chuckles. “Don’t look so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked. Just surprised is all.”
Grayson’s smile fades. “My sister has chronic Lyme disease. It went undiagnosed for years. They said it was fibromyalgia. She was in so much pain, days where she couldn’t get out of bed, because her joints were so sore. Days when the depression was so bad we thought she might end her own life. I spent the better parts of my senior year of high school in the hospital with her.” He looks up. “She’s better now, but it’s a good thing you’re doing.”
“I’m sorry about your
sister.”
“Lyme disease robbed years of her life from her.”
“At the very least, we need a better understanding of B. Burgdorferi and how it affects the human body. The bacteria itself is so difficult to detect, which makes proper diagnosis harder. That and the presence of B. Burgdorferi is spreading in nature, which means more people are at risk of getting infected.”
“You could have chosen anything to study. Why Lyme disease?”
“Because of people like your sister. Because it’s overlooked and understudied.”
Grayson slides a finger down my cheek. “That’s very compassionate of you.”
“I’m good at science, not compassion.”
He shakes his head, not removing his hand from my face. “You’re good at a lot of things. You just don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“I give credit where credit is due. Like I said, I’m good at science.”
“When you relax, when you allow yourself to be vulnerable with another human being, you brighten. You become a different person, yet still the same somehow. Like the weight of the world no longer rests solely on your shoulders. You’re you, but a happier you.” He cups my cheek and leans in. “You’re funny. You’re intriguing. You’re smart. You’re sassy. And you make me want to know more about you.”
His breath floats over my lips. He’s so close. My eyelids fall shut, and—
Knock, knock, knock.
“Room service.”
Grayson
That look. Damn.
She slides off the mattress to get the sheet from the housekeeper. The look comes when she excuses herself into the bathroom to change her sheet-dress. It’s sexy, smoldering, and there’s a hint of regret in it too. Maybe she wanted me to kiss her.
When she emerges, she doesn’t come back to the bed. Instead, she walks over to the window overlooking the beach. She slides the curtains back and sunlight streams through. I’m amazed by what the light does to her skin. It softens and practically glows. Even the freckles along her shoulders beckon to me and beg to be caressed.
