“Hey, buddy,” Grant greeted. “I brought someone to meet you. Remember Sophie? The woman I told you about?”
Sophie was surprised. “You talked about me?” Hopefully he said good things.
“Nate and I talk about everything. Well, I talk and he listens which makes the conversation very Templeton-oriented. He loves that, don’t you, pal?”
Sophie stood at the side of the bed, watching Grant interact with his friend. His monologue was overflowing with enthusiasm, an energy-level that had to be draining to maintain. You could tell the chatter was routine, too. There was a natural rhythm to it that told her what she was witnessing wasn’t a performance. If Nate did comprehend, he had to be touched by the effort. She was. As she watched, her eyes grew moist.
“I told Sophie all about you, too,” he was saying, as he adjusted the bedsheet, “and we figured it was time she got to meet your ugly face.”
“Don’t listen to him, Nate.” Taking a cue from Grant, she moved closer to the bed. “He’s just jealous. And don’t worry, everything Grant told me was good.”
“Most of it anyhow,” Grant chimed in. From across the bed, he looked at Sophie and smiled a sad smile.
* * *
They stayed for well over an hour. Grant was drained. Visits with Nate always tapped him out, and this visit hit him harder than usual. Watching Sophie from the other side of Nate’s bed, it struck him hard that what happened to Nate could have happened to any one of them. Perhaps not an overdose; that blanket of blame still lay at Grant’s feet as far as he was concerned. But the determination to get ahead? That was the same.
Sophie had been amazing. Smiling and chatting with Nate as though he were actually responding. Did she, too, recognize the similarities? Or had she gone the extra mile for him? The thought, which had nagged the back of his brain since leaving the nursing home, squeezed at his chest and cut his breath short. It was an uncomfortable feeling, strange and exhilarating. He’d never experienced anything like it before. On top of the fatigue, it left Grant feeling raw and unsettled.
“Should have known you’d take a detour,” Sophie remarked.
Distracted, Grant missed his turn. “Sorry,” he replied. “Seeing Nate leaves me a little burned-out.”
“Do you see him often?”
“Every week. I made a promise I’d keep him a priority.”
He felt her hand brush his knee. “You’re a good friend.”
Oh, yeah, he was a real peach. “There’s a diner up ahead,” he said, spotting the sign. “Want to stop?”
“Um…I don’t know. It’s getting late and…”
Man, she was thinking of her freaking to-do list, wasn’t she? “Never mind. I forgot you had work to do.” The very idea she was thinking about work irritated him. Seeing Nate hadn’t shifted a damn thing in her head. He thought… He didn’t know what he thought. Angrily, he slapped at the stick shift, turning on his right directional.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Sophie said, watching him, “and it’s not the same. My work ethic and Nate. The situations aren’t the same.”
“Never said they were,” he replied.
“You’re thinking it, though. You’re not very subtle.”
She sat stiff and straight as she stared out the windshield, her gaze focused on someplace far off. “I’m not looking to be number one. I’m just looking to move up as far as I can go. As far away from…”
“What?” Grant wanted to know. He had a pretty decent idea. The empty pantry. The brother in prison. She wanted to get away from the bad memories.
Sophie swiveled in her seat so she could face him. “I’m not like you, Grant. I didn’t have an Ivy League education. I’ve had to work damn hard for everything I’ve got. Hell, most of the time people expected me to fail. My own family expected me to fail.”
“At least you had nowhere to go but up.” Her defense only irritated him more. Life on the other side of the fence wasn’t all that easy, either. “Try living with success being the only option. In my house, it wasn’t good enough to simply be a Boy Scout. You had to be the best damn Boy Scout in the troop, and earn more merit badges than anyone. The Templeton way. Number one or bust.” He glanced over, not surprised when he saw Sophie’s wide-eyed expression. “You think that sounds better?”
Didn’t matter what she thought; he already knew. Knew what lengths the “Templeton way” had led him to. “Things were hard for you, but at least you can look yourself in the mirror with pride for all you’ve achieved. Maybe if I’d been on your side of the fence, Nate wouldn’t be in that hospital bed.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I?”
“No, you don’t,” she told him. “What happened to Nate wasn’t your fault.”
“God, I wish people would stop saying it wasn’t my fault!” The guilt and all his other feelings reached their tipping point. Yanking the wheel to the right, he steered the truck off the road and slammed to a stop. “Don’t you get it?” he asked her. Practically yelled at her. “I ignored his phone calls. Five minutes. Five lousy minutes and I couldn’t be bothered. I was too busy backstabbing him and scamming old ladies out of buildings to notice my best friend was killing himself!”
His words echoed in the truck, mocking him. He remembered it all clear as day. Nate’s mother’s anguished expression when she’d told him. His own reflection in the emergency room window. A man in a designer suit he barely recognized. I don’t know who you are, Nate had screamed at him that afternoon. Who are you? The emotions, locked up for the past twenty-eight months finally boiled over, and all the anger and self-loathing he kept buried inside poured out as he smacked the steering wheel over and over. If only he’d tried. If only he’d taken the phone call.
“Stop it,” Sophie ordered. She grabbed his arm before he could slap the steering wheel again, fighting with him to hold it back. “Stop beating yourself up. You didn’t make Nate take those drugs!”
“I didn’t stop him, either.”
“No, you didn’t. But were you the only person there? What about his family? Your coworkers? Was his well-being your sole responsibility?
“Yes!” In his guilt, the word came out as a shout. “Yes,” he repeated, softer. “I knew something was off. I knew. That makes it my responsibility.”
“If that’s true, then am I responsible because my brother dealt drugs?”
“What?” Grant didn’t know what she was talking about.
Sophie’s eyes glistened with moisture of unwanted memories. “When I was in high school my brother got arrested for dealing pot. I’d known he was up to something for months but never told my family. So was it my fault he became a career criminal to pay for his own habit? Is it my fault my parents couldn’t stop drinking or smoking pot?”
“No, of course not. They were addicts.” Despite his self-loathing, his chest squeezed. “They wouldn’t have listened to you.”
“But Nate would have listened to you?”
“It’s not the same.” Grant washed a hand over his face. He appreciated the effort, he really did. All the consolation in the world wouldn’t quiet his guilt. Nate’s addiction wasn’t the real demon here. The demon was the man that Grant feared still existed, waiting for a moment when he could return. “I hate that man,” he said, not caring if Sophie understood who he meant or not. He understood. “I hate who he was. A backstabbing, tunnel-visioned…”
Sophie pressed her lips to his, cutting short the rant. She didn’t know
why she chose kissing to quiet him. She only knew she couldn’t stand the self-recrimination any longer. Twice now she listened to him beat himself up. Twice she heard him describe a man that far as she could tell, didn’t exist anymore. And so, she shut him up the first way that came to mind. With her kiss, she told him she understood. Understood the need to bury the past. To be so loathing of the past you wanted to keep it and the memories from ever returning. Her kiss was to tell him he wasn’t alone. That she was right here with him.
What she miscalculated was the fire that would ignite when they touched. It took less than a second for Grant to kiss her back, and then all coherent thought left her brain. It wasn’t long before she found herself sprawled across his lap as she made small mewling noises deep in her throat. She’d never been kissed like this in her life. Not by David, not by anyone. And while she knew it went against everything she’d resolved, she wanted more.
Much to her satisfaction, when the kiss ended, Grant looked as shell-shocked as she felt. Sophie held her breath.
“What was that?” he asked, forehead pressed to hers.
“I don’t know.” She’d never acted so spontaneously in her life. Words failed her.
Grant’s fingers inched their way into her hair, tangling in the strands that worked loose from her ponytail. His breath was hot and minty against her lips. “Let’s go home,” he wished.
As she seemed to always do where Grant was concerned, Sophie allowed him to lead her away.
CHAPTER NINE
GRANT’S tub was nothing short of amazing. And perfectly sized for two. Sophie knew because she took a nice long soak at Grant’s insistence. This time, when she stretched out and felt his breath against her ear, it was because his face was nestled in the crook of her neck. She had to admit, lying there in his arms, she’d never had a better bathing experience.
Later, though, as she dried off and slipped into Grant’s blue terry cloth robe, the spell that had begun weaving in the truck had begun to shimmer unstably. What was she doing? The guy was twenty-nine years old. He’d been in elementary school when she started college for crying out loud.
Grant was sitting on the sofa in nothing more than sweatpants when she padded into the room. The minute she saw him, desire stirred again. I am a dirty old woman, she thought to herself.
He had been reading something on his phone. Soon as he saw her, he set the phone down. “Feeling relaxed?” he asked her.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” He was the one who had needed comforting, before things turned intimate.
“I feel terrific.” He patted the sofa next to her. “Come sit down and stop thinking so hard. I can hear your thoughts.”
She wasn’t surprised. They sounded pretty loud in her head. “It’s just that I never…”
“Shh.” He brushed her cheek with her thumb. “I know.”
It was so easy to forget her doubts and mistakes when she looked into those eyes. Tucking her legs beneath her, she curled up against him, reveling in the warmth of his bare skin. “Isn’t checking emails my job?” she teased.
“It’s from a guy I met with a couple weeks ago. He keeps trying to schedule a second meeting even though I already passed on the job. Guy’s persistent, I’ll give you that.”
“What was the job?”
Grant shrugged. “Renovating a high-rise. Turning the place into modern luxury apartments. He wanted me to head up the project.”
“And you turned it down? It sounds like an amazing opportunity.”
“I didn’t like the design he had in mind. It went completely against the original intent.”
Wow, he was the purist, wasn’t he? She wondered if he turned down a lot of jobs for that reason.
Or was the reason simply an excuse? After today’s meltdown, she wondered if he were simply punishing himself.
“So you’re not going to meet with him?”
“I told you, I’m not interested in the job. Besides, I’ve already promised to do your kitchen.”
Had he? She rememberd his answer being a little more noncommittal.
“My kitchen could wait.”
“Nothing about you can wait. Although—” he glanced down at his phone screen “—if the guy doesn’t stop calling, I’m going to have to meet with him just to make him go away. Obviously, he figures since he’s a multimillionaire he can have whatever he wants.”
“Must be nice,” Sophie murmured, getting up from the sofa.
“Getting whatever you want?”
That, and turning down jobs out of principle. They were both such foreign concepts to her. “All I’ve ever known was hard work.” Climbing up the ladder rung by rung until you got to the top.
Sophie stared out Grant’s front windows. Outside, the sky had gone dark, leaving the light to the buildings and the stars. In the distance, she could see the gold dome of the bank building towering over the rest of the borough. “I should probably go downstairs and check my own emails,” she remarked. She hadn’t looked all day. There were probably dozens of messages from Allen alone.
A pair of warm, strong arms found their way around her waist. “Don’t,” Grant whispered in her ear. “Stay.” Two simple words and they managed to freeze her on the spot.
“Why?”
“Because I like your company. And because you want to.”
Sophie smiled. “Says you. Are we going to really repeat this argument?”
“No.” In Grant’s robe that smelled of peppermint soap and with the warmth of his chest pressed against her, it was difficult to argue the point.
Grant rested his chin on her shoulder. “Was your brother really a dealer in high school?”
“’Fraid so.” Another Pond Street family secret. Grant was the first person she’d ever admitted it to. “First of many offenses. I’ve lost track. My family wasn’t exactly Norman Rockwell material.”
“You turned out all right.”
“Only because I busted my behind to make sure I did.”
Peppermint drifted in her direction as he planted a kiss on her neck. “I like that you’re showing me the lines,” he murmured.
“Lines? I don’t understand.”
“The stuff underneath all the polish and gloss. I like it.”
Now she knew he wasn’t making sense. The Sophie she showed him was nothing more than white trash who’d got a scholarship to the local college. She’d done everything in her power to eliminate that person in favor of a better, more sophisticated model. A pearl.
Still, wrapped in his arms, it was nice to pretend for a little while that the old Sophie wasn’t so bad.
She returned her attention to the view. Funny, but she always felt small with regards to the world. An insignificant speck dressed up larger than she was, hoping no one found her out. Tonight, however, looking out at Brooklyn, with Grant’s arms wrapped around her, she felt bigger. More significant than she’d felt in a long time.
“When I was a little girl, I used to wish I could fly. I’d imagine soaring out my bedroom window and flying all above our town. Everyone would look up and say ‘Hey, there’s Sophie Messina, the girl who can fly.’ I imagine this is what the view would have looked like.”
She let her head fall back against his shoulder. “I never told anyone that story before.”
Grant smoothed the hair from her face. “What made you choose flying?”
“I was a little girl. I wanted to be special. I wanted—” She didn’t finish. She’d w
anted to fly away from her life. It’d been the beginning of her master plan. The promise to herself that she would become someone different, live a life as different from her family’s as possible. A perfect life with no fights, no crazy drama, no one gossiping behind her back.
A life she controlled.
She didn’t say any of it, however. She couldn’t because Grant’s hands had begun gliding down her shoulders and arms, causing her breathing to catch. His lips delivered butterfly kisses along her temple, her cheekbone. “I know another way to make you feel like you’re flying,” he murmured as his fingers skimmed her rib cage.
She bet he could. She bet he could take her to heights she never knew possible. Taking hold of his hand, she wrapped her fingers in his. “Show me,” she whispered back.
He gladly obliged.
* * *
Later that night, Grant stood in front of the window by himself, reliving the weekend. Not at all what he expected when he woke Saturday morning. But then he hadn’t expected Sophie, had he?
Sophie. He smiled, his insides warming from thinking her name. She’d surprised the hell out of him this afternoon. Once you scraped off the designer clothes and “I’m a professional” attitude you found a whole cache load of unexpected surprises. Good ones and sad ones. Pretty impressive how she pulled herself out of what sounded like a hellish childhood. Her work ethic started to make more sense.
Wonder if she’d ever stop?
The question disturbed him as much as always. Maybe more. Where did someone like him fit into her master plan, he wondered. Did he even? And if so, for how long?
A noise from behind saved him from his thoughts. Turning, he found the object of his questions in the hallway door. In her hand she held her BlackBerry, obviously purloined from her bag.
“What are you doing?”
“European markets,” she answered. Checking the opening numbers.
Grant strolled toward her. She wore his gray T-shirt and her hair was loose and curly. The lips he found so enticing were red and ripe against her pale face. Desire stirred fresh at the sight.
Mr. Right, Next Door! Page 12
