When the bathroom door opened, a fog of steam burst into the bedroom. It wasn’t a plume; it was a thick fog.
“Do you have any skin left after that shower?” I asked, turning toward the dresser, so my back was to the bathroom. Grant fresh from a shower had always been a weakness for me, and I guessed nothing about that had changed.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
I saw him from the corner of my eyes, standing beside me. When my gaze shifted to confirm whether he had or had not scalded off his skin, my breath caught.
“Why are you naked?” I blinked a few times to keep my eyes facing north. It was a chore though. I felt as though two metal weights dangled from my eyeballs and were trying to draw them downward.
Grant chuckled, pulling open the bottom drawer. “I’m not naked.”
“Why are you mostly naked?” When the fight against gravity became too much and my eyes dropped below his navel, I literally felt flames licking up my throat. Fuck me. That man had always had an amazing body, but now . . . I knew women who’d auction off their souls for a chance to be entertained by a body like that for a night.
“Because I figured you wouldn’t prefer the alternative of me being fully naked.” Grant pinched at the white towel tied around his waist as he pulled a pair of light grey sweats from the drawer. “But since I can tell from your shock I was wrong, what the hell.” In one flick of a finger, the towel fell to the floor.
“Grant!” It came out as more of a shriek than I’d intended, but he was standing two feet in front of me, fully naked.
“What?” His voice was innocent, but his smirk was the opposite. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.” His muscles rippled when he shrugged, tugging on his sweats. “Just seven years older is all.”
When he turned to pick up his abandoned towel, I got the full view of his back which, like this, looked as wide as the span of my arms.
“And seven years bigger,” I muttered, still unable to believe he’d just bared it all like that. Actually, the more I thought about it, I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Grant wasn’t exactly modest.
Glancing back at me, he winked. “Why thank you. Glad you noticed.”
When I caught what he was getting at, heat settled beneath my cheeks. “That’s not what I was talking about.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t what you were thinking about.” He slid the waistband of his sweats around until he found a comfortable spot. Which happened to be a good half foot below his navel.
“In your hurry to make me uncomfortable, you forgot to put on underwear.” I flattened my expression to give the impression that I was not half as shook up as he thought I was.
The truth was, I was probably twice as shook up as he thought.
“I don’t believe in them,” he said simply.
“You don’t believe in what? Underwear?” I felt my forehead crease.
“I’m anti-underwear these days.”
“Anti-underwear?”
“You know how some people are anti-gun or anti-abortion? Well, I’m anti-underwear,” he explained with a shrug. “But are you?”
My arms folded and I looked across the room. “Am I what?”
“Uncomfortable?” He moved a step closer, when he’d already been five steps too close.
Now, it wasn’t just the image of him clouding my mind. It was the way he smelled. The sound of his breath. The feel of the warmth cascading off of his body.
Sealing my eyes closed, I focused. I imagined the most Zen, peaceful place on the planet. “No,” I said as firmly as I was capable.
“Liar.” I heard the twisted smile in his voice. After a moment, I felt him move closer. “Why do I make you uncomfortable? I never used to.”
My eyes opened right into his. As dark as Grant’s eyes were, a person would never notice the flecks of light in them if they didn’t get close enough to see them. Up close, his eyes were more light than dark.
“You don’t make me uncomfortable.” I could hear the lie in my voice like it was a shout.
One by one, Grant’s hands formed around the outsides of my elbows, his fingers circling around my arms. His body pressed closer until his chest touched mine each time he inhaled. “Then why are you trembling?”
I’d been so focused on the other places my body was overreacting, I hadn’t noticed that I was, in fact, trembling. “It’s my chorea.”
Grant’s head tipped, his eyes holding mine as his smile deepened. “Convenient. Blame it on the Huntington’s.” His thumbs skimmed the skin inside of my elbows, the remainder of his hands drawing me closer.
“There’s nothing convenient about Huntington’s,” I said, attempting to sound stern. Instead, I sounded about as stern as a mewing kitten.
“I know there’s not.” His eyes were playful, his smile holding. “At least until it comes to having to explain why your body starts to shake whenever I come close.”
His head dropped, his mouth moving just outside of my ear. “Why do I make you uncomfortable, Ryan?”
His voice, his body. His words, his touch. He was wrecking my resolve, one moment at a time, until I could feel the last of it about to crumble.
“It’s been a long day, Grant.”
“It has.” His head nodded beside mine. “Let’s keep up this trend and make it a long night too.”
My heart started to echo in my eardrums as a growing ache pulsed inside me. The last man I’d been with was Grant. Having a child had a way of sending the guys running, not that that mattered anyway. I knew enough about the way Grant had made me feel when we’d been intimate to know that no one else could ever hope to live up to the standard he’d set. Sex with him hadn’t been just a colliding of bodies, but a joining of souls. It had transcended reality and given me a glimpse of the other side.
“We should get to bed.” My voice was trembling now too.
“We should.” His head dropped lower to my neck. He took in a long breath, like he was trying to take me inside him. “Yours or mine?”
Despite my resolve, I smiled. “They’re all yours technically.”
“They’re whatever you want them to be just as long as you say which one you want me to carry you into. Or feel free to point in the general area too. I can figure it out.”
My body was spiraling out of control, but my smile continued to grow. As adept at making my eyes fall back into my head as he was, he was just as capable of making me smile at the same time. “I’m sure you could.”
His face nudged against my neck, bringing goose bumps to the surface. “I could figure out a way to fix the global warming issue with a roll of duct tape if the reward was getting to crawl into bed with you again.”
Right then, feeling the way I was, wanting him the way I did, I felt the same way. Like I’d do anything for the reward of having him climb over me in bed.
But the voice in the back of my head chose that time to speak up, reminding me of the consequences if I let that happen. I knew Grant well enough to know we could never just do casual sex. We’d shared too much history and had too many memories tied to each other to ever pretend we could maintain a strictly physical relationship.
Which meant feelings would come into play if we did this. Connections would be reestablished. Hearts would get reinvested and emotions involved. That was what one expected when they started down the relationship path, but this was different. Because I knew where this path ended.
At the edge of a cliff. A cliff that I went over and he toed the precipice of.
And then all of those feelings and connections would be raw and open all over again. I’d caused Grant enough pain for one lifetime. I wasn’t going to be responsible for any more, especially when I knew that was all he could expect if he fell for me again.
“I can’t do this to you again,” I whispered, lowering my eyes, so I didn’t have to meet his.
“You can’t do what again to me? Let me fall for you?” He exhaled sharply, keeping me close. “I fell for you forever
ago and there’s nothing you’ve done since that moment that has changed that. There’s nothing you could do to change that. When a person falls, they don’t just get up, dust themselves off, and keep going. If they fell right, if they fell good and hard the first time, there’s no getting up from that fall because they landed right where they were supposed to.”
To keep the tears I could feel forming from falling, I closed my eyes. All that did was ensure their spilling. “No, Grant. I won’t let you do this.”
His grip around my elbows tightened just enough that I could feel the impressive strength he possessed. “I’ve already done it.”
“Then undo it.”
“The only way to undo it would be for me to find some way to travel back in time to the moment you first looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. The first time anyone had told me they loved me. The first time someone showed me they loved me.” Grant’s voice seemed to echo off of the walls. “Fuck, Ryan, you were the first person who ever told me they loved a piece of shit like me. Do you know what that does to a person? It changes them. It becomes a part of them. It starts to define who they are and the choices they make. You changed me forever the moment you said those three words to me, and it’s because of those words I’m the man I am today, standing in front of you. I’m who I am because you loved me.”
His body was growing tenser with each word, his eyes spilling over with emotion. I didn’t think he blinked once.
“So don’t try to tell me you’re not going to hurt me again by letting me get close to you or fall in love with you again. Because I’ve been close to you for the past fourteen years of my life, even when I never saw your face for half of those years. I’ve been in love with you those same fourteen years, and I will die still being in love with you, Ryan Hale.” Releasing my arms, he backed away a few steps. Just enough so I could release the breath I felt like I’d been holding ever since he stepped out of the bathroom. “So don’t treat me like my love’s some kind of light switch I can switch on or off depending on my mood. Because my love’s like the goddamned sun. It never goes out.”
He backed out of the room, his eyes never leaving mine. I just stood there, trembling and trying to keep the world from falling beneath my feet.
“When I get back from the game in Seattle, I’m taking you on a date,” he announced matter-of-factly when he stopped in the doorway.
“What?” My eyebrows came together. I was having a tough time keeping up. He’d just spilled his soul at my feet and one minute later he was proposing a date?
“Monday night, after I get back. I’m taking you on a date.”
“Grant—”
“Let’s say seven. I’ll make sure Mrs. Kent can stay late and watch Charlie.”
“Grant—”
“And I’m going to take you somewhere nice, so you might want to dress up.”
“Grant—”
“Perfect. Glad that works for you. Can’t wait.” Then before I could say anything else, he shut the door behind him.
“Neither can I,” I whispered long after he’d left.
“MY DAD KICKS serious butt,” Charlie announced after throwing her arms in the air when the Storm’s number eighty-seven had managed to tackle a defensive lineman before he could sack the quarterback. She covered her mouth a second later and gave me a sheepish look when she realized what she’d said. “Oops, sorry.”
“No, you’re right.” I motioned at the giant flat screen in the living room we were stationed in front of, fighting a smile as Grant celebrated with his fellow teammates by thumping their helmets together. “Your dad does kick serious butt.”
Hearing me say butt made Charlie giggle. “I wish we could go to one of his games. You know, be there in the stadium cheering with everyone else. I bet that would be awesome.”
I curled a little deeper into the sofa, trying to get comfortable. I hadn’t slept well the past couple of nights, and as much as I wanted to blame it on the Huntington’s, I knew it had more to do with trying to fall asleep in Grant’s bed. “Lucky for you, I think you just might have an in with someone who could score us some tickets to the next home game.”
Charlie was quiet for a moment—I couldn’t tell if she was focusing on what was happening in the game or what I’d just said—and the next moment, her whole face lit up like she’d just realized something. “You think he could do that?”
My teeth sank into my bottom lip to hold back my smile. “I think he could. Perks of being the star player on the team.”
Charlie grabbed my arm. “Next Sunday’s a home game.”
“It sure is.”
“Will you go with me?” She started bouncing in her seat.
I loved how Charlie knew who her father was, but was yet still ignorant to who he was. She knew he was an amazing football player, but she didn’t correlate that with privilege and the perks that came with it. I adored that she didn’t equate her parentage with being above the rules or going hand-in-hand with special exceptions. I knew this level of naivety couldn’t be sustained, but I hoped that in some measure, it always remained. I hoped that our daughter would always stay above thinking she deserved anything and everything just because of her name and who her father was.
I hoped she desired to carve her name on life’s tree instead of settling into the grooves already cut by her last name.
It was sobering to realize that all I’d get to have were hopes for Charlie’s future, because I wouldn’t be around, at least not the way I wanted to be, to really see the way it all played out.
“So Mrs. Kent will get to watch me again tomorrow?” Charlie’s attention was back on the television as the teams lined up.
“Yeah, tomorrow night. If that’s okay with you.” I still hadn’t fully committed to going out with Grant, but I figured I should be prepared. He was the kind of guy who’d just throw me over his shoulder and throw me into his truck if I told him no, so at least the babysitting angle was covered.
“It’s great with me. She plays as many games of Slap Jack with me as I want, she lets me have seconds on dessert, and she lets me build a huge fort. Mrs. Kent is like the best grandma ever . . . even though she’s not really my grandma.” Charlie’s nose curled up. “Does that make sense?”
My arm wound around her and pulled her close. “I had someone like Mrs. Kent too. She wasn’t really my grandma, but she kind of was.”
“That was the lady who died, right?”
“Yeah, Aunt May.”
Charlie glanced up at me. “Do you miss her?”
My head bobbed. “Every day.”
“You don’t seem sad though.”
“That’s because I’d rather be happy remembering her than sad missing her.”
Charlie gave that a moment’s reflection, combing her fingers through her ponytail. “Yeah, that makes sense,” she announced before getting back to the game.
I held her close, hoping it did make sense. I hoped when it came to me, she’d be able to emulate my approach—not mourning that I was gone, but being happy that I’d been a part of her life.
“Mrs. Kent might also have to watch you tomorrow morning for a while if Grant isn’t back yet.” Of course that was when a commercial came on and she was willing to give me her full, undivided attention. “I’ve got an appointment at ten. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll be back by twelve at the latest.”
“What kind of an appointment?” She shifted, so she was facing me.
“A doctor’s appointment,” I answered, all cheery sounding, like I just couldn’t wait to meet with the neurologist Grant had told me about—and stood by the phone while I made the appointment, so I didn’t chicken out. I just couldn’t wait for another doctor to tell me that yes, I had Huntington’s, and sure, they were very sorry, but yay, there were new advances in research being made every day.
None that would be of help to me in this lifetime, but it might be of help to others in another lifetime. Some of that might be able to do some good in my daughter’s lif
etime.
Thinking about it made me pull her closer. Medical advances being made every day. I repeated those words in my head until the panic had slunk back into its dark cave.
“Are you sick?” Charlie scanned me for any sign of a cold, even running her forearm across my forehead as I did her when she was fighting a bug.
“No, just a check-up.” I looked away because the kid had a built-in lie detector.
“Well, those are easy. Just as long as you don’t have to get any shots. Those are the worst, but at least they let you pick out a sticker when you’re done.” Her attention fired back to the television after the short commercial break.
The camera was panning in on Grant, who was getting a stream of water squirted into his mouth as one of the coaches discussed something with him. Charlie pointed at the TV, giving a little squee.
And saved by the image of her father being broadcasted nationally during prime time.
“Hopefully, they’ll have good stickers.”
Charlie leaned forward in her seat, nodding. “Yeah. There’s not much that can’t be fixed with a good sticker.”
My chest squeezed. “Well, a good sticker or a really great hug.”
Without warning, Charlie flung herself into my lap, winding her arms around me. She then proceeded to hug me so hard I could barely breathe.
“How’s this?” she asked, managing to squeeze me even harder.
My chin tucked over her head as I squeezed her back with the same kind of fervency. “Charlie, this is the type of hug that could work miracles.”
IT HAD BEEN seven years since my last date. Seven. Years. That’s forty-nine dog years.
So since it had been a whole twenty-five hundred’ish days since my last date, I was totally not nervous come Monday night. Not even the least bit. I tried to convince myself of that again as I wiped my armpits for the fifth time as I stood inside of the colossal closet, trying to decide what to wear.
He’d said to dress up, but the fanciest thing I had was a simple black dress I’d bought a couple of years ago when a few work friends had set me up on a blind date with one of their friends. The tags were still on it because I’d backed out at the last minute. All I’d been able to see when I looked at that dress was Grant.
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