Touching Down

by Nicole Williams

  With his hand still molded into the bend of my back, Grant led me through the dining room, not caring what people thought or saw. There was no going back after this. The pictures would be shared and spread until the whole city knew Grant Turner was entertaining some new woman. I wasn’t sure if it would make ripples or if fans were used to seeing new photos of Grant with another woman, but I hoped we’d at least have a few days before anyone put it all together. Who I was, what we’d been long ago, who the young girl living at his house with me was.

  “Is this private enough for you, Mr. Turner?” the hostess asked as she stopped in front of a table tucked into the back of the restaurant.

  “Works for me. Ryan?”

  When I moved toward it, Grant pulled out a chair. “Works for me too.”

  The hostess handed us our menus and waited for Grant to get settled before leaving. As I studied the name etched in gold leaf on the front of the menu, my forehead creased.

  “I have no idea how to say it, but I think it’s French.”

  Grant shook his head. “No clue. Let’s hope the inside’s easier to read that the outside.”

  As we were opening our menus, a waiter approached the table to fill our water glasses, and he asked if we’d like to see a wine menu. Grant waited for me to answer.

  “Um, I’m okay,” I answered, looking at Grant over the flickering votives scattered around the middle of the table. “Unless you’d like some.”

  Grant’s head shook. “I’m okay too. I’ll stick with water.”

  After the waiter left, I remembered how we hadn’t had a choice when it came to “sticking with water” on the few occasions we’d been able to eat out, since we’d barely had enough to pay for our meals, but I knew that wasn’t the case now.

  “So you don’t drink at all at all anymore,” I said, remembering our conversation in my motel that night he and Charlie met for the first time.

  Grant stared at the water cup for a minute before lifting it and taking a drink. “Not a drop.”

  I lowered my menu. Grant had started drinking around the same time most parents finally let their kids have a full can of soda, and it had never exactly been an occasional thing. Being a big guy, he could hold it better than others, but I’d spent more nights than I liked to remember encouraging him to ease up and switch to water.

  “When did this happen?” I asked finally.

  Grant looked at me. “Not long after you left.” He looked like he was deciding what to say next. “Losing you . . . it put me in a bad place. Instead of dealing with it in a healthy way, I went with an unhealthy way.”

  My eyebrow lifted. “Drinking yourself into a stupor?”

  He rolled his head. “Pretty much. That was my life for the first couple of months after you left. I started drinking the moment I got up, and I didn’t stop until I passed out later that night. It was the only way I knew to block the pain, the only coping mechanism I’d learned.”

  I took a breath. “From your dad.”

  Grant nodded. “It took me longer to see that than it should have, but yeah, I realized I was becoming my old man, turning to the bottle to deal with my problems. I could have lost my football deal, my life, everything. I haven’t had a drink since that moment I realized who I was going to turn into if I didn’t stop.”

  So much of the man sitting across the table from me was new, and yet so much of the boy I’d known was still there. The best of him remained; the rougher patches he’d left behind.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, wondering if those two words would ever feel like they were making headway in the forgiveness department.

  “I know. Don’t worry. I have all kinds of ideas for ways you can pay me back.” He bounced his brows at me, the look on his face giving away some of what he had in mind.

  It made my legs squeeze together tighter. Distracting myself, I got back to the menu. Only to realize, after scanning a few items, that I didn’t have a clue what anything was. Even the stuff written in English I didn’t understand.

  “Menus like this were created to make people feel stupid,” Grant muttered, shaking his head.

  “And inferior,” I added.

  His eyes lifted from the menu, a playful look in them. “And angry.”

  “And hungry.” For once I was hungry, but I had no clue if anything on this menu was capable of quieting a growling stomach. I’d heard portions in these kinds of restaurants were sized more for someone the size of a fairy. I was small, but I liked big portions, and I couldn’t imagine what Grant would do with a tiny meal.

  “What the hell is . . .” Grant’s eyes narrowed on something in the menu. “Es . . . car . . . got?”

  “The fanciest food I’ve ever eaten was the time I let someone convince me to try having an egg cracked over my pizza. I hated it.” I tried finding the menu item Grant was talking about, to no avail.

  “Egg on a pizza? That’s just wrong. They used to burn people at a stake for that.”

  “For good reason.”

  That was when the waiter reappeared, ready to take our order. Grant looked at me, waiting. I looked at Grant, waiting. Then both of us started to laugh.

  The waiter looked between us, confused. “Can I make a few suggestions? Or can I give you a few more minutes?”

  Grant managed to tame his laugh first. “Why don’t you just pick a few things that you think we’d like, and we’ll give that a try? Sound okay?”

  The confused look grew more pronounced.

  “Surprise us,” Grant added before the waiter could ask a question.

  After a moment, the waiter nodded, seeming to finally understand what we wanted before scurrying away like he was worried our brand of crazy might be contagious.

  “If anything rolls out of that kitchen looking like a cheeseburger, I’m calling dibs,” I announced, folding my napkin into my lap.

  “As long as you share a bite with me.”

  “Deal.”

  Grant reached for his water glass again and drained the whole thing in a single drink. When he glanced at me, I knew all jokes about the menu were past. “How was your appointment today?”

  The turn in conversation was about as abrupt as it could get. For one minute, I’d almost forgotten all about the disease tearing apart my body, one nerve at a time. For one minute.

  It was one minute more than I thought I’d ever have.

  Grant had a way of making me forget about what was happening to me, and reminding me of who I was. He had a way of making me feel present and whole, instead of focused on the future and broken.

  “It went well,” I said, folding my napkin into my lap. “Dr. Goldstein is great. Thank you for arranging that. I know getting in with a doctor like him isn’t easy.”

  In fact, when I’d called pretending to be a new patient who wanted to make an appointment with him, I’d been told his next available appointment was nine months out.

  Grant waited a minute, brows lifted. Then he circled his hand. “Did he have any ideas for how to help?”

  My tongue worked into my cheek. “He changed a couple of my meds and the dosage of them.”

  Grant shifted in his chair. He looked like he was swimming in an ocean of nervous energy. “Does that mean . . .”

  “It means it’s a crap shot. It might help make the chorea better and give me more time as symptom-free as possible. Or it might make things worse and hasten the advancement of my symptoms. It’s like throwing darts at a wall, Grant. You don’t know what’s going to stick until you throw it and wait.” I paused to take a few breaths, reminding myself to keep my voice lowered. I didn’t need to announce to the entire restaurant that I had Huntington’s. I was hoping to save that secret from the media until the very end. Until it became impossible to hide. “No matter what new medications I try, or what new doses I go between, I’m going to get worse every day. That’s the way this thing works. It might be a little or a lot, but every day I’ll be worse than the day before. That’s going to continue to happen until so
mething kills me.”

  The abruptness of the word hit him like a slap to the face. He visibly winced, his eyes darkening right after. Staring across the table at me, he leaned closer. “I’m not going to let that happen.” Each word was uttered purposefully, like he’d never known a truer thing.

  I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. But I’d stopped believing in fantasy when I watched my mom pry a gold crown from her own mouth to support her drug habit.

  “It’s not something you let or don’t let happen.” I swallowed. “It’s kind of predetermined that way.”

  His fist hit the table, making the crystal glasses tinkle. He made sure I was looking at him before he said, “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Other than my heart pumping hard inside of my ribs, I couldn’t feel anything. The confidence in his words, the look on his face that boded no doubt, the set of his brow daring me to challenge him—Grant believed he could save me. He believed he could save me like he had when we’d been kids.

  I almost believed he could, and god knew I wanted to believe he could, but this time, the threat wasn’t outside of me—it was buried into my very makeup. No amount of brute strength and pain tolerance could tackle what was threatening my life now, but if Grant wanted to believe otherwise, I wouldn’t stop him. I’d rather have him and Charlie hold onto hope up until the day they laid me in my grave.

  I’d kept none of it for myself, leaving it all for them.

  “There’s got to be something, Ryan. Somebody, somewhere, knows something we don’t, and I’m not going to rest until we figure out who and where that is.”

  I nodded and took a sip of my water. “Okay.”

  He could tell I was placating him. It pissed him off too. His fist hit the table again. “It all comes down to money. Enough money can buy a person anything. Whether it’s a cure for AIDS or cancer or Huntington’s.” His voice had gone lower. “There’s a cure out there.”

  Of course there was a cure. The same cure that fixed us all of our ailments. Death. The great cure-all.

  Instead of saying what I was thinking, I bit my cheek. A minute later, our surprise dinner showed up. As the waiter layered plate after plate on our table, I didn’t know whose mouth dropped farther—Grant’s or mine.

  “Anything else I can get for you?” the waiter asked, looking down proudly on the assortment he’d selected for us.

  Grant rubbed the back of his head. “Maybe an instruction manual?” He motioned at a bowl filled with what looked like shells. Snail-looking shells.

  “Sir?” The waiter’s expression creased.

  “Just a joke.” Grant smiled and tucked his napkin into his shirt collar.

  The waiter backed away from our table again, like this time he was trying to tiptoe away from the crazy contagion before it noticed him.

  “Are you planning on shoveling your dinner into your mouth?” I pointed my fork at Grant’s napkin dangling from his collar.

  “I don’t know what the plan is honestly,” he said, making a face at a dish that looked downright dangerous with all of the pokey, needle-like things sticking out of it.

  Going from plate to plate, I attempted to figure out where would be the safest place to start. When I found myself back at the beginning, I started the journey over again.

  Across the table, Grant shoved out of his chair and pulled his napkin from his neck. “You want to get out of here?” He came around the side of the table and held out his hand for me.

  I gave the food another inspection. I knew that to plenty of people, this was probably the height of fine dining and that just getting up and walking away was a giant waste of food.

  “Come on. I’ll let our waiter box it all up and take it home, so it doesn’t go to waste. He obviously loves this stuff of questionable edible substance.” Grant cringed when he examined the table once more. “Let’s get you a cheeseburger.”

  “SWEET BABY JESUS.” I was moaning an hour later, alongside Grant.

  “Oh, God, that’s good,” he grunted, his body practically trembling.

  “Yes, right there,” I breathed, pointing at where I had in mind.

  “You like that?” His words were muffled from what his mouth was busy working over.

  “Yes,” I groaned, arching my back, “it’s so good.”

  “Once you have yours, I want mine.”

  Once I’d swallowed, I ran my tongue across my lips, not wanting to miss a bit. “Open up,” I purred.

  Then I brought a chunk of banana cream pie to his mouth and waited for him to finish his bite of hamburger.

  The spread we’d had laid out for us at the other restaurant had nothing on the one laid out in front of us now. Grant had driven us to an old-school burger joint in a quieter part of Brooklyn. Cheeseburgers in every variety, an assortment of fried sides—from waffle fries to giant onion rings to pickles—a tower of milkshakes, and the most recent additions, dessert. Or the plural version of that word.

  At first, Grant didn’t look like he knew what to think of the banana pie, but after getting past the texture of it, his eyes grew big. He hadn’t finished the bite before he stabbed his fork into another.

  “No more fancy eight-star restaurants for us,” he announced for the dozenth time. “Who would want to eat that when there’s food like this?”

  I thought of the diners in that restaurant. Then I scanned the last two diners left in this one: Grant and me. “Sophisticated people.”

  Grant grunted then scooted the almost empty basket of onion rings in front of me. Those had been my favorite of this culinary masterpiece.

  When I snagged one and dunked it in a container of tarter sauce, Grant smiled at the corsage still on my wrist. Then his gaze crept a little lower to my hand, lingering on my fingers. It was a random coincidence that I’d held out my left arm for Grant to slide my corsage onto. I guessed it wasn’t a coincidence that Grant was staring at a certain finger on my left hand.

  “How many men after me?” His forehead creased as he asked his question, setting down his fork.

  His question surprised me. “What?”

  “How many men have you been with since you were with me?”

  I swallowed the bite of onion ring and set down what was left of it. Wolfing down fried food didn’t pair well with this type of conversation. “Like how many guys have I dated? Had as boyfriends?” My weight shifted on the counter stool I was situated on. “Had sex with?”

  Grant’s jaw tensed, but he relaxed it right after. He answered me by lifting a shoulder.

  I’d thought Charlie’s little “mom doesn’t go on dates” spiel would have answered any questions in his mind about these topics, but maybe it had only made him more curious.

  The longer I took to answer, the more he looked like he was bracing himself for a full-on dissertation. Little did he know my answer to his questions could be summed up in one breath.

  “I haven’t had any boyfriends since you,” I admitted, feeling kind of silly admitting it. At the same time, I felt strong. I’d never felt the need to fill a void in my life with a man. I’d never needed a man to define me. What Grant and I had had was special, and what we’d created together was even more special. I wasn’t about to let some shmuck looking to get a little piece of ass cheapen my whole experience with relationships.

  The corners of Grant’s mouth were twitching, but he didn’t let the smile form. “What about dates?”

  I leaned toward him. “I think our daughter managed to answer that question already.”

  He let the smile form then, allowing a couple of notes of laughter to slide out.

  “And I thought we’d agreed to move on from the dating topic earlier tonight.” Giving him the look didn’t faze him—it never really had. Even my most impressive Look.

  “Fine. No more talk about dating.” He lifted his hands in the air and pretended like he was getting back to finishing up the last few remnants of our gluttonous feast. When he just kept twirling the same fry in a gob of ketchup, I
knew he hadn’t moved on yet. “How many have you had sex with?”

  “Grant . . .”

  “I need to know, Ryan. I know I don’t have any right to know. I also know you had a right to sleep with whoever you wanted.” He paused, his face looking like he was being tortured. “I just need to know.”

  My lungs felt like limp bags when I thought about answering his question. Not because I was embarrassed or ashamed or anything like that, but because he’d know once I told him. He’d know the reason why, and he’d know he was that reason why.

  He’d know I’d never really moved on from him, and I couldn’t have him knowing that because I needed to keep a careful distance between us. I needed to protect him, not from himself this time, but from me.

  But even though I knew all of that, I also knew that the truth had never been optional when it came to Grant and me. Never a choice. The truth wasn’t what we picked when it was convenient. It had been the standard from the beginning, and if I had anything to do with it, it would remain the standard to the end.

  The truth. I’d told him almost everything I had to. Almost. The one last thing I was withholding would have to come out soon.

  “You were the first person I had sex with, Grant Turner.”

  He slowly twisted toward me, his legs spreading wide, tucking around the outsides of mine. His hands lowered to my kneecaps, like he was trying to show me that no matter how I answered, he still wanted to be here with me—eating greasy food in an old diner that had already locked its doors.

  One of my hands covered one of his. “And you were the last person I had sex with too.” It came out in one long exhale, my fingers braiding tighter through his with each word.

  He was quiet for a minute. And then another. When his silence continued, my eyes lifted to see what was the matter.

  His forehead was folded in half a dozen creases, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Are you saying . . .?” He leaned in closer, confusion settling deeper.