by Roxy Reid
But we could have talked about her book, and we didn’t.
I go next door to get a tea while Grace finishes up her signing. I realize I don’t know Grace as well as I thought I did, and that bugs me.
It bugs me a lot.
10
Grace
Can I come over to your place? I just had a dinner date, and it sucked. No sexual tension AT ALL. He just kept agreeing politely with everything I said.
—Grace Blackwood, text to Sean Bronson, two years into their friendship
I can’t believe it. I just did my first two book signings, and they didn’t suck.
People who hadn’t read the book bought a copy. People who had read the book told me how it was already helping them in their relationships. Through it all, I had Sean, standing quietly supportive against the back wall. It was a last-minute decision to add him—and the allusion to our recent fight—into my talk, but I think it was a good call. It helps the crowd bond with me. It moves me from Expert Trying to Tell You What to Do to Knowledgeable Friend Who Knows Her Shit and Is Here For You.
Plus, now that Sean knows it’s coming, he does the Queen Elizabeth wave when I call him out, which makes everyone laugh.
I climb into the passenger side of the rental car so that Sean can drive us to our hotel. That’s another bright side of having Sean on the book tour. I can focus all my energy on the readings. I don’t have to worry about stuff like learning the rental car or getting from Point A to Point B.
Thank you, Myrtle, I think as I stretch out the kinks in my neck. God bless your meddling soul.
“So,” Sean says. “There’s a place that looked pretty good for dinner.”
“Do they do takeout? I kind of just want to go back to the hotel and relax.”
“We can relax at a restaurant,” Sean says reasonably.
“Sean,” I whine.
“We never go out to eat,” Sean says.
“We went out for breakfast in Vegas,” I say. I pull one shoe off and start massaging my foot. Note to self: Don’t wear uncomfortable high-heels for readings.
“Name one time, besides Vegas, that we went out,” Sean presses.
I slip my shoe back on, thinking. And thinking. And thinking.
Huh. He’s right. We go out for a drink sometimes, or we grab food on the way to somewhere else, but we never go out to a nice place, just the two of us, and eat a meal together. I frown. If I told another therapist that, they’d ask if I consciously avoided such a date-like setting with Sean because I was worried about how it could shift our relationship. Obviously, they’d be wrong. There’s no reason to avoid going to dinner with Sean. No reason at all.
“You know what, sure. If there’s a place you want to try, let’s make a night of it.”
“Really?” Sean’s face lights up.
“But in a sedate way,” I hastily add, and he laughs.
“We already married each other,” he says. “What’s the worst thing we can do?”
He takes me to a softly-lit Indian restaurant. There are deep booths, pristine table cloths, and candles on the table. The place isn’t particularly crowded, but the people who are there act like regulars.
Sean guides me to my seat with a firm hand on the small of my back. It’s the silliest thing, but I get butterflies when he guides me like that.
Fuck. I really need to go on a date. Like a proper date, not drinks in a bar followed by a hook-up at one of our places.
It’s been so long since I’ve had a guy do anything remotely romantic for me that I’m reacting to Sean’s basic, gentlemanly courtesy like it’s something remarkable.
Wait a second. I think that through again.
Sean doesn’t have gentlemanly courtesy. He’s a good friend, but he will absolutely take the last piece of pizza without asking if I want it. He cuts in front of old ladies on the sidewalk who are walking too slow. He drops f-bombs around six-year-olds without a second thought.
Sean helps me out of my coat.
What the fuck is going on?
We sit down across from each other. Sean reaches for a menu.
I just gave a speech about how important communication is in a relationship. Twice. Not that we’re in a relationship, but still. “Sean, what’s going on?” I ask.
He looks up from the menu. “We’re eating dinner,” he says.
I snap my mouth closed. What am I supposed to say? You touched the small of my back and helped me out of my coat. How dare you?
Sean must see the uncertainty on my face. He sets the menu down. “I realized watching you today that there are parts of your life I don’t know about at all. I just thought, with everything going on, it would be nice to sit and talk about the stuff we don’t normally talk about.”
The waiter comes by. Sean checks with me and, after I approve, orders an expensive bottle of wine for both of us. The waiter disappears to retrieve the bottle.
“So, what exactly do you want to talk about?” I ask.
“Why did you go into couples therapy?” he asks.
“Why did you sell your company?” I counter.
“My thing first, then yours,” he says.
The waiter arrives, pouring us each a glass of wine. We place the rest of our orders. I sip my wine, trying to figure out how I want to answer Sean’s question and how much I want to say. It’s a perfectly normal question. It just has an inconveniently personal answer. But this is Sean. I should be able to tell him anything, right?
The white wine is cool and bright on my tongue. Sean plays with his own wine glass but doesn’t drink. He just watches me, waiting.
“My parents fought a lot when I was growing up,” I say at last. “Like a lot. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for a child if the parents also demonstrate how to make up and show they love each other, but that’s not what fights were like in my house.”
“How old were you when they split up?” Sean asks.
I shake my head. “That’s the thing. They didn’t split up because they don’t believe in divorce. But they aren’t really happy, either.” I lean across the table. “The thing is, I think they could be. I really think they could be if they just went to therapy and talked about the things that are making them so mad.”
“Do you know what the thing is?” he asks.
I make a face. “Not entirely. I don’t really want to know, but the gist is, he wanted her to give up her career to be his wife. She agreed, but at some point, she realized it didn’t make her happy. She’s been mad at him ever since, which makes him mad, naturally. So he stays later at work, and she’s stuck home alone longer, and the whole thing spirals. I get the sense there’s more to it now, but I think that anger is what started it all.”
“So, you went into therapy to learn how to help them,” Sean guesses.
“No,” I say firmly. “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. I went into therapy to help the people who are like my parents but brave enough to hope their relationship can get better. Brave enough to fight for it.”
Sean looks down at his wine glass. “I’m surprised to hear you say that.”
I sip my wine. “Which part?”
“That you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. Doesn’t that go against your whole relationship thesis? If only one half of the couple wants to save the relationship, clearly not every relationship can be saved.”
Not only did he listen to my argument, but he listened to it enough to engage and push back. I don’t know why that makes me happy, but it does. I take another sip of wine to hide my smile.
“You’re right, my advice only works if both people want the relationship to be better. I’ve found one of the biggest stumbling blocks is that one or both people will assume their partner thinks the relationship is fine the way it is. They don’t think their partner is willing to do the work to make it better, so they don’t speak up, and then the relationship never gets better. You have to start from a place of assuming that your partner wants the best possible
relationship with you, and then you build from there.” I study Sean’s face. “You still don’t agree with me.”
He shrugs then looks away. Our appetizer, a plate of samosas on a bed of chickpeas, arrives. Sean rips off a piece of one of the savory vegetable pastries and dunks it in the sweet brown sauce. “I think sometimes you just know a relationship can’t be saved. When that happens, it’s time to move on.”
“But how do you know it’s time to move on if you don’t try—”
“My mum left my dad,” Sean interrupts me. I fall silent. He continues. “I’m glad she did. He didn’t want the relationship to get better because he didn’t want anyone else around him to be happy. I’m all for communicating, but words aren’t the only way we tell each other what we want and what we’re willing to work for. They say actions speak louder than words.”
I hesitate. I know how to win this argument. I could point out how often actions are misinterpreted and how often casual comments are taken out of context, but Sean isn’t just wrestling with my ideas. He’s telling me about his life in a way he never has before, and I don’t want to talk over that.
Instead, I ask, “What was your life like after your dad left? I always got the impression you had a good childhood.”
“I did. My mum’s great, and she had friends and family to pitch in. She drives a tour bus, taking tourists to see all the sights around Galway. Sometimes during the summer, when we were little and she couldn’t get someone to watch us, she’d pack us onto the bus with her.”
I can picture little Sean on a bus. “Did you meet people from all over the world?”
“Sure. Mostly it was Americans, though.” Sean takes another bite of samosa. “My dad didn’t leave us.”
“What?” I ask, confused.
“You said my dad left us, but he didn’t leave us. We left him.”
I search his face. It’s clearly an important distinction for him, to be the one leaving, not the one left. He probably thinks he’s fine, but I can see traces of old pain there.
If he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, though, we don’t have to.
I take a samosa and dip it in a sauce. Like Sean, I pick the sweet option. “Okay, my turn. Why did you sell your company?”
He arches a brow. “To get filthy rich?”
I roll my eyes. “You were already filthy rich from the first company, and now you’re bored stiff with nothing to do. So, why did you sell it?”
He shrugs one shoulder carelessly. “I didn’t like running it anymore. I didn’t care about it, and there were people working there who really did care. I figured it was better to leave and make space for them to take over.” He flashes me a wicked smile. “And it really was a lot of money.”
I smile sweetly. “If only you didn’t use that money for things like bribing wedding officiants.”
He throws his head back and laughs. The food arrives, and the conversation moves on to other things. We talk about some ideas he’s tossing around for his next company. We talk about how pissed off I get when reporters cover one psychological study as if it’s conclusive proof that it applies to everything. He tells me he was surprised by the vast sense of exposed space you get in the midwest and how the sky feels so big when the earth is so flat, but he kind of likes it. I even tell him about how my parents want me to visit them when we’re in Chicago for the book signing and how I’ve put off giving them an answer because I know I should, but it always feels so emotionally taxing every time I see them.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks, surprising me. “I should meet them sometime, anyway, if you want the marriage to look real.”
I blink.
His sincerity falters under my silence. “Or we can just blow them off. We are on our honeymoon, after all.” He flashes me his normal, wicked smile, but I can see underneath it. Sean just offered to be there for me, as a friend and a husband, and I made him feel unsure about that.
“I’d like that,” I hear myself say.
Sean waggles his eyebrows. “The honeymoon?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Sarcasm is a comfortable place for us, but he was sincere with me. I can be sincere back.
“No. If you came to my parents’ house for dinner.” I take a bite of my butter chicken. “If only because it will give them someone else to be disappointed in.”
Okay, I’m not entirely ready to give up the sarcasm.
Sean holds up his hand, solemn. “I swear, I’ve been training for this my whole life. I disappoint everyone—family, friends, girlfriends, colleagues. Your parents won’t know what hit them.”
I giggle.
“In fact, the only place I don’t disappoint is—”
“In bed,” I finish for him, rolling my eyes at his predictability.
“In business,” he finishes at the same time. He looks at me with a raised eyebrow. I feel my cheeks heat.
“You think I’m good in bed?” Sean asks.
He’s teasing, but there’s enough heat in his eyes to let me know that if I’m interested, he’d be happy to give me a demonstration. I think of him pinning me to the bed the other night, kissing me in the doorway, kissing me in Las Vegas.
I can tell myself this attraction between us is new, a fluke of suddenly spending more time together while wearing matching wedding rings. The truth is, I always avoided his parties on New Years unless he and I both had someone to kiss. Deep down, I knew this was a risk. Some part of me knew this thing between us was there, simmering under the surface, threatening to ruin our easy friendship if we ever let it.
Except that tonight, it doesn’t feel like our friendship is ruined. It feels like it’s deepening. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but I think maybe it could be more rewarding. As long as we don’t do anything else stupid, like kiss each other again.
I make myself break the charged silence. “I didn’t say you’re good in bed. I said you think you’re good in bed.”
Sean laughs. The moment passes. Though, when we’ve finished dinner and Sean helps me with my coat, the heat flares back up again.
I can beat this attraction down as many times as I want, but I have a terrifying feeling that it will just keep coming back, stronger than ever.
11
Sean
Let it go, Joe. If she wanted to kiss you, she’d let you know. Girls aren’t subtle about that shit.
—Sean Bronson, text to his best friend Joe, their third year of secondary school
Grace and I stand in our hotel room and stare at the single bed.
“The publishing house booked the room. I didn’t think to tell them …" Grace trails off. “They think we’re married.”
We are married, I think, but I know what she means. When I suggested going out for dinner tonight, I really did want an opportunity to get to know Grace a little better, but somewhere along the way, that turned into her wanting to know me, too. By the end of the night, it was hard to shake the feeling that we were on a date.
Now we’re staring at the bed we’re sharing.
Grace toys with her prim pearl earring. “You could take the couch,” she suggests.
“Fat chance of that,” I say. I drop my suitcase. Then I pick a side of the bed and start emptying my pockets onto the bedside stand. “Besides, we already slept together.”
“What?” she asks, shocked.
I hold up my left hand. “Vegas? Discovering we’re married? Any of this ringing a bell?”
“Oh. Right.” She sets her own suitcase down. Then gingerly sits down on the bed like it might jump up and bite her. She looks back over her shoulder and smiles at me. “The computer code underwear.”
Shit. That’s what I was wearing? On the other hand, Grace was checking out my underwear.
The air in the room seems to grow thick.
Grace jumps off the bed. She starts digging in her suitcase for her toothbrush and pajamas. “Anyway! We’ve got an early morning tomorrow. We should get ready for bed.”
“Grace—�
�
“I’ll take the bathroom first,” she says brightly.
Suddenly, I’m irritated. The sexual tension in the room is off the charts, just from the prospect of sleeping next to each other. I’ve never had this much chemistry with a woman. Ever. Since she kissed me in Las Vegas, I’ve known we’d be great in bed. She’s known it, too. She just doesn’t want to admit it.
Grace marches to the bathroom and sticks her toothbrush under the water. She starts brushing her teeth. She’s so determined that, for a second, I wonder if this is all in my head. What if she genuinely feels no attraction to me while I’m out here in pervert-land, lusting over literally everything about her?
Then I notice she’s still wearing her blazer and her high heels. The first thing Grace does when she comes home at night is ditch her shoes and her blazer. If she skipped that step, it means she’s not as relaxed as she wants to pretend she is.
I want her to feel relaxed around me.
I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms. “Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
Grace spits and rinses off her toothbrush. “Talk about what?”
“Talk about how, when we both looked at that bed, we thought about fucking,” I say.
Grace freezes.
“Fucking each other,” I clarify, in case she wants to keep pretending ignorance.
Grace turns to me slowly. Her face is motionless, closed off. I don’t like it.
“It’s a bad idea to have sex with each other. We’re friends,” she says. “We’re stuck together for at least six months, probably a year. We have to be a team to make this work. Sex complicates things.” She turns back to the sink and tucks her toothbrush into her toiletry bag. “We shouldn’t have sex.”
“I agree,” I say.
“Good,” she says. Grace pulls out a bag of makeup remover wipes and starts to wipe the brighter colors from her face.
