CHAPTER 31
TWO SECONDS OF JASON STATHAM
After we’d spent a couple of hours talking—likely Grant’s effort to calm me down—I tossed and turned all night, my mind moving from the marketing event, to Grant, to Chad, each subject fracturing in my mind like shoots on a tree branch as old feelings wanted to resurface.
When I woke up the next morning in Grant’s guest room, it was late, and the day felt sticky with cobwebs from the night before. There was a tap on my door, then Grant asking me if I was ready for lunch.
“Thanks for letting me sleep in,” I said after freshening myself and joining him in the kitchen, wearing the T-shirt he’d given me to sleep in and my dress pants from the night before.
“You needed it.” He placed a sandwich in front of me, some sort of sprouts peeking out from under grainy bread. “Should we cancel game night with D and W?”
“I’d nearly forgotten,” I said, picking up the sandwich. I wanted to scrape the sprouts off but didn’t want to hurt his feelings—he’d sweetly made me lunch. “I’m still game if you are. And where’s your sandwich?” I took a bite of mine. The sprouts tasted like hay, but the turkey and avocado mostly covered it up.
“I snacked a little while making yours and decided I wasn’t all that hungry.”
It was probably the sprouts.
Despite being freshly showered, he looked a bit like I felt. He bent backward, hands on his lower back.
“Are you still hurting?” I asked.
“A little bit.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t we snuggle up on the couch with popcorn and watch a movie before William and Deanna arrive?”
“I like that idea.”
“I should have some spare clothes in my work satchel, which I think is still in your car. I’ll go get it and change.”
I indeed had spare clothes—a tunic top and leggings—but I liked being in Grant’s shirt, so when I came out, I explained that I’d “only” found pants; then I forgot about my little fib entirely when I saw that he was wearing a button-down and slacks.
“It’s game night, not the opera, Grant. Are you seriously going to wear that for us to cuddle on the couch?”
He looked down at his clothes like he couldn’t fathom why I’d suggested such a thing.
“You do own sweats, don’t you?”
“That’s the black-and-white number with the tails, right?”
I opened my mouth, but he stopped me. “All right, all right. My old-man wear it is.”
Minutes later, he walked into his living room in a white T-shirt and gray tapered jogging pants.
Aye. That man knew how to wear a T-shirt. Just the right amount of fitted.
I held out my arms and wiggled my fingers. “Get over here.”
When he sat down, I snuggled against his side, sinking onto his caramel-colored vegan leather sofa, and pulled a creamy L.L.Bean blanket—one side soft fleece, the other a cabled pattern that resembled a fisherman’s sweater—over us. Grant’s condo was small and efficient, a two-bedroom defined by clean lines but somehow still managing to be comfortable and alive. Which was probably due to the many plants scattered in each room that felt like they were always watching.
He kissed my temple, squeezing me gently with the arm he’d wrapped around my middle. Then he pointed the remote at the small TV across from us. “Now, how do you work this thing?”
“Give me that.” I swiped the remote, pointed it at the screen, and moved my thumb over the buttons. “I can’t believe you don’t know how to work your own TV.”
“Why would I want to watch people doing things I could be doing if I wasn’t sitting on the couch?”
“Because it’s fun, and every other normal person on the planet does it.”
He started to speak, but my finger jerked to his mouth, stopping the “If everyone on the planet jumped ...” speech I knew was poised on his lips, his full lips.
I let my finger linger on those lips and imagined them kissing down my body. Our kisses thus far had been passionate, our hands groping, our bodies pressed impossibly close, but we’d always stopped. His genteel supervision of my virtue was sweet, refreshing even, but it kept my lower half preparing for a party that wasn’t going to take place anytime soon.
And he was wrong when he’d called his clothes “old-man wear.” I’d never lusted after an “old man” in a T-shirt and fleece-lined cargo sweats. He looked incredibly hot, vegging out on a movie where the actor was doing all the things Grant wanted to do.
When he leaned over, his tattoo peeked out from under his shirt. I couldn’t resist, so I lifted the fabric, exposing the blueprint of a house I now knew I would find. How could it have been anything else? I ran my fingers along the thin lines and smiled. I’d thought about getting my first big, seven-figure return tattooed across my ankle, but a tattoo was a commitment.
“It was the first building I designed entirely on my own,” he’d told me the first time I’d seen it up close, when I’d been trying to coax him out of his clothes.
I tried to focus on the movie, tried not to think of how many ways that tattoo could be pressed against me or of all the things I wanted him to do to me when he wasn’t in pain.
William pointed a finger at Grant. “You’re a cheat! There’s no way Pen got The Transporter from that dinky performance. Planet of the Apes, maybe, but not—” William turned to confront me. “There’s no way! He had to have mouthed the answer to you.”
Game night was in full swing, and my reply came in gasps as I horse-laughed. “No ... promise.”
Grant blew on his knuckles, brushed them against his shoulder, and sauntered back to his seat beside me.
I lost it, full-on this-can’t-be-cute guffawing.
A smile tugged at the corners of William’s mouth. “Pen, cheating isn’t this funny.”
“Didn’t ... cheat,” I answered, normal fluid sentences eluding me.
“He looked at you!” William shouted.
I jabbed my finger in Grant’s direction.
“What Penelope’s trying to say is,” Grant started, “we’re simply superior human beings on all counts, with a particular competency for charades.”
Deanna threw a small, house-shaped pillow at Grant.
William stood. “We’re leaving!”
“Don’t leave!” I screamed, finally composing myself. “We watched The Transporter this afternoon by complete coincidence. I made a comment about Jason Statham’s sex appeal, and Grant insisted it was all in the look on his face, and if he mastered that same look, he’d be just as sexy.”
Grant twirled the corner of his mustache as he tried another look that only made him look like he needed a suppository.
I cut my eyes over to Grant, suppressed a smile, and then went on, “Well, he paused the movie, and for far longer than you’d think possible, he tried out every look he could think of on me. And finally settled on the one you just saw. That’s how I knew.”
“Pathetic,” Deanna said.
“No, it’s genius,” William said. “It has to be the look because Statham’s balding, for goodness’ sake!”
“See!” Grant looked at me as he pointed at William. “Finally, another reasonable human being.”
William dipped his head in agreement. “We could both be that sexy if we wanted to.”
Deanna put her hands on her hips. “You mean, I could’ve been married to Jason Statham all these years if you had simply been looking at me the right way?”
William stuck out his lower lip. “Pretty much.”
“Then by all means!” She gestured to the men. “Commence with the Statham look, and Pen and I will melt all over the carpet.”
William lowered one eyebrow while simultaneously raising the other.
Grant nodded his approval. “Not bad! Get a load of this.” He pointed to his face.
William’s head bobbed. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“And who could blame you?” Grant wiggled his shoulders with provocative flair. “What’s Jason Statham got on this?”
The two men went back and forth. They were so absorbed in congratulating themselves on being so handsome that they didn’t notice Deanna and I retreating to Grant’s kitchen.
Deanna pulled the lid off a small aluminum container on the black granite countertop. “After the whole Chad thing, I didn’t ask: How many people made appointments with you at the event last night?” Her excitement made me feel special.
“Fifteen. I don’t know how many will actually sign with me, but I have fifteen appointments, and Erin’s working on some social media event with Lady Mama, who promises more. I might have to start turning people away.”
Deanna clapped. “She’s awesome!”
“Lady Mama? She’s intense.”
“Lady Mama is lit AF, but I was talking about Erin.”
“Yes, Erin is amazing. I’m thinking of asking her to be my business partner. Please don’t ever say ‘lit AF’ again. Do you even know what that means?”
“As fuck I do. Okay, you’re right. I will never say that again. But did you say you were going to ask Erin to be your business partner?”
“I think so. She does way more than a secretary. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a great idea! You and—”
“Why is it we always end up in the kitchen?” Grant interrupted and peered over Deanna’s shoulder as she sliced through homemade brownies, revealing a gooey marshmallow center.
“D! Marshmallows? This soon?” Grant cut his eyes to William, then pointed to the pan. “You okay, buddy? The last time you saw a marsh—”
“Not funny, Grant. Not funny.” William glared.
Deanna covered her smile with her hand and said, “I didn’t even think about the marshmallows!”
I wanted to laugh, but I was too busy salivating, literally salivating. Grant in his sweats, Statham single-handedly taking on the bad guys, Grant’s hand absentmindedly caressing my back—I was about to explode or at least need to change my panties. These brownies—marshmallows or no—were going to help me release the built-up tension. If sex wasn’t on the menu, I’d eat away my lust.
Deanna patted her brother’s face. “Shall I cut you an extra large?”
She waved the knife above the pan, the chocolate-draped marshmallow clinging to it every bit as seductive as Jason Statham’s clenched jaw and an acceptable substitute for biting into Grant’s fleece-covered ass.
Grant sucked air through his teeth. “D, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but can I save that extra-large piece for tomorrow? Indigestion.”
Deanna’s face fell. “But . . . but . . .”
“Hand me the brownie,” he responded.
“It’s all that junk Pen makes him eat,” William said. “His delicate, grass-fed stomach can’t handle it.”
“Be quiet, Marshmallow Center. I’m not that bad!” I defended. When had this become about me? “The other night, I made him Tater Tot hotdish.”
“You mean ‘casserole,’” Deanna said. “And Marshmallow Center has a point: that casserole hardly counts.”
“I mean ‘hotdish.’ And it has vegetables!” I knew this was a stretch, since the vegetables were either in the title of the canned soup or diced and fried from a freezer bag, but I had chopped a real, live onion on Erin’s cutting board. “I may not eat as well as Grant, but—” I turned to Grant for reassurance. He had the gall to look away, suddenly fascinated by a fleck in the granite countertop.
“It’s my fault then?” I said when everyone was silent, and then I threw Grant under the bus. “I think it has more to do with the back pain than the indigestion anyway.” I turned to Deanna. “He tweaked it that day we did William’s monster ride.”
“Penelope!” Grant exclaimed.
My nose shot in the air. “Well, it’s not because of my apparent horrible food choices.”
William stood and pointed a chocolate-stained finger at Deanna and me. “First, let’s put this ‘Marshmallow Center’ business to rest.” Then he turned to Grant. “And I knew it! I knew you couldn’t handle my ride!”
Grant turned to me and threw his hands up. “Well, let’s tell them the details of my latest colonoscopy while we’re at it!”
“You got a colonoscopy?” William was in full hazing mode, likely overcompensating because of the marshmallow comments.
“Wow. I wish I hadn’t said that. Given our extended family’s cancer history, my doc suggested one.”
This silenced William and completely arrested me. I didn’t know any of this. What did it say about our relationship? Should he have told me? I forced an inhale and counted to ten to stop my mind from racing long enough to realize why Grant wouldn’t have told me.
Cancer. He knew about Brandon. He’d seen my freak-out session at the hospital. He was probably worried about what I’d do if he did tell me. And I couldn’t blame him, because even at the sudden shift in the conversation, I was shaking inside.
His eyes met mine for a few seconds, and then he looked back at Deanna, who was actively frowning.
“You’re still having back pain?” Deanna looked at her brother much like she would a suspicious science experiment.
William walked between us and Grant.
“Ladies, my handsome friend here simply hurt his back and has a little indigestion. Let’s cut the old man some slack. He’s ancient, but he’s not dying, for goodness’ sake.”
“Just when I was struggling to remember why we were friends.” Grant patted William’s shoulder.
A sly smile slid onto William’s mouth. “Can’t take my pick, though, huh?”
“Here we go!” Grant wagged a finger. “Oh, I can take it, it’s you that—”
“Have you seen a doctor?” Deanna asked, as if the men hadn’t been talking. “It could be a bulging disc, herniated even. A friend of mine had to have surgery because—”
He closed his eyes. “I’ll call tomorrow.”
Deanna nodded, relief softening her features.
“Now can we drop this for the evening?” he asked. “I love attention, but this isn’t the kind I want.”
We returned to the living room, and as we played games I no longer felt like playing and ate brownies I no longer felt like eating, Deanna’s words played over and over in my head.
Have you seen a doctor? Seen a doctor? A doctor?
We’d been messing around until Deanna had gone serious, which I didn’t like because it reminded me of orgasmic Piper saying Grant’s aura was off.