Twenty-Five. The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Twenty-Five
THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING
When I wake up the next morning, I’m momentarily jolted by my new surroundings. It’s not the guest room of my parents’ house, and I panic, thinking that sex with Grant has sent me out of Sweetville and back into the real world.
But then, I think, as I spread out, stretching my legs along the cool sheets, would it be so bad if the real world I woke up to was Grant Heath’s apartment—or the one he kept while we were together?
Although, I’m naked in Grant’s bed, and what if sex with Grant opened some kind of portal that’s deposited me nude in the bedroom above the bar, where I assume he’s staying for the holidays, but he doesn’t remember us having sex because the Powell Park Grant isn’t the same as Sweetville Grant?
The questions are possibly more confusing than their answers.
But regardless, last night presents a particularly unique sex-with-your-ex dilemma—not least, can it really count if it happened in a different version of reality?
A glorious aroma wafts into the room. Breakfast, Grant-style.
I can smell my old favorites, and as hunger rouses me, I catch a glimpse through the cracked bedroom door of the living room.
I take in his room with greater care than I did in the heat of passion last night.
Everything looks the same as it did when we were dating, from the dresser and bureau that Louis made for Grant when he was a little kid to the framed poster of Big Night , one of Grant’s favorite movies.
But I know we’re still in Sweetville because out his bedroom window, I see the lusher, nicer Christmas tree outside.
The sky is just a little bluer, the snowflakes a little fatter.
I sit up as he enters the room carrying a tray laden with more food than I could ever eat.
“Good morning,” he says, setting the tray down on the bed next to me.
“Good morning.” I aim for breathy and cute, but my words emerge froggy. I clear my throat as I eyeball the food. Eggs Benedict, French toast, chicken sausage, berries and cream. My eyes go wide. “I know we were pretty athletic last night, but I hope we’re sharing this.”
“We’re sharing,” Grant says, producing two sets of utensils and taking an extra plate out from beneath the one set up on the tray.
He’s in a pair of basketball shorts, and I swipe his discarded black T-shirt from the edge of the bed and slip it on.
We eat and sip our coffee in half-dressed states and make smirking, “we have a secret” eye contact every so often.
“So, we need to talk about the elephant in the room,” Grant finally says, once the food is mostly gone.
“If this is your way of saying I didn’t save you enough French toast, it’s rude,” I tease.
He faces me, pulling me in so my legs are wrapped around his back and his stretch out behind me. He’s so warm—my own heat source.
“Did you mean what you said about me?” I have no reason to doubt Grant’s sincerity, but I think I’d like to hear it again.
“Of course I meant what I said,” he tells me, holding my eyes with his own. He lifts my ass to bring my body flush against his. “I don’t want you to quit your writing, ever. I completely believe in you. And I believe in us, too. So, how can we make this work after the holidays are over?”
He brushes his lips along the side of my neck, and a wave of desire crests through me. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I think it doesn’t matter right now. It feels real.
“I mean, there’s always long distance,” I say, hating the words and what they mean.
To soften the way they land, I scratch my nails lightly up his back and knead the pads of my fingers into the spot behind his ears, nipping the right lobe with my teeth before I add, “Or, you do know that Los Angeles has a pretty great restaurant scene. I bet a hot New York chef could make a real go of it there.”
Grant sighs heavily and kisses along my jaw, tilting my head back as he hotly breathes into my neck. His other hand creeps up the back of my—I mean, his—shirt.
“What do you think?” I venture.
He lets his hands fall away from me and leans back. He’s biting his lower lip, and I can tell he’s going to nix my idea before he even speaks.
“Just, at Struck, things are going really well for me. You know how hard this business is, and we finally are turning a profit. That so rarely happens anywhere.”
“ We so rarely happen anywhere,” I remind him, running my palms down his bare chest.
His shoulders tense, and he squirms slightly beneath me. “I just wonder, couldn’t you just as easily write from New York?”
I puff out a flat chuckle and push backward out of his lap and onto the bed. Covering my chest with my folded arms, I swallow down the repeating flavors of our breakfast.
“Last night you told me not to give up on writing,” I say a little defensively.
Grant knits his brow, his whole face knotted with consternation. “Of course I don’t want you to give up writing. Just, writing is different than cuisine.”
I spin away so that my feet are firmly on the floor.
I wiggle out of his shirt, then reach for mine and pull it over my head.
“Cuisine. Jesus Christ, could you be more pretentious?” I shake my head, standing to search the floor for my underwear.
I find them by the foot of the bed and step into them, scanning the room for my jeans before I see they’re on the floor by the kitchen counter.
“You can’t even fathom trying to work in LA, which—by the way—has an amazing restaurant scene.
But you think I should hitch my wagon to you in New York, which, just so you know, is not the epicenter of the movie business. What if I have a meeting?”
“No, no, I didn’t mean you follow me, done deal, all on my terms. I was just talking through possibilities.”
“But I think it’s possible that we’re exactly where we were three years ago,” I say.
“You mean…”
“When we broke up? Yeah, that’s what I mean. But of course, the date’s not seared in your head the way it is mine,” I say.
Grant scoffs, disbelieving. “Yeah, I think it is. Maybe just, after yesterday and today and all the time that’s passed, I thought we figured some things out.” He tries for a small smile. “It felt like we figured some things out, didn’t it?”
I shake my head, more to discard the swept-away feeling I had last night than to disagree with him. But I do disagree with him. “I think I still know what I’ve always known—that you didn’t love me enough then and you don’t now, even if it feels that way in this morning-after moment.”
Grant gets up and paces to the window and stares at the tree for a beat, then spins back toward me.
“How can you say that? All I ever wanted or asked for was a future with you.” He paces back and grips the end of his bed.
His knuckles show white, like he’s really holding on.
“You had one foot out the door our entire relationship.”
“You’re crazy,” I say.
“Yeah, okay. That’s why every time I tried to read something of yours, you’d get twitchy and strange.
Or when I’d have you come to the restaurant, you’d only show up sometimes, and you always told me how you didn’t fit in, even though everyone liked you.
Including Fiona, who you chose to see as a threat.
You’d get weird any time I asked you what your next steps were for your writing, or if I’d bring up a chef who wanted to meet me.
I wanted both our dreams to come true, and I wanted to share mine with you.
That’s why you were so stunned about my job in New York, because you evaded any attempt I made to get real about what we were doing.
And let’s not forget that when I told you, ‘Hey, come with me on this adventure,’ that I wanted you there, you said, ‘YOU should go.’ Not even a mention of the W word—‘we.’”
“You never said, ‘Come with me.’”
Grant pauses, as if he’s sifting through his memory of our breakup.
He stabs the air with his pointer finger, like he’s landed on the moment.
“You’re right. I wanted to ask you to come with me, but as soon as I told you my news, you’d already shut me down.
You never even gave me a chance to ask you!
” He scrapes his hair off his head and clutches it tight as he strides away from me.
“I was so pumped and stupidly picturing us walking down New York streets that don’t even really exist, like in a Bob Dylan album cover.
Like a fucking little schoolboy with a crush.
But that’s all I could really be. Someone who crushed on you, who could never be let in all the way. ”
“You have it entirely wrong.” The words feel dry and lifeless on my tongue.
I’m at a loss for what else to say as I stand in my shirt and underwear, with a better response as far out of reach as my jeans are.
I turn away from him, willing myself not to cry.
Is that really how Grant remembers things?
Because I remember being certain that his future was so bright I needed to settle for being part of his past.
Or did I try so hard to stay in our love bubble that I kept out any circumstances that would have prompted us to grow together, and beyond it?
“I think you’re choosing to see it that way,” Grant tells me. His voice is soft, and even with my back to him, I can feel his approach.
“Maybe everything I choose is all wrong,” I retort. I walk fast out of the room, grabbing my jeans from the floor and pulling them on. My socks and shoes are in a pile there, too. I don’t even remember taking them off. Or if Grant did it. “Like coming here at all.”
“You’re leaving?” Grant says, following me into the kitchen. He’s put his black shirt back on.
“Yeah. I can’t do this again. Ever. See you at the competition.” I grab my coat and run from his room and out the door, wanting him to follow me but knowing it’s better if he doesn’t.
Even in a fantasy Christmas world where every conflict can be solved with a heart-to-heart and a cup of cocoa, Grant and I are unsolvable.