16. Grayson
CHAPTER 16
Grayson
I t was the second day of play practice and I was memorizing my lines as the Fairy Frogmother when one of the kids in the chorus came over to me.
He was a red-headed kid with a bounty of freckles, a boy around 10, although I didn’t know kids well enough to be able to tell.
“Why are you wearing all those dumb-looking pink ribbons?” he asked.
I glanced down at myself. Clementine was working on my costume, but she had insisted that I wear the ribbons for it so I could “get comfortable with them.”
It didn’t matter what she made me wear. I would do the entire play in a chicken costume if it meant Clementine forgave me.
“What the fuck else should a Fairy Frogmother wear?” I asked irritably, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to be saying the word ‘fuck’ in front of kids.
He seemed to be digesting this.
“I guess that makes sense. I’m not used to seeing a guy who looks like you wearing pink ribbons.”
“Big guys like me can wear anything we want,” I said. “What’s important is how we act.”
Fuck, I wish I’d been smart enough to take my own advice.
Smart enough to realize that my job wasn’t the most important thing in the world. Clementine was. It was extremely shitty and unpleasant to realize what an asshole I had been.
“My name is Dennis,” the kid said. “Can you guess why I have to do this crappy play?”
“Why?” I asked, my hands moving automatically to fix the branches of this goddamn Enchanted Tree. They were always falling off, but Clementine said it was a special work of art that had been donated by the mayor’s wife, so we unfortunately were not able to just dump it in the garbage bin as it so richly deserved.
“I set one of the school buildings on fire,” he said.
“OK,” I said, not exactly sure how to respond.
“It felt good at the time,” Dennis said reflectively, taking a bag of sour candy from his pocket and shoving several in his mouth. “But I did feel a little guilty when I saw how upset the art teacher was to have some of her, like, paintings damaged.”
“Hm,” I said. “I guess I know how that feels. But all we can do now is not be jackasses going forward.”
Fuck . I remembered again I wasn’t supposed to be cursing around small children.
But it seemed to make an impression on Dennis.
He didn’t say anything, but he bent down to pick up another branch and stuck it back in its slot. A few more kids started to help.
Working together, we put all the branches back on the Enchanted Tree. Then we stood together and looked at it.
“It’s just going to fall down again,” Dennis said in a disgruntled tone.
“Then we’ll put it back up again,” I said.
It was kind of a lame answer, but the kids nodded like I’d said something profound.
When Clementine came back over they were practicing their lines as I tried to rig something to keep the Enchanted Forest upright.
“How’s it going?” Clementine asked, her cute little voice sounding triumphant. “Enjoying yourself? Have you been set on fire yet?”
“Why no,” I chuckled. “They’re not so bad, really. I think they’ll do fine for the play. Is there a toolbox or anything here so I can try to fix these tree branches? I don’t want them falling down on the kids.”
“In here,” she said, and she pulled a key from her pocket as she led me down a darkened hallway.
Oh, fuck, the things I wanted to take her down a dark hallway and do. Getting down on my knees between her thighs would be just the first step.
“Just you wait,” she said through gritted teeth. “I am going to wear you down.”
“No, love,” I said, bending down so my voice was low in her ear. “You won’t. Nothing you could do could drive me away.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You left before.”
“Never again,” I growled, and I had never felt anything so true in my bones. “I was an idiot. I know what I lost, and I know I’ll do anything to win it back.”
She turned to look me straight in the eyes.
“Grayson, for two years I trusted you. I would have leaped out of a plane if you said you were there to catch me.”
There was a raw expression in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before, and the pain she was trying to hide felt like it was twisting a jagged knife in my gut.
“I’m sorry,” I said hoarsely. “I’m so sorry. If I could take it back, I would.”
“I know you’re sorry,” she said, twisting my heart. “But I don’t see any way I can trust you again.”
My heart almost stopped, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
Please no
At first I thought I only screamed it in my head, then I realized I had said it, and was saying it again.
“Please, no. Please, no. I never want to leave you, Clementine.”
“Look at it this way,” she said. “There’s millions of men in the world. And none of them have lied to me for two years. Cheated on me for two years. Your marriage proposal wasn’t even real, Grayson. It was a private helicopter ride over the ocean, and it was all a fake. Why would I ever choose you, when you’ve already done those things to me?”
“ Please, darling ”
It was only a moan, my voice cracking with emotion.
“I can’t live without you. Nothing is right without you.”
“I don’t even know anything about you,” she said. “Nothing about your life. Nothing about your job. You’re a stranger to me. And I don’t even know if I can trust anything you say.”
She yanked the door to the supply closet open and left me.
My legs didn’t seem to work properly and my face was numb.
For the first time, I had to face the brutal truth.
I might not be able to convince Clementine to give me another chance
This might be it for me.
Fuck.
A cold, miserable emptiness filled me.
I absolutely could not live without her.
My arms full of costumes Clementine was still working on, and props I was going to fix, we headed back to her SUV. I could tell she was tired because she handed me the keys and let me drive.
There was a stiff, awkward silence between us.
“Let’s get a burger,” I said. “You need to eat something, Clementine. You haven’t eaten since lunch.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I’ll just have some more coffee.”
“You will not just have coffee,” I said. “I am here to keep you safe, and I don’t want you fainting from exhaustion. I’ll go wherever you want to.”
For a moment, she said nothing, then she said, “Tacos. Greasy tacos.”
I spun the car around to where her favorite taco truck was, swallowing hard. But some things had to change if I had the faintest chance of a real relationship with her.
“You know my parents are dead,” I said. “But actually I never knew them. As far as I can tell, my dad was never in the picture and my mom left shortly after giving birth to me. When I was able to do research later, they had both already died. My mother left me with my great-aunt. She was in her late 70s when she took in a newborn.”
I couldn’t look at Clementine. It was hard for me to share anything personal, and I had never told anyone.
“In her 70s?” Clementine asked, startled. “She must have been quite a woman.”
“She was,” I said. “She didn’t have much money but damn, she was a good cook. Taught me a lot of my dishes, and I learned how to cook at a young age.”
I swallowed. “She died when I was quite young. After that there was only group homes and then, as soon as I was 18, the military. So now you know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I want you to know everything about me. Also, I’m allergic to blackberries?”
“Allergic?” she cried. “You used to eat those all the time!”
“I know I did,” I replied, my hands tightening on the wheel, glancing over at where she sat like a little stone statue. “But you loved making that rhubarb crumble with blackberries so much, I couldn’t bear to say no.”
Flicking my eyes over to her, I saw a little flash of surprise in her eyes.
“I have a card with that info in my wallet if you don’t believe me,” I said, pulling it out to show her.
She didn’t say anything but I had seen that little spark in her eyes.
I had surprised her. She hadn’t expected me to say that.
But it was only the beginning. Even I wondered how far I’d go to show Clementine I cared.