Chapter 24
W ith Grace’s hand in mine, I help her out of the limousine beside the VIP entrance.
I don’t even care if I’m playing the Fritz card.
I want this to be a night Grace never forgets.
A night of just her and just me and just us, not in my apartment hanging out, but a date.
A real fucking date even if she’s pretending it’s not.
“What did you do, Carter Fritz?” she asks with a gleam to her eye and an incredulous shake to her head as she looks around us. The concert doesn’t start for another hour or so, but you’d never know it by the mass of cars and people already here tailgating.
I give her a wink, gripping her hand a little tighter. “Come on and I’ll show you.” I look to our driver, “We should be ready around midnight.”
“Very good, sir.”
And with that, I pull Grace along to the door, manned with security.
Our family has a luxury box on the fifty-yard line at this stadium, and I could have used that for tonight—Kaplan and Luca will be up there with their dates and a few of their friends.
But that’s not how I want my girl to watch one of her favorite bands perform.
For a concert like this, you have to be in it, down on the floor, feeling the pulse of the audience and the thrum of the music.
“Carter,” she hisses and then squeals when she sees just what I’m up to. “Oh my God. You didn’t. Tell me you freaking didn’t!”
I turn back to her, wrapping my arms around her back, the late summer sun steadily heading west, casting a golden glow on everything it touches.
“Sweetheart, sometimes it’s like you don’t even know me.
Of course, I did. It didn’t even take much of a favor.
Oh, and when you see Kaplan and Luca, just be nice and smile. ”
I laugh at her stricken expression. “Kaplan and Luca are here? But… do they… they know you’re here with me?”
“Yes. I told them,” I explain, pulling out the VIP badges from the back pocket of my jeans, handing one to her.
“And they know we’re…”
I shrug up a shoulder. “I didn’t tell them the details. Just that you’re a big fan and would like to meet the band. They didn’t ask because I’m positive they already know or at least assume.”
“What about Oliver? Rina?”
“Not worried about Landon?” I quip as we reach the security guard and display our badges.
He looks them over and opens the door for us, waving us through.
Inside, we’re greeted by another guard and then ushered along the bowels of Gillette stadium toward what I’m assuming is a green room of sorts for the band.
“Carter?” She tugs on my hand, pulling me to a stop. “Does Oliver know we’re…”
“A couple?” I supply for her when she fails to come up with a definition for us.
“A couple?” Her eyes widen and she takes a step back, her fingers clutching to mine. Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown that word out there so fast?
“I was going to say sleeping together. I didn’t think… You know, we were…”
“What would you call us then?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes blink in rapid succession, her free hand coming up to her mouth as she grapples with the implications of my question. “I was trying not to think about definitions of things. I was afraid of being… I didn’t want to get…”
“Okay. Let me start then since you’re having trouble.
” I grasp her shoulder and slide us to the right, so we don’t take up the walkway that’s loaded with roadies trying to do their jobs.
My eyes lock with hers. “I consider us a couple. To me, that means I’m not sleeping with anyone else.
I’m not dating anyone else. I’m not looking at anyone else.
It also means I have you in my bed or against the wall or in my office or any other place I can manage as often as I can.
It doesn’t have to be serious, and it doesn’t have to be something that requires a whole lot of mental energy if you’d rather not go there yet.
But for now, this is where I’m at and I’d like you to be there with me. ”
“I’ve been lying to Oliver. And avoiding him.”
“I know.”
“I hate it. It breaks me in two.”
“I know.”
“What if I’m not ready for a full relationship yet?”
Rejection stings through my blood like a toxin, but it’s no less than what I was expecting from her.
It’s why I never bothered or tried to have this conversation with her until now.
Grace isn’t ready. Or maybe it’s just with me but I refuse to think on those terms. If it was just me, she wouldn’t be here at all.
So we’ll go with not ready yet , since that’s the word she used and I’ll keep playing the system until she is.
“Then you’re not ready yet, but I’m still not sleeping or dating or looking at anyone else.”
She licks her lips nervously. “I’m not either.”
“Then we’re good. You good?” I check.
“I think so.”
“Then quit all your worrying and relax. Tonight is about fun.” I cup her face in my hand, drawing her back to me.
“I know you feel that because Janet is suddenly gone that you have to pick up everything from her since she was a fellow third year, but there are other residents, Grace. It doesn’t have to be you that takes everything on. ”
I tried to have this conversation with her earlier in the week and she wouldn’t hear of it.
That is until her twenty-four-hour shift plus her regular shift after.
I think that did her in. She fell asleep last night at eight—in her bed but we won’t go there now—and woke up at nine.
She’s pushing herself like she has something to prove to everyone, including herself when she has nothing to prove to anyone.
She’s a rock star.
A future leader of our field.
Her work already far outshines doctors with twice her experience.
She just hasn’t learned balance yet. No resident does.
Their world is one big challenge where it’s win big or go home.
I get it. I lived it. You want to learn as much as you can, garner as much experience as you can, obtain the best fellowship or attending position as you can.
But all of that comes at a cost and in Grace’s case, this week spread her thin.
“I don’t want to talk about work. I want to talk about tonight.”
“Fine, we’ll talk about it tomorrow morning over breakfast.”
She shakes her head. “No. I have to go in. No one picked up Janet’s shift, including any of her residents.”
Fuck. They didn’t because they knew Grace would. That means she has to be back there at seven am tomorrow. Another night of limited sleep.
“Do you want to go home? Get more rest?”
She glares at me, ready to rip my eyes out for even suggesting something so ludicrous. “Not on your life. Now take me to meet the band.”
So that’s what I do. I hold her hand and we’re guided by yet another mammoth security guard to a room that houses four rock stars. Jasper Diamond. Gus Diamond. Keith Dawson. Henry Gauthier.
Kaplan and Luca are already here, shooting the shit.
But Grace hasn’t moved past the threshold. She stares at these guys, one by one, her grip on my hand becoming ninja-like.
Jasper notices us first, standing and giving us a look. He runs his hand through his reddish-brown hair, his tattooed arms on full display under a white T-shirt. “Hey,” he says with a hint of a smile. “You must be Grace. Welcome.”
And that’s when she loses it. “Oh my god. I’m not hallucinating.”
Gus laughs, standing too. “Come here, little darlin’. Your guys here were telling us all about you. My wife Naomi and I are expecting twins and I think I need to know what to expect when we’re expecting directly from the source and not a book, if you know what I mean.”
“Naomi Kent is pregnant?” Grace squeals, entering the room and marching over to him. “I haven’t heard this.”
Keith chuckles, taking a swig directly from his bottle of Jack Daniels before pointing the end of the bottle at her. “Nor will you, since Gus here wasn’t supposed to make that public for another six weeks or so. But since you’re all doctors, we’ll invoke some HIPPA shit.”
“My lips are sealed, but wow, congratulations,” Grace gushes, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet with her excitement. “That’s amazing. I’m sorry if I look like a psycho right now, but I don’t think I can blink for fear that this will all be a dream.”
The guys all laugh good-naturedly—I’m positive this isn’t the first time they’ve met a big fan—and then Henry tosses his arm over her shoulder.
“We’re happy to have you. Any friend of Kaplan’s is a friend of ours.
He hosted a charity for one of our favorite causes and raised a lot of money that went to help kids on the autism spectrum.
Anyone who cares about that is good people in our book. ”
“Without a doubt,” Jasper agrees, picking up a bottle of Grey Goose and handing it to me. “Join us for a drink before the show?”
I take the bottle from him but notice it’s completely full and unopened. Jasper isn’t drinking and I’m assuming that’s because he takes his duties as front man seriously.
“Ignore the boring guy over there,” Keith says, pointing to Jasper as if reading my thoughts. “He won’t party with us until after the show.”
“Someone has to keep you assholes in line,” Jasper shoots back.
“Well, I’m all for a little pre-game,” Luca announces, swiping a bottle of Patron from off the counter and taking a swig before handing it to Kaplan, who does the same. “Grace?”
“Um. Well. A little, I guess.”
She takes the bottle from Kaplan and drinks some of it down, grimacing immediately after and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Alright.” Henry laughs. “Now we’re getting serious.”
* * *
By the time Grace and I stagger out of the green room and down in the direction of the floor, I think we’re both rocking a good buzz.
The band was more than hospitable. We took shots—well, swigs from bottles—and picked at some food on the platters they had set up and each of the guys took selfies with Grace who was so over the moon she was practically floating.