11. Graciella
ELEVEN
GRACIELLA
“I GET A HIGH EVERY TIME SHE CALLS HIM JOSHUA.”—@SECRETLYBOOKOBSESSED
Me:
I’ve solved the problem!! We’re back in business, baby!!
Monroe:
Who is this? How did you get my number?
Me:
who do you think it is Joshua…and I took it from Ariella’s phone back when I traveled to your place in Dallas. Duh.
Monroe:
You’ve had it that long?
Me:
Upset I didn’t text you sooner?
Monroe:
Upset you’re texting me now.
Me:
…anyway
Me:
Found the PERFECT fake girlfriend! Her name is Itzel (learn to pronounce that properly by next Friday)
Monroe:
So you solved the problem you created?
Me:
Pretty sure your bad attitude caused the problem so…
Monroe:
Please, I can handle that. I can say Graciella Xochitl just fine
Me:
God, you text so slow your responses are like five minutes behind
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Something jolted me from another night of restless sleep, my brain too foggy to make sense of what the hell it was. Piles of papers scribbled with notes were scattered near my face, pens littering the edge of the laminated surface.
My desk. I’d spent the entire weekend with my ass glued to the makeshift desk chair. A cracked plastic stool, or maybe it was a table, that I’d pilfered from the front porch. I groaned, peeling my face off my notebook. A pool of drool warped the pale blue lines.
Hot.
Another reason not to spend the night with a guy. Apparently, I drooled.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, trying to read the late-night—well, early morning—strategy planning I’d been working on since talking to Itzel on Friday, seeing if it was still legible or had succumbed to its waterlogged injuries.
The letters were a bit wobbly, but I wasn’t entirely sure that was because of the drool.
Get him ready for Cup dinner
Stage a date to see if he’s shit.
He’s hot. Take photos.
Butt stuff.
I stared at that last one, an unladylike snort slipping out.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? With the weird way the bottom line of the f trailed down to the end of the page, this was one of my mid-sleep notes to self.
Usually, they were strokes of genius, but this one…no clue where I was going with it.
The lack of quality sleep, coupled with the fact that I could use some caffeine injected directly into my veins, meant I forgot something had woken me until the metal banging sounds started back up.
“What the fuck?”
My stomach dropped, and I crouched by my desk chair, shifting forward to peer at the front door from around the armrest of the velvet loveseat.
The deep purple door was solid wood, except for the gold mail slot in the middle, so staring at it didn’t do a damn thing to clue me in on what was happening on my strip of a front porch.
I crawled across the room to where Monica leaned against the wall, the uneven planks biting into my hands and knees.
The familiar weight of the hockey stick steadied my nerves. I pressed my ear to the door, seeing if I could figure out what was happening out on my porch.
Come on, Monica. This time we’re stopping a crime. I flung the old door open, sending it crashing into the dresser that the television sat on.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled, holding my weapon like a bat, freezing at the sight of Monroe crouched at my feet on the sun-bleached porch boards.
“Is that my hockey stick? I knew you were the one who stole it from my truck. Why is it green? And rhinestoned!” Monroe stood, wiping a greased hand against light-washed jeans. “Wait, were you going to attack someone with that? Why wouldn’t you call 911?”
As if to prove his point, a siren wailed in the background. I barely noticed—they were so common downtown that the sound was basically white noise at this point.
I blinked. Once. Twice.
Was I still asleep? Because why was Monroe on my front porch with a bunch of tools? I locked onto the screwdriver tucked in his pocket.
“Are you…fixing my security door?”
A shiny brass deadbolt replaced the newspaper I’d previously stuffed into the hole.
He grunted, going back down to one knee and continuing with whatever it was he was doing before I busted out there. Biceps flexing as he tightened down a screw. “What good is it if you’re missin’ the deadbolt?”
“It still had the little locky thing,” I huffed, leaning against the jam, waving to a passing group of students with their backpacks slung low who stared a little too long.
My eyes moved back to Monroe, running along his body while he wasn’t looking, and landing on where his Wranglers stretched across his thighs. I snorted.
Butt stuff made more sense now. A photo of his backside would make anyone smile.
“Do you know how easy those are to bust open?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that I was considering objectifying him for the sake of his reputation.
He’d probably lecture me about that, too.
“There’s a second door with a deadbolt, Monroe.” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder. “But yeah, I knew this needed to be fixed, which is why—” I straightened. “Wait, why are you fixing my door?”
This entire interaction had to be conjured by my imagination because I swore his ears held a tinge of pink.
“Because having no deadbolt is bad enough. I wasn’t going to let you have some random man fixing it,” he said, jaw tight under the dusting of dark hair. “Knowing you, you’d select some dude who’d make a copy of your key.”
I took it back. This wasn’t a dream. No way I could recreate that level of sass and annoyance in his tone.
He stood, wiping his hand off on a small towel stained with dirt and grease, eyeing his handiwork.
“There. That one’s done.” He dangled a gold key off the tip of his pinky. “Don’t go around handing this out to everyone, or it defeats the whole purpose of me being out here fixin’ the damn thing.”
I snatched it, smirking at his slight wince. He deserved it for the condescending tone he’d used. “Damn, and here I was planning on leaving a trail of keys all the way to my front door.”
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
“Funny you should say that, Monroe. Want just the tip or to the knuckle?” I held up my pointer. He blinked a few times. “You get it? Like do you want just the tip of my finger in your as—”
“Yeah, I got it, Graciella.” He shook his head. “Why am I trusting you with my image when you say shit like that?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I’m good at my job.”
His eye roll irked me.
I rarely cared about what people thought about me anymore. I’d worked through my people-pleasing issues with my therapist after going no-contact with my dad.
But for some reason, I cared about what Monroe thought.
“I’ll have you know, I’m an expert at morphing into what people want.
Even if that version is nothing close to who I am...
” My voice trailed off, caught up in memories I didn’t want to revisit.
“Anyway, that skill set makes me good at my career.” I flashed Monroe a smile, hoping he didn’t catch the moment of vulnerability.
But those azure eyes had creased at the corners with what looked an awful lot like concern, and it had me gnawing on my lip.
“You morph into somethin’ you’re not around me?”
His deep rasp scraped across my skin like a caress, drawing out a flurry of goosebumps. I wanted to break the stare-off, but I was trapped in those pools of blue. Dark and turbulent like the ocean, tinged with something…vulnerable? Disappointed?
I swallowed down the lump of emotion.
I could’ve lied. I should’ve lied. The truth tumbled out.
“No, Monroe. I’m one hundred percent myself around you. You should know. You listed off all the traits that prove I’m everything you don’t like.”
I stared at my toes, stomach dropping at the silence.
Why did I say that? What good could come from—
“I like you plenty, Graciella.”
My head whipped up, jaw nearly on the floor.
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “But you’re a lot of fucking trouble.”
“Well you’re a pain in the ass, Monroe.” I smirked. “But I like you, too.”
Something shifted between us. It wasn’t big or monumental. But something felt…different. We stood there for a moment.
“Uhh.” He looked away, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s all fixed now. Want to try out the key, make sure it works?”
I shook my head, trying to recover from whatever that was.
“Yes, Coach.” I gave him a little salute, earning a strangled grunt.
Everything in me wanted to tease him, but there was something sweet about a flustered Monroe.
And I didn’t want to push our tentative friendship.
Acquaintance? Reformed rivalry?
I stepped onto the porch, balancing on the balls of my feet, careful to avoid some of the rougher boards.
“Really?” Monroe said under his breath, along with what sounded a lot like another thing for the fridge list.
I’d barely closed the security door before he was back to barking out instructions like I was four.
“Okay, just put the key—”
“I know how to use a door.”
I slid the key into the new lock…and cursed when it refused to move.
Warm breath danced along the back of my neck, and my eyelids fluttered shut. All the noise drifting from the street a few feet away faded into the background, my heartbeat overtaking it.
“If you had let me finish,” he murmured, too close.
God, would I let you finish.
“Then you’d have heard me tell you that sometimes the key sticks on a new lock.” Monroe’s low timbre and calloused hand set off a swarm of butterflies low in my stomach as he reached around me to jiggle the lock. “Come on, open up for me.”
“You need to stop talking,” I bit out, gripping the key, painfully aware of my stiffened nipples and the silver barbells threatening to cut through my shirt.
“I find words of encouragement tend to help.”
For fuck’s sake. Someone take me out back.
Clearly, the universe hated me. It was the only explanation for the torture I was forced to endure.
What did you mean I had a hot, six-foot-something man hunched over me, whispering things like, “Open up for me” into my ear while the heat of his body seeped into mine.
And he was utterly oblivious to the fact that I stood there with damp fucking panties because of his “words of encouragement.”