23. Now
TWENTY-THREE
now
I slip into my car and fall back against the black leather seat, exhausted.
“Where to, sir?”
To the empty condo at the top of the building I own. To the bed that’s too big for one. To the kitchen I never touch, the wet bar I touch way too often, and the TV that’s almost large enough to make me forget I’m alone.
I turn my head to look out from the dark glass, exhaling roughly. “Home, I guess. ”
Lately, it feels like I spend half my time staring out tinted windows.
“Mom, I said I’m sorry.”
“Well, you better be!” she rebukes. “You may be the CEO now, mi amor , but you will always be my son. And, like it or not, I’m concerned about your well-being.”
I stretch out on my sofa, allowing her to berate me to her heart’s content. She deserves it, and so do I. I grunt along, repeating my apology a few more times before she winds down.
Finally, she sighs. Her voice takes on a solicitous quality that makes me uneasy. “Before I tell you what I did today, I want you to remember that I’m your mother, and I love you.”
Oh God . “Mom…”
“I called Olivia Watts,” she admits, then rushes on before I can react. “And she is thrilled, Grayson— thrilled —to be your date next week. Now, I know you tell your father that you want to go alone, but it’s simply unbecoming for one of the wealthiest, most powerful young men in the city to turn up solo to his own gala. And you certainly can’t bring one of the random women from your phone apps...”
I would rather ask every Tinder hook-up from the past calendar year than go anywhere with Olivia Watts. Or “Olivia Twats,” as Graham calls her.
My stomach sinks. “Jesus, Mom, why her ?”
“Well, I did try a few other young ladies first,” she concedes. “But no one seemed too keen on accepting an invitation from me when, really, darling, it’s you who should be making your own social calls. ”
“I do make my own social calls,” I grit, “when I want to go out with someone.”
“All right, all right,” she relents. “I know I over-stepped. I’m just so worried about you, Grayson. You’ve seemed so down the last few times we were together. I worry that you’re getting lonely. And—before you tell me just how often you’re not lonely—we both know that one-night stands are hardly a cure for the lack of a lifelong companion.”
For Gray, for always .
“I had my shot,” I think out loud. “I had it all right in my hands, and I blew it. You were there, remember?”
Neither of us likes to talk about it. I suspect my mother’s despair over watching me lose Ella may have actually rivaled my own. She wanted so badly for me to be happy. When I lost the one girl I ever wanted a life with, she grieved with me.
“Yes,” she replies, soft. “Well. Nothing to be done about that now, I suspect. So you’ll go with Olivia? Please?”
Ugh. Kill me. “I’ll consider it,” I allow. “If I can’t come up with a suitable alternative by next week, then fine. Of course, she can still attend as a guest either way.”
I’m not a complete dickhead...
Most of the time.
My mind spins forward to logistics. “It’s our brand relaunch, Mom, so I’ll be working the entire time. I won’t be able to pick her up or take her out beforehand, and I’m not sure I’ll be much of a date while we’re there. But if you’d like her to come and sit at our table, I’ll be a gentleman, of course.”
Mom thanks me and tells me she loves me one more time before hanging up. I rest my phone on my sternum and stare up at the white plaster ceiling overhead.
Graham texts me a minute later, asking if we are still on for drinks tomorrow. I agree and shoot an invite to my cousin, Daniel, knowing he’ll want to talk shop with us.
Eventually, I make my way into my closet, finding the next day’s outfit pressed and laid out for me by my housekeeper. I forget they come on Thursdays, and I find it darkly amusing that I don’t notice the difference between my apartment being “clean” versus “dirty.” Primarily because I don’t have any personal possessions aside from my own clothes.
And the box.
No one ever would guess, when they look at my rows of polished dress shoes and the athletic shoe boxes stacked beside them, that one box doesn’t hold any shoes at all.
On a whim, I crouch down and pull out the Nike container, chucking the lid aside and lowering myself onto the floor.
The pieces in the box are all I have left of Ellie—scraps, literally. She was very thorough when she left me, but I scrounged together a few small things.
A hair tie. Her handwriting—specifically, the recipe for a soup she once made, scribbled onto a notecard that fell down the crack between my old cabinets and the trash can. A dark green bundle of yarn. A copy of her favorite book of poems.
And one unopened gift.
I wrap my hand around it, feeling the crinkle of the wrapping paper. A bolt of regret stabs my gullet, blocking my throat.
I should get rid of it , I think, for the millionth time. Return it. Sell it. Burn it .
But who am I kidding? I can’t even read past the third page of her book.
Besides, would getting rid of any of her trinkets help me forget the way she stroked my hair when I put my head in her lap? Or her small, shy smiles whenever I praised her? Or her adorable embarrassment when she gave me one of her handmade gifts?
No. Nothing ever could.
I’ve been trying to forget her long enough to know that some memories never fade.