Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
KING OF CHIVALRY
Connor
“You wanna talk through the plan for tomorrow?”
She’s not ready to talk about us, but she can’t get out of talking about this. I’ll take her words any way they come as long as she doesn’t keep up this silent treatment.
Gretchen smiles at the waitress as she drops off a Diet Coke refill, before turning to me. “I don’t have a grand plan, really. I was kind of hoping I would know what to do once we get there.”
“And if we get there and you don’t?”
Her body deflates. She hasn’t even met this woman yet and she’s already acting like she’s lost.
“What are you afraid of, Gretch?”
She meets my gaze. “What am I not afraid of? I’m afraid I’ve gone about this all wrong and I should have called first. I’m scared I’ll get there and chicken out and this whole trip will have been a waste. Or I won’t chicken out, I’ll knock on that door and she won’t want anything to do with me?—”
“I don’t think that would hap?— ”
“Or,” she emphasizes, cutting me off, “I’ll knock on that door, she’ll hug me and it’ll be everything I dreamed it would be and I’ll have to go home and explain this all to my family—how I did it without including them.
” She takes a breath and lowers her voice.
“Even if this goes the best it can go, I still end up hurting my family in the end.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because I asked them about her. I asked questions about who she was and where she was from. I asked them to find her for me.” Her voice cracks, eyes cloudy.
“When?” I don’t believe for a second that Paul and Kelly Fisher would intentionally withhold this information from Gretchen if they had it.
“I started asking questions in middle school.”
“And when did you ask them to find her?”
“I was a freshman.”
“In college?”
She shakes her head. “High school.”
“What exactly did they say?”
Her gaze drifts over my shoulder, lips tight, before she says, “They said they didn’t have any information because it was a closed adoption. That my birth mom wanted it that way.”
I sigh, scratching the hair under the brim of my hat. Her parents’ answer sounds entirely reasonable, but it must have sounded like a brush-off to a fourteen-year-old kid who just wanted to know where she came from.
“So, yeah,” she continues, indignation in her tone, “I do have something to be worried about. She may not want to see me.”
Far be it from me to know the right thing to say, but I try.
“I know I don’t know all the details and I can’t read minds or predict the future, but…
” I pause, lost in the sadness welling in her eyes, mad as hell I can’t take it away.
“You were fourteen when you asked your parents to find her.” She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair.
“Fourteen, Gretch. They were probably just trying to protect you. I don’t know anything about closed adoptions, but maybe they weren’t lying.
Maybe they really didn’t have any information. Your parents love you, Fish.”
“I know that,” she says quickly, swiping a tear from her cheek. It guts me. It’s the first one she’s given me, but she didn’t offer it willingly.
Several beats pass with me not sure what else to say, and Gretchen’s mind working overtime. If I wasn’t terrified she’d reject me, I’d pull her into a hug and hold her until her pain went away.
Her sad gaze locks on mine, probing for something it can’t quite find, yet I feel the inquiry peel back my heart, layer by layer—nothing to numb the pain, just bare hands and a scalpel. “Sometimes it’s the people you love that hurt you the most,” she says quietly.
The waitress’ timing is impeccable as she interrupts the moment and sets our plates in front of us. She’s gone a moment later, Gretchen’s words still twisting knots inside me.
On a deep breath, I funnel all the courage I have left to the surface.
I say the most honest thing I’ve dared say since I walked away.
“Sometimes love makes you crazy. Like, you care about someone so much you can’t think straight.
You do things, you say things, you…walk away from them only to realize too late that you made a huge mistake. ”
She chews slowly, eyes never losing contact as she sets her burger back on her plate. Molars glued together, lump in my throat, I follow her every move until, finally, she whispers, “It’s never too late.”
After devouring our weight in greasy burgers and fries, we see our plan through and find an ice cream shop down the street.
It’s late afternoon now. The sun hammers down on tourists crowding downtown Sedona as they peruse souvenir shops, art galleries and boutiques. We sidewalk stroll but only last a grand total of thirty minutes before deciding we’re ready to head back to the hotel and get some sleep .
When we’re in the car, I connect my phone and press play on my chill vibes playlist. We’re not even out of the parking lot before Gretchen lays her head back and shuts her eyes. I move to turn the volume down.
“No. Turn it back up,” she says lazily.
Several minutes later, I’m convinced she’s fallen asleep when James Morrison’s voice croons through the speakers singing “Don’t You Forget About Me.” Slower and more intimate than the original or the popularized Pitch Perfect cover, it’s my favorite version of this song.
On more than one occasion, Drew found me drinking myself into a stupor with this track blasting on repeat. What is it with you and this song? he’d ask. Then he’d shut off the stereo and yank me up off the floor. I never did give him the answers he was looking for.
When I finally reached my rock bottom later that fall and Drew forced me back into the land of the living, I began to skip the track altogether—my regret too much to bear.
Old habits have my finger reaching for the skip button, but something stops me—the book she’s kept for twelve years and It’s never too late.
The usual sadness I feel at the sound of the familiar mystical piano intro is absent—there’s hope there now.
Hope that’s magnified when I chance a glance at the woman in the passenger seat silently mouthing the lyrics.
Reality gets its ultimate revenge when the dramatic start to our morning comes roaring to the forefront.
Back at the hotel, the pull-out bed made of jagged metal and tears of orphaned children taunts us both, while the oversized bed in the primary suite that looks like heaven on earth screams choose me, choose me .
Two deer caught in headlights, our eyes swing from the bedroom to the couch.
“You take the bed, I’ll take the sofa,” Gretchen says.
“I already said that’s not happening.”
“Oh my God, Connor. You’re chivalrous, I get it. There’s no man more chivalrous than you, oh king of chivalry. You will yourself to a life of pain before allowing a female to take poor accommodations,” she deadpans.
“Are you done?”
“Depends. Did it work?” she asks, brows raised to the heavens.
“Nope.”
Gretchen throws her head back on a dramatic groan. “Fine. We’ll share the bed.”
A boisterous cackle erupts from my chest. The confounding look on Gretchen’s face has me dragging the laugh out a few seconds longer than necessary. On a dime, I straighten my expression and say, “No. You take the bed, I’ll sleep on the floor. It’s good for my back anyway.”
“You know what’s even better for your back?” She cocks her head. “A bed!”
She stomps into the bedroom like she’s won, forcefully kicks off her shoes and yanks out her hair tie. A re we fighting? Gliding to the dresser, she grabs a change of clothes while adding, “I’ll shower first.”
I stop her before the bathroom door closes. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Gretch.”
Her eyes roll to the back of her head as she leans against the doorjamb, arms crossed, hip popped. “Don’t overthink it, old man. We’ll put a wall of pillows down the middle. You won’t even have to look at me.”
Before I can object, she slams the door in my face and cranks the shower.
I cannot share a bed with this woman.
Toeing the line of unadulterated obstinance, I strip the sofa bed and pull all the extra bedding from the closet to make a pallet on the floor in the living room.
Once it’s done, I collect everything I’ll need for my turn in the bathroom and cradle it in my arms. Then I wait, perched on the edge of the bed like a cheetah on the hunt—ready to pounce as soon as Gretchen opens the door.
She won’t have a moment to protest what I’ve done before I lock myself inside the bathroom, drowning out her disapproving comebacks .
I’ll show her.
The bathroom door at last swings open and Gretchen emerges. My feet are dead weight beneath me as I take her in. She’s effortless beauty incarnate, draped in a crimson cotton sleep set that consists of shorts and a matching tank.
Are all appropriate parts of her body covered? Yes.
Does it matter? No.
Olive-toned skin made even richer after a day in the sun. The braid she’s draped over one shoulder. And those damn tortoise-shell glasses that will be the death of me.
I repeat, I CANNOT SHARE A BED WITH THIS WOMAN.
I rush to the bathroom, close the door behind me and lock it with a forceful click.
Gretchen’s voice calls, “What side of the bed do y—” but I cut her off with the gush of the shower jets.
When I step out of the bathroom sometime later, Gretchen sits propped against the headboard watching television, a wall of pillows, as promised, running right down the middle of the mattress. She pays me no attention as I breeze past her.
Stepping into the living room, I come to an abrupt halt. The area where I made my pallet earlier has been cleared. Every blanket, every pillow—gone.
I pad back to the bedroom and level her with a stare. Deathly calm, I ask, “Where’s my stuff?”
“What stuff?”
I shift to block her view of the television, standing guard at the foot of the bed, arms crossed. “Gretchen.”
“Connor.”
“Where’s. My. Stuff,” I emphasize, finger pointed toward the living room behind me.
Her eyes follow the movement, feigning innocence. “Oh that? Yeah, I got rid of it.”
“You got rid of it,” I say flatly.
“Yeah. Called the front desk and told them we didn’t need all this excess bedding taking up space and they came and took it away.” An arrogant smirk quirks the corner of her lips. “Looks like you’re sharing the bed with me after all, old man.”
Craning my neck from side to side, I suck in a deep, centering breath through my nose. “Fine.”
I storm over to the dresser for more clothes because my plan to strip down to my boxers as soon as I was safely tucked under the blanket in the living room is now shot to hell. She’s forced my hand.
I yank a t-shirt over my bare chest, spinning toward Gretchen when I hear her restrained cackle. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Her laughter whirls out of control. If I wasn’t so panicked, I might stop and appreciate how beautiful she is right now. “Oh my God. You are really worked up over this.”
“It’s your funeral.” I rip back the covers and climb into the bed, intentionally and very strategically positioning myself as close to the edge of the mattress as I can, away from the pillow barricade and away from Gretchen Fisher.
Still amused by my dramatics, her laughter subsides. “Are you planning to smother me?”
“It’s possible.”
“Drama queen,” she singsongs.
I raise a single finger in the air, declaring, “I sleep like a starfish,” and a second finger, “I’m a chronic cuddler,” third finger goes up, “and my body’s a fucking furnace.”
“So putting on more clothes made complete sense.” Her words drip with delighted sarcasm at my predicament.
“Need I remind you of the…state…you found me in this morning?”
Stifling another laugh, she bites her lip as she adjusts her glasses. “Oh, I remember.”
I throw my head back and slap a hand over my face as I imagine all the possibilities of what this night might bring. We may not survive this.
Gretchen reaches over the mountain of down and cotton that separates us and pulls a hand away from my face before releasing it. “Take a breath. It’s gonna be fine. ”
“Listen,” I begin, worry edging my voice, “I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight, so I just want to say in advance that I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to do it.”
I can’t see her face but for the flicker of light from the television illuminating the room. The glee in her voice, though? Yeah, that’s unmistakable. “And what, pray tell, do you think is gonna happen?”
“I’m glad my misery is so amusing to you.”
“Me too,” she cackles.
“Gretchen.” My hands are back on my face, then yanking at the ends of my hair. God, is it hot in here? I’m already sweating. “I don’t know, okay? I could wake up tomorrow buck naked with my head or my hands literally anywhere.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she says as she turns off the television, shrouding this torture chamber some might call a bedroom in darkness.
This is it. This is where I die.