36. Chapter 36
“I can’t believe you were stupid enough to come here.”
Helen was in the kitchen, and Graham was on the couch in the living room, taking it all in: the desk in the corner overflowing with books and a laptop in sleep mode, a Texas Longhorns sweatshirt draped over the chair in front of it, an identical sweatshirt hanging by the front door above a pile of shoes—he recognized the ratty brown flats, her favorite—the red blanket on the back of the couch that used to sit on the back of their couch, the smell of sandalwood permeating the room, her room, her home. This was her home.
He shut his eyes against the space that was too much Helen all at once and opened them to a glass of bourbon in front of him.
“I didn’t know I was.” He took the glass, his fingertips grazing her hand. “I only found out we were coming to Austin two days ago.”
“Why go through all this just to lie?”
A glass of bourbon in her own hand, she strolled behind the couch to keep space and furniture between them.
“I’m not lying.” He took a sip of liquid courage. “Wow, this is incredible. What is it?”
“Pappy Van Winkle 23. Don’t jerk me around. You know who sent it.”
Graham choked on another exquisite mouthful. “Pappy 23 is ten grand a bottle.”
“Close. Want to explain how I got a package from your dad with six-thousand-dollar bourbon, and this note, last week if you didn’t know you were coming?”
His eyes widened. A package from his dad?
Graham’s fingers shook as he took the scrap of paper from her hand and read his old man’s scrawl.
Good luck, kids. You’re going to need this, Jason.
“He sent this to you?”
“What is this for, Graham?”
He was spinning, or was it the room? The couple hundred bucks’ worth of bourbon threatened to spill in his trembling hand as the pieces of a perfectly laid plan fell into place at his feet.
There was no mistaking it now. Warmth a touch more potent than the alcohol settled through his chest and down his spine.
A smile curled around the words as he said, “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“Son of a bitch,” he said again.
“Graham?”
“He was saving this,” he said slowly, still savoring the moment’s perfection and the taste of Pappy 23 on his tongue. “This bourbon—he always said he was saving it for an occasion worthy of the drink.”
“So?”
He laughed. She still didn’t get it. Was this how Lindsey felt trying to convince him meeting Farmer Pederson was a miracle?
Graham went around the couch to stand in front of her. “The occasion is us. Reuniting—”
“We aren’t reuniting. I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”
“Yes, you do. And he knew once he sent us to Austin I’d end up on your doorstep.”
“None of this means anything, Graham.” She put up her hands and took a step back. “You left me two years ago, and now you’re on this trip with another woman.”
“I left you?” Graham exclaimed. “Last time I checked, you’re the one who up and moved to Texas.”
“I didn’t up and move, but it’s convenient you remember it that way. Do you really think I’m the reason we broke up?”
“We broke up because your job was more important than our relationship, yeah.”
With a sharp laugh, she set her glass down—probably so she didn’t chuck it at him.
“You really have deluded yourself. Why am I not surprised? You never take responsibility for anything.”
“I suppose it’s my fault you cheated on me, too.”
“I kissed a guy once when I was drunk after you told me you wouldn’t come to Texas with me! And I felt so bad about it I went home and told you, and you freaked out and left.”
“Of course I did. You threw away three years for a lousy kiss—”
“No, you threw away three years for a lousy kiss. You want to know what I think? I think you were fine going through the motions in Dayton. Then I got a real opportunity to work in my field, and it meant you’d have to grow up, and you weren’t ready, so you acted like I never gave you a choice, which is such a cop-out.
I didn’t accept the job right away because we were supposed to decide together.
Then you said I cheated on you, if you could even call it that—”
“I would call kissing cheating, but continue.”
“You used it as an excuse to cut your losses, so you didn’t have to be the bad guy and admit you weren’t ready to have a future with me.
No one would blame you, our friends wouldn’t hate you, and you could stay in your safe little life in Dayton getting wasted on the weekends and hooking up with bartenders—”
“Hey,” he interjected. “Come on.”
“Am I wrong?”
Now he understood why his dad’s note said they’d need the Pappy. Graham sniffed the bourbon and took a long, slow drink, then let out a long, slow sigh.
Finally, he said quietly, “You’re not wrong.”
“What did you say?”
Even though he knew she heard fine, he said louder, “You’re not wrong. You’re not completely right, but you’re not wrong.”
“Okay, what did I miss?”
“What if I had said I wanted to stay together, but I didn’t want to go to Austin. What would you have done?”
“It’s irrelevant,” she said after a pause. “It didn’t happen that way.”
“I think you would’ve left me anyway. If you were unhappy, as you said, going through the motions—”
“We weren’t going anywhere!”
“Where have you gone here? You live alone in an apartment. How is this different from Dayton except back there you at least had someone who loved you?”
“Here I have a job I love. A future.”
“You had a future with me.”
“Did I, Graham? How?”
“You traded one love for another. How is this any better?”
“I wanted both.” Helen shook her head and sighed. “I still don’t understand what was so special in Ohio you couldn’t take a chance and leave it.”
“My dad.”
My dad. He was surprised by his answer and that it was true. As much as they went at it, his old man was the only family Graham had besides Jase.
Helen blinked. “I didn’t think you were that close.”
“We weren’t, but he’s my dad. And there was nothing here. No friends, no job.”
“Just me.”
And I wasn’t enough, the silence between them implied.
“Graham—”
He set his bourbon on a side table, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. The slow exploration of her mouth was a message. He needed her to know she had always been enough. He was just too stupid to see it.