Chapter 5 #2
“Sometime soon,” I say. “But we should probably let Grant finish showing us around the house before we go exploring the neighborhood.”
We follow as he takes us through the living room, dining room, and the rest of the ground floor, then up a sweeping staircase that looks like something straight out of a movie.
“The bedrooms are all up here,” he says, gesturing in both directions from the top of the stairs.
“They all have their own bathroom, but you can pick whichever ones you want. Or feel free to move to another one if you don’t like your first choice after a night or two.
” He shrugs. “It’ll probably be the only time most of these rooms get used. ”
I’m tempted to ask why he needs such a big house when so much of it clearly goes unused—or even unseen, from the way he’s describing it—but then I remember my talk with April and decide I should probably save any personal questions I might have for a more appropriate time.
“And then my room is here at the end of the hall.”
The last thing I expect is for him to open the door to his bedroom and invite us inside to look around, but that’s exactly what he does.
“There isn’t much to see, I guess. My bed. A dresser. A couch and chair over by the fireplace and—”
“You have a fireplace in your bedroom!” April interrupts. “And a whole couch! Your bedroom is bigger than our last apartment! And wow! Look at that bathroom.”
I open my mouth to try to stop her, or at least slow her down, but I can already tell it’s a losing battle. “And she’s off,” I sigh instead. “That is a nice bathroom, though, to be fair. And closet.”
I peek around the corner to get a better look at the en suite with a closet the size of a small department store. His clothes and shoes only take up a small corner of the space, but it only takes about half a second to imagine all of my own things in a closet like that.
But not this closet. Not his closet.
I can feel myself blushing, almost like I’ve barged in on something I’m not supposed to see at all. I don’t know why it feels so intimate, but I imagine there’s only been a handful of people who have seen this much of Grant’s personal space. And now I’m one of those few people.
“It would take a lot of jerseys and shoes to fill up this closet,” he says, belatedly making me realize that I’m still gawking at all the empty space with the same dreamy look that was on April’s face when he mentioned that he has a pool.
“I guess it’s obvious I don’t spend a lot of time in here, huh? ”
“Where do you spend all your time?” I ask before I can stop myself. “I mean, if you don’t mind saying.”
My question gets an actual chuckle. Not quite a laugh, but it still feels like a breakthrough. Like that time we first met at a birthday party the team was throwing for him. He was the center of attention and looked absolutely miserable, but somehow completely adorable at the same time.
We talked a little, and I made some self-deprecating joke that got a grin out of him. Not quite as good as the chuckle just now, but I can vividly remember what an accomplishment it seemed like at the time.
I really should get out more.
“I don’t mind at all. I wish I was as mysterious as you make it sound, but I honestly spend about seventy-five percent of my time working out, training, or watching game footage.”
“What about the other twenty-five percent of the time?”
“I’m sleeping, usually.”
“That sounds pretty intense. And it also sounds like a recipe for disaster with a nine-year-old running amok while you’re trying to go about your normal routine.”
He shakes his head. “It’ll be fine. I promise, if I can withstand my teammates pressuring me to go out in Vegas during a tournament weekend, I can deal with whatever you and April throw my way.”
Maybe he has a point. I’m still afraid that he doesn’t quite understand what he’s getting himself into, but it will only take a few days to determine which one of us was right or wrong.
“Let’s go see more of the house!” April pops up behind me and nearly makes me jump a foot in the air. “Sorry, Mom. But isn’t this cool? I can’t believe we get to live here!”
“We get to stay here,” I say, emphasizing the subtle difference. “For a little while.”
But she’s already talked Grant into heading back downstairs, and my gentle correction falls on deaf ears. At least it’s a good reminder for myself.
This is only temporary. The best case scenario is that we all manage to coexist for a few weeks without getting on each other’s nerves. If we can somehow pull that off, I’ll consider it a win.
We stop in the kitchen downstairs, where April runs from one marble countertop to the other so she can run her hand across the smooth surfaces.
“Wow, Mom, come and look at this fridge. The door is see-through! And everything in here is all lined up just like it is at the grocery store.”
Now it’s Grant’s turn to look a little embarrassed as she marvels at the neat, precisely spaced rows of identical meals, canned juices, and supplements with names I can’t pronounce, let alone recognize.
“Yeah, I have a chef come and prepare all of my meals for the week. Everything is measured and balanced exactly the way it should be, and there’s plenty for all of us if you’d like to try some.”
She looks skeptical. “Does the chef know how to make good food, though? Like pancakes or eggs or macaroni and cheese?”
“April,” I begin, but don’t have the heart to contradict her this time. I’m not wasting my breath trying to convince a nine-year-old that flax seed oil and prune juice and a boneless, skinless baked chicken breast are somehow tastier than macaroni and cheese.
“If she knows how to make pancakes and eggs, she’s been holding out on me,” Grant answers. “Probably for the best, though, because I’d never eat anything else.”
“I know that’s right,” she nods, already moving on to the next gadget that’s caught her eye. “What’s this?”
“I use it to make a smoothie every morning for breakfast.”
“And this thing?”
“It’s a cappuccino maker.”
April and I give him the same surprised look, and he takes a step back with his hands raised in a mock surrender. “Hey, a guy has to indulge every once in a while, right? I don’t use it very often, though. Mostly in the off-season.”
Seemingly satisfied with that answer, April inches back over toward the fridge. “Would it be okay if I had a bottle of apple juice? I’m thirsty.”
Grant shrugs. “Fine with me if it’s okay with your mom.”
I can’t think of a good reason to say no, other than my fear that it’ll somehow get spilled all over his pristine countertops.
“Sure, sweetheart. Just be careful, okay?”
She’s already reaching for the drink before I can fully get the warning out, and it seems like time slows down as she fumbles the small bottle. It wobbles precariously on the shelf for what feels like an eternity, then slips through her hand and crashes to the floor.
April looks so panicked that I immediately rush to comfort her before I address the spill. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” I gather her into a tight hug and use my thumb to quickly catch the tears that are threatening to spill over. “It was an accident. Accidents happen.”
She sniffles and looks over at Grant. “I didn’t mean to, Mr. Parker. I’m really, really sorry.”
His expression softens as he crouches down next to us. “Hey, it’s no problem. No need to apologize.” He gives her a mock-serious look. “And please, please don’t ever call me Mr. Parker again.” He shudders. “I’m not that old, you know.”
His reaction is enough to make April laugh, and he completely dispels any possible tension before it has a chance to build.
Thank god.
I turn back to my daughter and lean in close. “Why don’t you run out and grab your suitcase from the car while I clean up the juice, okay? I’ll give you first dibs on the bedrooms when you get back inside.”
“Wow, really? You promise?”
“Cross my heart.” I smile as she runs from the room, then turn to Grant with an appreciative sigh. “And that, my friend, is just a small taste of April.”
He shrugs it off. “It’s just a little juice. No harm, no foul.”
“And you handled it like a pro, by the way. I appreciate that you didn’t lose your temper in front of her. I was afraid that whole situation was going to go the other way at first.”
“What kind of jerk loses their temper over some spilled juice? Kids are messy, right? I get it. It’s okay.”
He’s saying all the right things, but there’s still a little voice in the back of my head that says it’s all too good to be true.
That he’s going to change his mind and decide this is all way too much and he doesn’t want any part of it.
I just want to give him the opportunity to back out now, before it gets complicated.
“It’s not just the juice, though,” I say tentatively, reaching for a nearby roll of paper towels to start cleaning up the mess.
“It’ll be something new at dinner, then five more crazy things tomorrow.
It never ends, and I just want to make sure you’re prepared for that level of chaos, because it’s okay if you’re not prepared.
There are days when I still feel like I’m not ready for it, so I’ll completely understand if you tell me right now that you don’t want any part of my crazy life. ”
He joins me on the floor with some cleaning spray and a few more paper towels. “I’m not worried about a little disruption to my life. Sometimes we need a hurricane to come along and shake things up.”
Again, he keeps saying all the right things, but time will tell how serious he is about shaking things up. It’s not a question of whether it’ll happen; it’s when. Then we’ll have to assess the damage.
“You still don’t believe me, do you?” he asks as we finish cleaning. “Here.” He walks over to a drawer and pulls out a marker. The permanent kind. “See this? Watch.”
He takes the lid off and draws a black line right down the middle of his crisp, clean, blindingly-white kitchen wall, then calmly puts the lid back on and tosses the marker back into the drawer.
I feel like my eyes are going to pop out of my head. “Why did you do that? You’ll have to repaint that whole wall to get it to match.”
He shrugs. “Then I’ll repaint the whole wall.
See? It’s not the end of the world. Nobody got angry.
There’s nothing—nothing—in this house that’s so important or untouchable that it can’t be fixed or replaced with a phone call and a check.
I know there will be messes, but we’ll clean them up and move on. ”
As if to perfectly illustrate his point, he takes the used paper towels from me and tosses them into the garbage can. The spill is gone. Forgotten.
And now we can move on.
“Thank you,” is the only thing I can say. “You probably don’t realize the huge weight you’ve just taken off my shoulders.”
“Good. I’m glad I didn’t have to mark on all the walls to do it.” Finally, a small but real grin spreads across his handsome face. “But I would have.”