Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Grace
“You look different.”
I look up from my chicken pesto panini. Oily crumbs rub along the pads of my fingers, and I reach for a napkin. “What do you mean?”
Teeny looks at me with narrowed eyes, setting down her own half of the panini we’re sharing while on my lunch break. “I don’t know. You have a little rosiness in your cheeks.”
I scoff. “Okay.”
“Are you pregnant?”
I almost spit out my food. “What!”
“Or you’re getting laid,” she continues her search for answers. “I don’t know. You have this…glow.”
“Um, no,” I lie. In fact, it couldn’t be further from the truth considering Andrew and I had a quickie in the shower this morning.
“That’s it! You had sex.”
“Shhh! Teeny, I work here. Can you keep it down?”
She rolls her eyes. “You work at the hospital across the street. This is a sandwich shop.”
“Yes, but people I work with come here,” I argue. “So don’t say ‘sex’ so loudly.”
She doesn’t budge. She pokes her finger in my direction, a clear sign of determination. “I’m going to find out who you’re screwing.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
A wave of guilt ripples through my gut. I’m lying to my best friend.
The same best friend I called after having sex with Mikey Michael my sophomore year of college.
I told her in gory detail how Mikey, who occasionally liked to be called Eminem, kept his socks on the whole time and asked how the best three minutes of my life was.
We laughed until we turned red and drowned one of my worst sexual experiences with a pack of Seagram’s.
I consider telling her for a second. Not that I’ve been screwing her brother, but that there’s a man in my life. Not just a man, but a boyfriend. A whole ass boyfriend she doesn’t even know about.
“You know, Teeny,” I start to say, my voice shaky. “I actually have to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
“I guess, I wasn’t being completely—”
“Grace.” I look up from my half-eaten lunch at the sound of my name called by a deep voice. One that’s equal parts surprised and pleased.
“Dr. Noah. Hi.”
He approaches our table, a coffee in his hand.
It looks like the same size as my own matcha I’ve been sipping on, but in his large grip, it looks child-size.
A granola bar and a red apple are balanced on his other hand.
He’s wearing dark navy scrubs, a smattering of a five o’clock shadow along his jawline, and though it looks like he needs a haircut, the shaggy style he has looks charming and boyish.
“I think I’ve asked you to call me Noah more than once now.” He has, the last time being just this morning when he showed me an updated picture of his cats. He named them PB and Jelly, and they were napping together, their paws linked together in their sleep.
I huff a nervous laugh. “Sorry, Noah.” I pause, and I catch Teeny’s eyes turn round with heightened interest. “This is my friend, Teeny. She’s just visiting me for lunch.”
Noah makes a charming gesture of smiling and offering a nod. Though his hands are full, and he can’t extend a formal handshake, the sentiment is just as gentlemanly.
“Do you work with Grace?” Teeny eagerly asks.
“Sure,” he answers. “If me always asking her for pet ownership advice is considered ‘working together.’”
Teeny laughs, giggling behind her hand covering her mouth like a teenage girl talking to her crush. It’s a little embellished, and I suppress an eye roll.
“Anyway, I’ll let you ladies enjoy your lunch,” Noah announces.
He turns to me and adds, “I’ll see you back on the floor, Grace.
” He does this little salute with his snack-occupied hand, and he does it with a suaveness that’s all slick and natural.
Teeny watches him walk away and whips her head to face me with a gaped mouth.
“Who is that?” she asks in a hushed voice. Her hands brace the table as if my workplace drama is going to physically hit her in the face with a satisfying blow.
“I just introduced you. It’s Dr. Noah.”
“No, that man told you to call him Noah. Not Dr. Noah. Just No-uh.” She drags out his name, enunciating it in excess. “Is that who you’ve been boinking?”
“Don’t say ‘boinking.’”
“It’s him though. Right?”
“No. I don’t shit where I eat.”
“Why not? You know forty-three percent of marriages are a result of work-related romances.”
“Why do you know that? That is such a specific statistic.”
“I just do,” she answers before quickly adding, “So?”
“Teeny, I am not in any kind of work-related romance with Dr. Noah—”
“Noah,” she interjects.
“With Noah,” I correct myself. “It’s just not happening.”
“Why not? He’s really handsome. And he’s a doctor. He’s a hot handsome doctor you work with. The rom-com is writing itself, Grace. I can almost hear Nancy Meyers tapping out her screenplay at her Hampton Beach house.”
“Your imagination is wild.”
“You think Sam Claflin would be available to play Dr. Noah?”
Our laughter echoes off the walls of the small sandwich shop, and that wave of guilt rolls through me once again.
“I had lunch with Teeny today.”
Some garbled sounds muffled by foamy toothpaste come out of Andrew’s mouth. The end of his toothbrush dangles from the corner of his mouth, and he looks at me through the reflection off the medicine cabinet.
“What?”
He spits, rinsing his mouth. “How was it?” Water drips from his chin, and there’s still a white dollop of toothpaste at the corner of his mouth.
“Good,” I answer, handing him the towel I was using to dry my face. “She asked me if I was having sex.”
He uses the unsettled blank look on his face to ask for more information.
Probably what the context was that led to the topic of my sex life.
He leans his palm against the bathroom sink counter and runs his tongue across his lower lip, a tell that he’s worried this conversation may shift into a too-much-information territory that involves what we do behind closed doors and his sister.
“What?” he asks.
“Actually, she told me I’m having sex. And then she asked me who it was.”
“She can tell you’re having sex?”
“I guess so.”
“Is that a skill most women have?”
“I don’t know.” I face him, my hand landing on the cool surface right next to his. I look at him with narrowed eyes, flicking my gaze up and down, and say, “Yup. You’re definitely having sex.”
He pinches my waist, and I squeal as he hoists me over his shoulder.
He walks into my room with my legs kicking.
He lands a hard slap to my ass, a loud smack bouncing off the walls with the lack of cushion on my pants-less bottom.
He tosses me onto my bed before crawling over me, the sting on my skin suddenly the least of my worries as that chain I love dangling off his neck tickles my chin.
“I guess it is a skill women have,” he says in a raspy voice. His hand braces my waist, gliding down to my hip.
This feels like a nighttime routine at this point.
Andrew and I come home from work, sometimes his place, sometimes mine.
We eat, fill each other in on our day, and make our way to bed.
Sex is usually on the itinerary, just like a shower and brushing our teeth, and we fall asleep like we’ve been doing this for much longer than just a few months.
None of it’s anything remarkable. In fact, it’s almost mundane.
But it’s the mundane I’m finding a new level of comfort in.
Not fancy gifts or expensive dinners. But spread out on the sofa or our beds, fighting our sleep with the TV playing the last bits of whatever we decided to put on.
Or evening walks with Buster, where all we do is take a stroll around the block, holding hands and picking up some dessert.
It was never like this with my ex-husband.
Our lives were always in motion. Going to the next party or dinner or whatever event where I stood by his side dressed in something steamed and smoothed, always looking like I was a porcelain doll instead of his partner.
“So, do you think Teeny caught on?” he suddenly asks. His lips make their way to my neck, leaving behind a trail of wet kisses, and the words feel like I’m being doused by cold water.
“Are you worried about it?”
He pulls away and bumps his nose against mine, a playful nudge to warm the suddenly shifted mood. “No, just curious.”
“I don’t think so,” I answer him. “But…”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe it’s not the worst thing if she knows. I mean, if we keep this up, we can’t keep it a secret forever.”
“Really?” His sweet grin makes my heart melt, and then I realize how much he’s been holding back this whole time. He wants Teeny to know, and he’s been keeping his thoughts quiet for me.
I pause, walking past the point of no return. “I mean, Teeny’s my best friend,” I tell him. “I hate keeping this from her, and—”
He kisses me, and it’s crushing, expressing all the excitement in his chest through his hands. Hands that move all over me, touching and caressing and squeezing.
“Hold on there, cowboy,” I say, pressing a hand to this chest. “Let’s take it slow.
” I don’t want to smother his excitement, but I’m still trying to find that middle ground I’m comfortable with.
I hate to have to put him in this situation, but the blow from my last relationship left me unsettled and, quite honestly, scathed.
I guess I’m not as over my divorce as I thought I was.
He clears his throat, a serious furrow shading his eyes, though remnants of that grin still remain on his face. “Right. Take it slow.”
“What I mean is we can talk about how we want to tell Teeny,” I assure. “Make sure we have the right words, so we don’t give her a stroke or something.”
“Yeah.” He nods, and I watch a little bit of that elation dim.
“Hey.” I cup his jaw and force his eyes to mine. “It’ll happen. I just have to…work up to it.”
A smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes looks down at me.
The small smirk looks more appeasing than expressing the honest emotion coursing through him.
It feels consolatory. Placating. Letting me know whatever it is I want, he’ll go along with it.
For the sake of this. More kisses and hands and touches.
No matter that it’s behind closed doors.
“How about we go out on a date this weekend?”
“A date? Why?”
He nonchalantly tilts his head. “Just because.”
“No reason?”
“I just feel like I’ve never taken you out,” he answers. “And I want to take you somewhere nice.”
“You want to wine and dine me?”
“Anything to get you to put out.”
I smack him on his butt, a sharp rebuke displayed through my bottom lip pulled between my teeth. “You ass.”
“An ass you’re going to put out for when you see where I take you.” He grabs my wrists and pins them above my head, pressing them into the mattress with his strong hand.
“Oh, yeah?” I taunt. “Where is this magic, aphrodisiacal restaurant?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Hmm, I’m intrigued.” He leans down to kiss me, letting it linger for longer than a quick peck. Much longer.
“Oh,” he says, his lips against my jawline. “Don’t forget, we’re going to the Coldplay concert next month. Hayley’s been bugging me about it.”
“This suddenly reminded you of Coldplay?”
He smirks. “I just didn’t want to forget. I’m scared of Hayley.”
“When is it?”
“The second weekend of November. On a Friday. I think the tenth or the eleventh.”
I pull away as regret draws my brows together. “My parent’s anniversary is that Saturday. I’ll be busy with party prep and keeping my mom somewhat sane. She’d kill me if she knew I was going to spend the night before her big day at some concert.”
“Oh,” he softly exclaims with a furrow growing between his own brows. “I didn’t know your parents were having a party.”
“Yeah,” I explain. “It’s their fiftieth, so they’re throwing this big thing up in Malibu.”
He smooths his thumb over my cheek. “It’s fine,” he tells me.
“I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
“Actually, I think you need to make it up to Hayley. She’s the one who’s been excited for this double date.”
“I will,” I promise. “We’ll…play pool again.”
“Hell no,” he argues, shaking his head in urgent protest. “Once was humiliating enough.”
I laugh, just as his hips press into me. “Fine then, I’ll think of something.”