Chapter 41 Grace #2
He takes a long sip of his chocolate-peanut butter smoothie, a staccato-like noise rattling through his straw. “That you’ve worked at Haven General for about four years. And you were married.”
I resist the urge to flinch, hiding any outward reaction to him knowing those details about my personal life. Especially knowing how much of a piece of shit my ex-husband turned out to be.
“I, um…I’m divorced too,” he adds. I wonder if he meant to tell me that, or if he caught onto the little slip of my inability to hide my feelings, but he adds, “It was a year ago.”
“So freshly single, I see.”
“Sure,” he agrees tentatively. “But it was amicable. We separated on good terms.”
“Must be nice.”
His brow pinches together, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening. A clear sign he’s reading into my ambiguous words. “Was it…”
“Rough? To say the least, yes.”
“Sorry.”
I wave a hand, brushing off his apology. “It’s in the past.” A past that reared its ugly head just a few weeks ago. In an attempt to shift the topic away from my failed marriage, I ask, “Was your wife a doctor too?”
“No, she worked for an art gallery,” he answers. “Curating, I think. And…other things I wasn’t really privy to.”
“Understanding the divorce a little more.”
“What?” He laughs, though he sounds genuinely offended. “So, I should know all the details about her work life?”
“I mean, you should at least know what she does,” I answer honestly.
“True,” he agrees. “And I’d usually blame it on my own busy work schedule. Those long hours didn’t help, but I should probably take some responsibility, right?”
“Now was that so hard?”
He laughs, an honest, delighted laugh that bounces off the walls. His warm hand lands on my wrist, something I don’t think he intended on doing. “Thank you for setting me straight. God knows my ex-wife didn’t have the patience for it.”
His thumb brushes against my forearm, and it feels like sandpaper. I don’t know how to shake him off without being rude, so I cross my arms and lean away, creating as much distance as I can.
“You know, relationships are hard,” I admit. “And sometimes, no matter how hard you work at it, it just doesn’t work out.”
He follows my lead, crossing his own arms so his elbows rest on the table. “Are you…in a relationship?”
Yes. The answer is yes. I should be able to say the words: “I have a boyfriend.” I’ve certainly been calling Andrew that to his face.
On multiple occasions. So why are the words so hard to utter?
My throat suddenly feels tight, fear creating a vise around it, snuffing the words as they’re squeezed out.
Because what if, once it’s out in the universe, he realizes it was all a mistake?
Frankie sure did. We were happy once, assigning very official titles to each other.
Boyfriend. Girlfriend. Fiancé. Husband. Wife.
And then the title heard around the world.
Ex-wife. Ex-husband. What if at the end of it all, Andrew opts to add “ex” to the beginning of our own established titles?
“Um…”
“Is it complicated?”
I laugh at the same time Noah’s face turns absorbed, hanging on to my next words. His eyes round and disappointment exposes itself through the creases between his brows.
“No, nothing like that,” I start to tell him, trying to figure out the words that describe me and Andrew. “My—”
“Grace?”
I’m pulled away from a conversation that appears more intimate than it is.
The small space between myself and Noah suddenly feels like millimeters, and the dread that comes with being caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to settles deep in my stomach the second I see Andrew’s wounded face take in the scene in front of him.
“Andrew!” I exclaim, caught completely off guard. “What are you doing here?” I stand from my seat, leaving a confused Noah behind. When I take a step closer to Andrew, he pulls back, looking as if he’s repulsed by me.
“I had a delivery order to pick up.” He has the soft cooler in one hand, the bag he usually uses for temperature-sensitive foods. The bold “DoorDash” reads like a neon sign, and I feel like the worst person in the world. “I thought you were at your sister’s.”
“I—I was, but I had some car trouble, so Dr. Santos was waiting with me while he got some jumper cables.”
“Dr. Santos,” Andrew repeats flatly. His eyes flit to Noah, a shimmer of irritation and betrayal detected through his narrowed eyes and clenched fists.
An unsuspecting Noah stands from his seat and mistakenly assumes the moment is an opportunity to introduce himself. “Nice to meet you,” he says. He smiles broadly at me and adds, “What happened to Noah?”
“Yeah—um, sorry, Noah. Or Dr. Santos,” I stammer. “I guess I’m still getting used to that.”
“Yeah,” Andrew answers, his voice cold and level. “I have to go.” He heads for the door. No smoothies to deliver in hand. Just the tight tension resting between his shoulders and a gait that looks unapproachable.
I hurry out of the shop, following him to his car. I manage to catch up to him just as he whips his car door open.
“Andrew, wait!”
“I’m working, Grace.” The icy way he says my name makes me want to cower, but I refuse.
“No, Andrew. Please. Just hear me out.”
“What are you going to say? Are you going to lie to me?”
“No, Andrew, I wouldn’t lie to you!”
He chucks his bag into the back seat and finally faces me. Though the harsh anger is hard to ignore, I see the sadness creep through his eyes. They seem to plead, asking me to make the last five minutes disappear. “Grace, look. Fine. You won’t lie to me, but whoever that was in there—”
“He’s no one. I promise.”
“Does he know you have a boyfriend?”
“I—I, what—”
“I take that as a no.”
“I was getting around to it,” I argue, though it sounds so stupid and weak coming from my own lips.
“Right,” he responds, dry sarcasm dripping from the single word.
He turns around like he’s going to get back into the car, but he hesitates.
He fists his hands, groaning through his decision to say what he wants to say or just leave without hearing me out.
“Look, I’ll talk to you when you get home, okay?
I don’t think this is the place to be doing this. ”
“Andrew, I was going to tell him, I swear. I was about to tell him, but—”
“But what?”
“I—”
“It’s always something. You’re not ready to tell people, you don’t think it’s a good idea. Your ex-husband beat the shit out of me, and you think it’s a sign to hide this longer. What is it going to be next?”
“That’s not fair.”
“And this is?”
I respond with stunned silence. How long has he been feeling like this?
“Grace, you can’t keep me your little secret forever,” he continues. “I can’t be your boyfriend in private, and a nobody to you in public.”
“What about you?”
He rears his head back. “What about me?”
I’m grasping at straws when I say, “You’re the one who said you’re scared to be vulnerable with someone. You’re the one with your commitment issues.”
He scoffs, and I realize how little I have backing my words. After everything we’ve been through, everything he’s done for me, to say he’s the one with commitment issues is practically laughable. “You think I have commitment issues?”
“You’re the one who said it.” I don’t add the fact how so much has changed since he told me that. Something he told me in confidence and never thought I would use against him.
“How about this for commitment issues? I love you, Grace. I am so fucking in love with you it scares me. But not in the way I thought it would.”
My silly little rebuttal turns into a hard knot in my throat, staying lodged there with no outlet. He loves me.
“And every time you want to keep this a secret from everyone, I want to do the opposite. I want to tell the whole goddamn world. I want to tell my sister and my family, and I don’t give a shit what they say.
But if all you want is to hide me from everyone, then I have news for you. I deserve better.”
Everything I want to say to him, how much I love him too, how sorry I am, dies the second he tells me he deserves better.
How could I have been so fucking stupid?
All this time, those moments when I thought he wanted what I wanted or that he might change his mind about us at some point, I was wrong.
He wants more. To hell with all the repercussions and aftermath.
People are just going to have to accept us, no matter how much we don’t make sense.
And I’m going to have to come to terms with having a boyfriend who truly wants me.
Not just for a little while, but for a long while. Maybe forever.
Leaving me speechless and stunned, Andrew gets into his car and drives off. When I finally hear his wheels screech against the pavement, I realize I never got to tell him that I love him too.