Chapter Twelve #3
“Eh, I’ve done a few projects for your parents,” he replied, sitting on the other end of the couch and uncovering her feet. He blew on his hands, then rubbed them together before pressing his palms on either side of her toes, trying to warm them up. “How was your date with Austin?”
“I think you’ll be happy to know that you were very right. He doesn’t see me at all. I don’t mean a damn thing to him. I could have been a cardboard cutout and he wouldn’t have noticed the difference.” Ivy laughed weakly, trying to play off the hurt and embarrassment like it didn’t mean anything.
“That doesn’t make me happy.” Grant sounded so serious that Ivy dug up the courage to meet his eyes, finding them full of intense sincerity. “You being disappointed doesn’t make me happy.”
“You can gloat if you want. Everything you said that night was true. Did you know he’s the only person in town who didn’t recognize me?”
“That’s because Austin is a fucking tool.
” Grant began to massage her feet, pressing his thumbs into her arches.
“That night…everything came out so wrong, Ivy. I was caught off guard and frustrated because Austin…” He sighed.
“I didn’t want him to hurt you, so instead I hurt you.
I regretted it immediately and have hated myself for it for the last ten years.
All I’ve wanted is to tell you how sorry I am. ”
Ivy could barely believe what she was hearing. There were dreams and there were fantasies, and then there was whatever this moment was. It was as disorienting as being stuck in a lucid dream.
“So why didn’t you say it back then? Why did you wait?”
Color painted Grant’s cheeks again. His right hand left her foot, and she swallowed the protest right before it came out. He flexed his hand, spreading his fingers, then made a fist.
“That night, after we…talked. There was an accident and I broke my hand. Lorelai drove me to the emergency room. By the time we got back, you were gone.” Grant resumed massaging her foot.
“I thought you’d be back for Thanksgiving and I could apologize then, but you didn’t come home.
Then Christmas break. Then spring break.
Then summer break. But you never came back. ”
A hollow chasm opened in the center of Ivy’s chest. Grant had been waiting for her to come home, noticing her absence like a crater-size pothole in the center of his driveway. Meanwhile, she’d spent a decade tying herself in knots over the Underwood who probably never even realized she left.
Ivy squeezed her mug. “I was embarrassed. The idea of facing you again was so scary that I kept finding reasons to stay away. I really thought you hated my guts.”
Grant squeezed her foot. “I could hate you about as much as I could hate a puppy.”
Her voice was quiet and wobbled a bit as she said, “I thought you thought I wasn’t good enough.”
He shook his head. “Never.”
“Then why didn’t you email me? Look me up on social media? Ten years is a really long time, Grant.”
He hesitated. If he’d been anyone else, she would have believed he was formulating an excuse. But Grant—the Grant she’d known him to be before The Incident—was too noble for that kind of tomfoolery.
“Because sending an email that said ‘sorry I was a jackass’ felt cowardly. I knew I’d made the worst mistake of my life and I wanted to own up to it in person.
” A red blush colored his winter-pale cheeks.
“And then all that time passed, and asking your mom for your phone number so I could call you to absolve myself felt like the most insincere move in the world.”
“So you made us both suffer in silence for the last ten years?” Ivy asked flatly.
“Honestly, I never imagined you were suffering. I assumed you never thought about me at all, whereas I’ve thought about you every single day.”
All the oxygen in the room disappeared. Ivy couldn’t manage to take a full breath. How the hell was she supposed to stay mad at him after that?
“I feel like I should make you suffer a little more.” She gave him a small smile so he’d know she was teasing.
“Well, if I can extend an olive branch, I do have two tickets to The Muppet Christmas Carol. No one else appreciates Rizzo the Rat like you do.”
“He’s a goddamn national treasure. And that is the best Sam Eagle cameo of any Muppet movie ever.”
“You always say that like I’m going to argue with you.”
“You don’t have anyone else you’d rather take?”
“Can’t think of a single person.”
Ivy sipped her tea, pretending to think about it.
Of course she wanted to go to the movie with him.
A rekindled friendship with Grant Underwood was almost as good as the kind of fire she’d never quite allowed herself to dream might spark between them.
Because for all it was good and healing and cathartic to hear that he felt bad about what he’d said to her that night, he also hadn’t said the kinds of things that would have made her think the two of them could be more than friends.
Things like, I couldn’t believe you wanted him when I wanted you.
Or, I lashed out because I wanted you to choose me.
Or even, Take off your pants and let me show you how sorry I am.
She gave him a small smile. “I guess I can go if you buy the popcorn.”