Chapter 11
ELEVEN
My muscles tightened instinctively, but I managed to relax my face and straightened my glasses when Jeff pulled away. It wasn’t a bad goodbye. It just felt out of place. Maybe because we’d primarily talked business, and you just…didn’t kiss on the cheek at the end of a business meeting.
“Good night,” I said, and we turned our separate ways.
I forced myself to take a huge, slow breath as I walked.
Less than fifteen seconds had passed when I heard Grant’s footsteps approaching.
I shut my eyes, wishing I could make him go away. I didn’t want Grant’s perceptiveness right now. I wanted to go home and overanalyze the evening in peace.
“Hey!” Grant called.
I picked up my pace.
I swore I heard a light chuckle.
I could beat most women in a heel-walking competition, but Grant wasn’t in heels, and based on the change in the sound of his footsteps, he had started to jog.
Without missing a beat, I slipped off one heel, then the other and started to run.
Ridiculous? Yes. But I wasn’t ready for Grant yet.
I had gotten rid of one impediment, but I still had my dress to contend with. It restricted my stride, and pulling it off like I’d done with my heels wasn’t an option—at least, not if I didn’t want to embroil Matchify in scandal and land myself in jail for public indecency.
Strange, giddy anxiety bubbled up in me as Grant drew closer and closer, until I was laughing in terror.
What would he do when he caught up?
An image of him catching me around the waist and hoisting me over his shoulder flashed across my mind just as he cut in front of me.
I put my hands out and skidded to a halt to avoid running into him. I barely managed to stop with my hands just shy of his chest.
He was grinning more widely than I’d ever seen, his chest rising and falling like mine was. “Date was that bad, huh?”
“I was running from you,” I said breathlessly, my hands on my hips.
“And why’s that?”
“Because I can already tell you’re full of opinions about it.”
He shrugged. “I can keep them to myself.”
I searched his face, my own highly skeptical.
He put a hand over his chest. “I solemnly swear not to share unsolicited opinions. Now, come on.” He jerked his head toward the street in front of us. “I’m starving, and I’m guessing you are too.”
I stood in place. “I just had dinner, Grant.”
“No, Vivian. You just had three exorbitantly priced appetizers.”
It was the first time he’d called me something other than Miss West, and it made me feel weird. Not bad weird. Just…weird. “They were very…nutritious,” I defended as I bent to slip on one of my heels.
“I could’ve bought you an equally nutritious bunch of kale for a fraction of the pretention and price.”
Putting on the second heel, I wobbled slightly.
He grabbed my arm to keep me from toppling over.
I glanced up at him to say thank you, but he wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring ahead like he was looking for something. “There any good donut places around here?”
I let go of his arm and scoffed lightly. “Of course there are.”
“No need to be offended. I have no idea what donut standards you have—assuming you have any.”
I pressed my lips together. It was ridiculous how I could know full well that Grant was baiting me, but I still couldn’t keep from taking it. “Follow me.”
We walked two blocks to Dawson’s Donuts—the shop I requested deliveries from on rough days at work. And also on a few not-so-rough days. And, yes, sometimes I ran over on my lunch break on perfectly normal days.
Dawson’s was a small place between a bookstore and a bike repair shop. In the mornings, there was always a long line out the door, but since they were closing soon and it was a weeknight, we were the only ones in the shop.
“Miss West!” The owner, Mr. Dawson, was a man in his 50s with graying hair. He wiped his hands on his apron and leaned back to glance into the glass cabinet between us. “I think I’m just shy of your half-dozen, but I can throw in two Bismarks if you’d like.”
I ignored Grant’s amused but pointed look. Maybe I should’ve taken him to my second-favorite shop instead.
“Half-dozen of what?” Grant asked.
Mr. Dawson glanced at him. “Maple bars.”
“Mr. Dawson makes them better than anyone else,” I said. “But I don’t think we need all five.”
“I disagree,” Grant said. “And we’ll take the Bismarks too.”
“Perfect.” Mr. Dawson packaged up the donuts and insisted on giving them to us at half-price despite having already added the bonus Bismark.
“These better be amazing,” Grant said to me as the door closed behind us. “I take my maple bars seriously.”
I shot him a pitying look. “Oh, Grant. You don’t even know what a real maple bar is. But you’re about to find out.”
He chuckled as I led us toward the nearest bench. It was on the edge of a small park that took up a full street block. A few kids were playing on the playground, but otherwise, passing traffic was the only sound.
Grant opened the box once we were seated, and he handed me a donut.
I’d talked a big game about the maple bars—they were divine—but I felt the tiniest bit nervous as Grant took one out and shut the box.
“Cheers.” He bumped my maple bar with his, and we both took bites.
I watched as I chewed, like the bars were my own creation and he was Gordon Ramsay.
The muscles in his jaw tensed and relaxed as he chewed for a few seconds, then his brows rose. “Those are good.”
I let out a silent sigh of relief and smiled, enjoying my donut properly. Why I cared so much that he agreed with my assessment of a maple bar was beyond me.
“Debrief time,” Grant said before taking another bite.
A stifled a sigh. “What exactly does a debriefing entail?”
He shrugged. “Whatever we want.”
The flexibility of that phrase was both unnerving and relieving. For some reason, I had imagined something more structured.
“What were your impressions of Jeff?” he asked.
“He’s great,” I said, annoyed to find my voice higher than usual.
Grant looked at me as he finished chewing. “Care to expound?”
I shrugged. “He was nice. Smart. He understands what it’s like to work in my industry.”
Grant’s notebook sat next to him, untouched. I never knew whether that was good or bad. “Do you think Matchify did right to suggest him for you?”
“Yeah.” There was that high voice again, like I’d taken a Michael Jackson pill or sucked helium. “We’re really compatible.”
Grant grinned. “Can you dial down the passion a bit? Threadline is a PG-rated publication.”
I shot him a look and grabbed another maple bar. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but that was less important than the opportunity for stalling provided by chewing. Why couldn’t I just lie and rave about Jeff like a normal person?
Grant turned toward me so that one of his knees rested lazily on the bench, his arm slung across the back. “Come on, Vivian. It’s called a debrief, but you don’t have to be quite this brief.”
“What exactly do you want me to say? It was a first date.”
“But you already know, don’t you?”
“Know what?” I might not be able to outright lie, but I could play dumb as well as the next person.
He didn’t respond. He just watched me. “Fine. Let’s switch gears. Question-for-a-question.”
Ugh. I might prefer talking about Jeff.
“You first this time,” he said.
He was offering me a little respite from being under the microscope, and I was ready for it. It was his turn to be analyzed and prodded for information. I finished chewing. “What scares you most in life?”
“You mean beyond paying twenty-five dollars for a beet salad?”
“Stalling much?”
“I learned from the best.” He flicked the end of my donut, and I pulled it out of his reach.
“What’s the real answer?” I prompted. I was determined not to let him put me off or give me any boring half-truths.
“What scares me most,” he repeated, staring ahead as one of the little kids slid down the firepole in jerky slips and squeaks.
I set down my unfinished donut and watched him, impatient to hear his answer.
What would scare someone like Grant Wilder? He seemed unflappable. What fears did the world hold for someone whose default was deep skepticism? For a man who had a near-obsession with truth and made a living of uncovering things people tried to hide?
“Believing a lie again.”
My pulse flickered. It was a real answer—maybe even a fresh one. A newly scarred wound.
Given his interest in the truth, the answer made sense too. But I had so many more questions now.
“Again?” I repeated.
His head turned, and his gaze met mine.
“I’m afraid you’re out of questions for the day,” he said with false sympathy. “My turn.”
“And you accuse me of being too brief,” I muttered.
I’d asked him a fairly invasive question, and now it was time to pay the piper. I wasn’t ready—for more than one reason. His answer was still taking all my mental bandwidth. I wanted to sit with it until I figured out what was behind it.
What lie had he believed the first time? And who had told it to him? A friend? A family member? The government? A girlfriend?
I stared at him like I might be able to figure it out if I just looked into his hazel eyes for long enough. They were the most expressive part of him.
“What’s your favorite flower?”
It took me a second to register the question. I’d been anticipating one like mine—or at least as deep as the one he’d asked yesterday.
“And don’t say succulents,” he said.
I thought of the little note he’d left for me in shorthand and how long Katie and I had spent decoding it. We hadn’t discussed it since, but I had no doubt he knew I’d read it.
Grant just knew things.
I was relieved but also wary that this was the question he’d chosen. It felt too good to be true. Too easy.
“I don’t have a favorite flower,” I responded.
“That’s a cop out.”
“It’s not,” I argued. “I have no attachment to flowers, so I don’t have an opinion on them.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. I must seem like some sort of freak to him. Every woman had a favorite flower. Women swooned over a dozen roses. They spent hundreds on bridal bouquets. What was wrong with me?
I could’ve just said tulip and been done with it.
But not really. He would’ve asked me what I liked about tulips, and my answer would’ve given me away, like my foot-tapping and lackluster debriefing had given away what I thought of Jeff.
Besides, I’d promised the truth, and that was the truth: I was apathetic about flowers.
“Lemme get this straight,” Grant said, resituating himself so that he faced me even more fully. “A man you’re falling in love with brings you two bouquets—one of roses, one of dandelions. You’d have zero preference?”
“No.” To be honest, I wasn’t totally sure what dandelions were. I always got them confused with daffodils. But it didn’t really matter. The point stood.
I thought of the one time Chase had brought me flowers. He’d been so proud of himself—and just as disappointed by my lackluster response.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t been grateful. I just didn’t find them romantic like so many women did.
“And if he brought you marigolds?”
The way he said it made me think there was something particular about marigolds that should break through my weird indifference.
“I probably wouldn’t know he’d brought me marigolds. I don’t know which ones those are. I assume they’re gold?”
He laughed. “They’re the ones that symbolize jealousy, grief, and cruelty.”
“They don’t inherently mean those things, though.”
Grant shrugged. “A dot on a graph doesn’t carry inherent meaning, but you derive meaning from the context.”
I didn’t respond right away, thinking about his point, which was actually a good one.
But it didn’t change my response. “I still don’t have a favorite flower.
Maybe if I knew their meanings, I’d feel more strongly about them, but they’ve always seemed more for show than anything. And they die so fast.”
He smiled—a genuine one. Almost soft.
I liked it. Maybe more than I should have.
“Fair enough,” he said.
The nearby street lamp flickered on. The kids were gone, the park was covered with a blue-hued light, and the car that passed had on its headlights.
I straightened the hem of my dress and got up, wondering where the time had gone. “I should go.”
He stood.
“Are you heading back to the office?” I asked.
“Nope. My hotel’s not too far. I’ll just walk.”
Right. I had forgotten Grant didn’t live here. He was living the hotel life so that he could watch me be awkward on first dates and write about it later.
What a weird thing. And for some even weirder reason, I’d agreed to it.
He picked up the donut box and handed it to me, but I shook my head.
“Come on,” he said. “You know you want them.”
“I’m going home to a fridge full of food. You’re living out of a mini-fridge. Besides, you bought them.”
He pulled the box against his hip. “Thanks for breakfast, then. See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow.”
I was getting used to “tomorrow” including Grant.