Chapter Ten Layla
Chapter Ten
Layla
Grant: Have you read Dear Desiree this week?
Layla: . . .
Layla: Have you???
Grant: My mother left the magazine open on her column.
Layla: God, I’m so glad you’re a doctor and not a lawyer. You Suck at lying.
Grant: Fine. Let’s not talk about the letter of the disgruntled girlfriend who found pictures of her partner’s ex-girlfriend in his drawer, next to the engagement ring . . .
Layla: Sheesh. Spoilers. I haven’t read this one yet.
Grant: Hurry up.
Layla: I still haven’t gone to Walgreens to pick up an issue. I had parent-teacher conferences back-to-back for the past couple days.
Grant: I have a copy right here.
Layla: So does every bodega on our block.
Grant: Yeah, but those bodegas don’t have the Thai green curry you love so much. Or that coconut slushie . . .
Layla: You play dirty.
Grant: You like it.
Layla: See you in ten minutes.
“Do you have a peach somewhere in here? And a lemon?”
“Why?” Grant’s head popped up from the kitchen. “Have you been craving fruit?”
“God, no, this baby is all about artificial colors and burgers of dubious origins.” Still perched on his couch, I flipped through Gloss to get to the weekly Dear Desiree column.
“But I’m thirteen weeks along, and it says the fetus is the size of a peach now.
It also says that by week fourteen, it will be the size of a lemon.
Peaches are larger than lemons. The math doesn’t math. ”
Grant chuckled as he grabbed the plates with our Thai curry, rice, and spicy papaya salad as he headed my way.
I’d tried avoiding him as much as I could since we’d found out I was pregnant, but it had been hard.
He always managed to bribe me with supreme food and smoothies.
The fact that he sent yummy things to my door almost every day had also defrosted that cold thing inside my chest. Good thing he wasn’t a stranger and his apartment wasn’t a suspicious white van. Because I’d still go in there.
Obviously, there was no sex. We needed to draw a line in the sand. And having a baby together and sleeping together was 100 percent relationship territory. Serious relationship territory. Only a step and a half from buying a house together or having matching holiday pj’s.
But the fact that he hadn’t initiated anything in weeks, even though we’d never actually discussed staying platonic, made me wonder if things were heating up with Jessica.
“So, I’ve been thinking.” He plopped next to me.
His knee brushed my own, and a jolt of yearning zipped through me.
I’d been very horny ever since I got pregnant.
Horny to a point where I was considering letting my vibrator go to an early retirement for working extra shifts, and investing in a new one.
“Thinking? Handsome and smart?” I took a bite of my curry. “That’s prime DNA right there. So glad I’m having a baby with you.”
He offered me a curt smile. “About the position in Minnesota . . .”
I held my hand up, stopping him. “No, I don’t want to hear it. You’re taking it, Grant. You’ve wanted to do this for a long time. This is your passion. Their research team is the best in the country.”
Plus, if he and Jessica were together, I didn’t want to interfere with that. As much as it burned my entire soul, I wanted him to be happy. He deserved happiness. Even at my own expense.
“Layla, you’re going to need help.”
“And I’ll have it. My parents are ecstatic.” Not a lie.
He licked his lips. “About that . . .”
“Yes?”
“I think you should move into this apartment.” He found my gaze, holding it for a beat. His words were like a punch to my gut. They tossed me back to a time in my life that I wanted to forget. That I’d worked hard on putting behind me.
“I get that your apartment is too small,” he continued. “But you belong in New York. This is your home. And I have a four-bedroom apartment, so there’s a place for you, for the baby, and for your parents, if they want to stay over. No time limit, of course.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” I put my food down.
“Why?”
“I can’t afford living in your place.”
“You don’t have to. That’s the point. It’s free.”
“Respectfully, Grant, it’s not. Nothing is free.
At some point you’re going to ask me for something in exchange.
” It was my bad experience talking, and I knew he was just trying to be helpful, but my hackles were so high I couldn’t see past them.
“And even if you don’t ask me for anything, there’d still be a power shift between us. One I’ll never agree to.”
Silence, bricked up and impenetrable, fell between us.
“Who did this to you?” He scanned my face, voice sad and soft as a feather.
“Why do you look at relationships as a currency? A quid pro quo exchange? You know, I’m a firm believer that people should live their lives however they see fit, but in this case, I might need to put my foot down.
You can’t live your life teaching our kid that they need to work to earn their place in their loved ones’ lives.
Kindness is not conditional, and family takes care of each other.
You don’t have to move in here, but if your reason for not moving here is because you think I’d hold it against you in any way, let me prove you wrong.
Try me, Layla. Move in. You can change the entire apartment.
Throw loud parties. I’m not going to be here eighty percent of the time—and you’re not going to feel indebted to me in any way. Know why?”
He gathered my arms and looked me in the eyes. I couldn’t breathe, let alone blink.
“Because your so-called payment is the fact that you are going to birth, love, and raise the most important person in my life. If that’s not compensation enough, I don’t know what is.”
My instincts screamed at me to say no, but there was something inside me—someone—the girl I was before Connor broke me, who wanted to put her faith in another human. To try again. To evolve. Even if it was going to hurt.
Besides, he’d made some solid points.
Grant’s place was insane by New York standards.
The location was mouthwatering. I’d live in walking distance of work, my gym, and my favorite supermarket.
But mainly, I thought this was a good idea because I knew Grant was going to visit New York to see the baby as much as he could, and I wanted to make things easier for him too.
“I really appreciate the offer,” I said evenly. “But if you’re making it just because you feel like you owe me something, please don’t. I promise you, I’ve got this.”
He shook his head. Neither of us touched the curry anymore.
“I’m offering you this because I think it’d make both of us very happy, and the baby too.
Your parents will be able to come and go as much as they please.
I already informed my boss at the new clinic that I’ll be in New York Friday evenings through Sunday nights every weekend to spend time with my child.
So this will be convenient for everyone.
I mean, I think. You tell me what you prefer. I’ll follow your lead here.”
His expression was painfully earnest. I’d spent the last few weeks obsessing over Jessica, and how much I didn’t want Grant to leave, and the fact that I actually did not think about Connor and Kellianne at all.
Maybe all I needed to cleanse my ex out of my life was just one great, female-rage moment.
Because no matter how much I tried to cling to the hang-ups Connor had instilled in me, I wanted to make the same mistakes again with Grant, this time expecting different outcomes.
“I’ll move in,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Again.
“Yeah?” Grant’s lips pulled into a tentative smile.
“Yeah.”
“This month?” he asked hopefully. “It’d be good to practice living together for the time we’ll spend on the weekends. Plus, we’ll have time to set up yours and the baby’s rooms.”
I searched his face for worry or doubt, and found neither.
Grant had been a soundboard for me to lean on ever since I’d sprung this pregnancy on him.
He came to my doctor’s appointments and attended my scans, and he’d been nothing but understanding when I told him I wanted to wait until birth to find out the baby’s sex.
Heck, he didn’t even flinch when I announced I wanted to name the baby Phyllis if she was a girl.
He called it charmingly vintage. Let’s be clear here—it was an atrocious name.
I only wanted to see how far his good nature would go.
“Sure. I’ll let my landlord know.” I picked up my curry bowl, then put it back on the table again. I wasn’t hungry. Not because I was nervous but, I realized, because I was excited.
Actually, now that I thought about it, it was entirely possible this was the reason I hadn’t been angry my entire first trimester. Not because of the pregnancy itself, but because of what it meant.
Grant’s time, and attention, and coddling.
I’d suddenly become the center of his universe, and I realized this was my comfort zone. But that only meant I’d have to work extra hard on guarding my feelings. Women like Jessica didn’t evaporate to make room for the competition.
“Just so you know, I collect candles,” I said.
“I love candles.”
“And plants. Lots and lots of plants.”
“Big fan of oxygen.”
“I sing when I shower.”
“I love music.”
“I’m not very good at it.”
“In that case, I have good earplugs.”
“And I eat my cereal in two separate bowls—one for the Kellogg’s and one for the milk.”
“I always wanted to be roommates with a psychopath.”
That made me laugh. He was relentless.
“Any other warnings?” he inquired.
I shook my head. “What do I need to know before living with you?”
“I wake up every morning at five twenty-five to jog. I drink way too much coffee. I snore when congested—and I’m always congested. I have dinner with my mother every third Sunday of the month. Oh, and the last Saturday of the month, I have a D&D quest thingy with my med school buddies.”
“God, you’re such a dork. It’s so hot.” I rolled my eyes.
He rubbed the back of his neck, a small smile on his face. “So? Are you in?”
“I’m in.”
“Wait right here, okay?” Grant stood up before dashing toward the foyer with childlike enthusiasm. I remained seated, feeling like a sixteen-year-old on the brink of becoming the prom king’s girlfriend. He returned from his bedroom with a small silver box. He handed it to me. “Open it.”
“It’s not a ring, right?” I tapered my eyes at him.
“No. I learned from my first spontaneous proposal. Which was still one hundred percent a joke, by the way.”
I popped the jewelry box open. There was a small piece of paper there, with the numbers 1206*. And a key.
“What’s this?”
“The code to my mechanical lock, since the apartment doesn’t have a key. But the other one is to the mailbox.”
“You prepared this beforehand?” I bit down my smile.
“Well, yeah.” He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Since you told me you were pregnant, actually. Is that too much?”
No. It wasn’t too much. It was just perfect. And if I weren’t pregnant, and there wasn’t so much at stake, I would probably try to date Grant for real. He was so easy to love that trying not to fall in love with him felt like an uphill battle.
“Nope. Not too much at all.”
“Good. Let me know when you want to start packing, and I’ll take a day off. I’ll do the heavy lifting.”
And it was funny, because he really had done the heavy lifting without lifting a single finger.
Because in the way he treated me, he’d singlehandedly restored my faith in men and humanity.