Chapter Thirteen Grant
Chapter Thirteen
Grant
The following week, Layla moved into my apartment.
She wasn’t kidding about having a lot of stuff. She had an unholy amount of shit. She was flirting with hoarder territory. And that, unfortunately, was the only thing she flirted with in this house.
Who needed so many hair clips? And lip moisturizers? And Stanley cups?
There were also plants. Lots and lots of them. The amount you see from a stray window while you walk around Manhattan, peeking from a stuffy, multiple-story building above a bodega, and think to yourself, Who the hell keeps so many plants in one tiny space?
Let me tell you who—the future mother of my child.
There was always a chance this was all an elaborate test to check if I was as awful as that Connor prick. If so, I planned on passing with flying colors. She could clutter my apartment to eternity and back with neon dildos, and I’d say thank you.
I worked hard on being an A+ roommate. I made her scrambled eggs for breakfast. Went on snack runs in the middle of the night for her.
I even watched rom-coms with her, braving the fact that I lost an IQ point each time I completed a chick flick.
(Seven points for The Wedding Planner, in which Matthew McConaughey told Jennifer Lopez with a straight face to only eat brown M&M’s, as they have less artificial coloring, because they’re already brown.
Which, of course, is nonsense. A coating is a coating.
When you suck on an M&M, you clearly see that they all turn white.
That asshole was supposed to be a doctor? He gave all of us a bad rep.)
After I’d gotten animated—okay, aggravated—about M&Mgate, Layla and I agreed to each take a turn choosing a movie.
I got her to watch some horror flicks, including Rosemary’s Baby. In retaliation, she made me watch a Mark Ruffalo film.
Layla joined me on my morning runs ahead of my half-marathon, only she took the bike.
She made fish in curry. Tidied up the place.
Lit up candles that smelled like Thanksgiving and Christmas and Bergdorf Goodman.
She lathered my feet with wart-remover ointment when my runs started taking their toll.
And put a Word of the Day on our door every day with a sticker sheet attached.
If a kid from the building managed to read it, they could help themselves to a sticker.
They were the good stuff too. Bluey and Despicable Me waterproof stickers.
The neighbors’ children went nuts for them.
She was easy to be with. I didn’t have to try or filter with her. We just coexisted in this effortless way. Me, her, and her twenty-eight Stanley cups. And George, whom I became increasingly obsessed with.
I found myself spending less and less time at work. Not because I didn’t care anymore, but because there was something else I cared about now. I had a personal life to speak of. Suddenly, I understood why Chase was so protective of his time off and vacations.
Three weeks into our co-living arrangement, Layla came home from work. I had taken my paperwork home, since I knew she was working half a day and wanted to see her. I was on my laptop, my feet on the coffee table, when she walked in.
“Oh, hey, George. Hey, George’s mom.” I saluted her.
She boomeranged her scarf at me with a cheeky grin as she toed off her boots. “Keep dreaming big, Grant. Your George fantasy ain’t happening.”
“You’ll see the baby is going to come out looking like a George.”
“Might be a girl.”
“George is a unisex name.” I wiggled my brows. That earned me a laugh.
Layla stopped in the living room as she tied her hair into a high bun. “Hey, Maddie and Chase invited us for dinner tonight. Are you available?”
“That depends on who’s cooking, him or her,” I said, still staring at my screen as I typed.
Layla already knew how I felt about her. I’d been abundantly clear. So I actively made an effort not to throw desperate-puppy looks her way whenever we were together.
“Grant!” Layla chided. “Whatever happened to kindness?”
“I must’ve flushed it down the toilet along with everything else last time Chase decided to try his hand at barbecue and fed me raw chicken.”
She snorted. “That chicken was pinker than a Sabrina Carpenter outfit. Maddie is cooking.”
“I’m in then.”
“Seven o’clock,” she said, turning toward the bathroom. “And I’ll meet you there, since I have a hair appointment in an hour.”
“I already filled you a bath.”
She stopped. Swiveled. Squinted at me. I pretended not to notice, still typing away.
I did something nice and selfless for her at least once a day.
And, because I was sure Cunty Connor had done them, too, at the beginning of their relationship, I made it a point to never make a big deal out of them or make her feel indebted to me.
I looked at it like physiotherapy for her mental psyche after a car accident.
If she was a shattered vase—which she wasn’t—I still had the patience to pick up the minuscule pieces and glue them back together using tweezers, no matter how long it’d take.
Layla continued staring, and I saw, in my periphery, the expression her beautiful face held. There was wonder there. Vulnerability too. But what got me the most was the hope.
Okay, fine, and those tits. They were always fantastic, but pregnancy definitely agreed with them. With her entire, perfect body.
Needless to say, my dick and my hand were painfully familiar with each other these days.
Finally, I looked up, meeting her gaze and feigning innocence. “Was there something else?”
“No,” she said in awe.
“Chop-chop, then. The water’s getting cold.”
But we were getting hotter by the second.
And by the way she scurried away quickly to avoid doing something stupid, she knew it.