38. Grace
thirty-eight
After I hang up with Ethan, I feel much better. By the sound of his voice, I could tell he’s conflicted too, and not the asshole Dad and Colton and Kyle suggest he might be. He sends a quick text when he lands, but I only see it an hour later. I answer him, wanting but not daring to call him. I don’t know what his schedule is. I don’t want to interfere.
During my lunch break, I walk to the general store to get some kibble for Damian. At the register, keychains and cute charms catch my eye. I choose a few and set them on the wooden checkout counter. “Solid choices,” Noah says with a small smile.
My cheeks burn. “Yeah, thanks.”
After work I go straight home. I’m still vaguely pissed at Dad and Colton, and I don’t want to go to Lazy’s and just wallow with my girlfriends over Ethan’s departure. I check my phone every five minutes, but there’s no message from him.
I’m tempted to open one of the little envelopes now, so I move the jar to my nightstand.
I’m about to sit in front of a movie when my door opens.
Kiara, Alex, Chloe, and Haley barge in. Kiara has a box of pastries, Alex some fresh baked bread still warm from the oven, Chloe brought takeout from the restaurant she manages, and Haley has not one, but two bottles of wine.
“Your house is so cute!” Chloe exclaims.
Haley sighs. “Dude, still no deck furniture?”
“You sound just like your brother,” I say, smiling.
“Awww, look at that smile,” Haley teases, while Kiara sets her boxes on the couch, opens the sliding doors, and lifts one side of my kitchen table. “We’re still bringing the party outside. I need another pair of hands.”
“You should ask Autumn,” Chloe says as she carries chairs outside while Alex and Kiara bring the kitchen table out. “She set me up with great stuff for a really good price.”
“Yeah, you better. I’m not doing that again,” Alex says. “No wonder you’re always eating out. Your place is cute, but it’s not… entertainment-level ready.”
I shrug. “No one ever really comes over, except Skye.” And although I told Ethan this was his home, it’s not like he’s going to be spending any time in it.
“Shit,” Haley says. “Now that I think about it, it’s true. Why not?”
Because I put all my energy into my business, and when I come home, all I want to do is sleep? “I dunno.”
“Well, now that Ethan has pretty much moved in, you might wanna, you know, zhuzh it up a bit,” Kiara says as we all move to the deck, each of us carrying a mismatched chair.
Zhuzh it up? What’s wrong with my house? It’s cute, and neat, and clean. “He hasn’t moved in. Although…”
Haley stops what she’s doing. “Although what?”
“Well, when he comes back, I’m giving him a key.”
“You go, girl,” Kiara says.
“Umm… To be honest, I think I kinda got ahead of myself. I already told him… I said…”
“You said what?” they all ask.
“I told him this was his home. Well, I said Emerald Creek was his home, but he read between the lines.” At least I think he did.
They gape at me. Crap. I knew it. “I’m crazy, right? I’m so… so out of practice. Why did I tell him that? He must think I’m so desperate.”
“What!? What is wrong with you?” my friends exclaim.
Haley takes both my hands in hers. “Honey, listen. You are not desperate. You are a strong, kind, loving woman who gave her heart to a strong, kind, loving man. What are you scared of?”
I widen my eyes at her. What is she talking about? “He’s never gonna be here. Can’t you see? I’m not thinking straight.” Dad’s and Colton’s and even Kyle’s words resonate as words of wisdom, now that I’ve had a few hours to process.
“You’re giving him an anchor. A place to call home. A place to visualize as his when he’s all alone doing god knows what. A place for the two of you. That’s huge. That’s everything. God he’s so lucky to have you,” Haley says.
I’m lucky to have him, too, even if I miss him so much it physically hurts.
“On a scale of one to ten, how sad are you?” Alex asks.
“About what?”
While Chloe and Kiara set the table outside, Haley pours us an orange-y, bubbly drink in rocks glasses. “Drop the act, sister. About my idiot brother.”
“I…” Words escape me. I shouldn’t really be thinking about this now. Measuring how sad I am isn’t how I’ll protect my happy. All I can say is, this morning I got out of bed after Ethan left, didn’t lose it when Hope, who does the waxes in addition to facials, called out and I had to do Mrs. Summer’s Brazilian bikini wax. And I did not panic when I failed to find any commercial rentals online should I lose my space. So on a scale of one to ten functioning? I’m at a ten. The takeaway? “I’m doing fine.”
Alex rolls her eyes. “She’s doing fine. We know what that means.” She takes a sip of her drink and stifles a grimace.
“Have some Wiener Schnitzel,” Chloe says, pushing the serving platter toward me.
“I’m really not hungry.”
My friends exchange the look.
“You don’t like it?” Haley says, looking around the table, then at our glasses. I take a sip. Ouch. It’s very sour, and really… “What is it?” I ask.
I’m saved from Haley’s murderous look by my phone’s ringtone. I jump out of my chair and check the display. Ethan. I pick up and go find privacy in my bedroom.
His voice rumbles like a welcomed storm after a hot summer day. “Hey, darling. Sorry I didn’t call earlier. There’s poor service here, believe it or not.”
“See?” I giggle like a giddy teenager. “It’s not just Vermont.”
“Mmm. God I love your voice. What are you doing right now?”
“Sitting at the foot of my bed, talking to you.”
“And before that?”
“The Bitch Brigade came over for dinner.”
“The who?”
“The Bitch Brigade.” I tell him how that moniker came about just last week.
“I didn’t know you were the entertaining kind. But I’m not surprised.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I say coyly, “but to be honest, they think I need to buy deck furniture. Pretty much they lectured me on my poor hostess skills.”
“I don’t know about the hostessing, but the deck could use a little more… actually, forget it. I like having you on my lap.”
“A-ha. Now you see my point.”
“Are they still there?”
“Yeah, they got here not too long ago.”
“Call me when they’re gone? I want to hear all about your day, minute by minute. But I don’t want them to continue bashing your hostessing skills.”
His sweetness goes straight to my heart. “Including the minute-by-minute account of Mrs. Summers’s Brazilian bikini wax?”
“I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds painful and not something I need to hear. Unless it caused you some trauma you need to offload on me.”
I laugh out loud and hang up with the promise of calling him the minute the Bitch Brigade is gone.
“Ohmygod, look at that smile!!” Alex gushes.
Haley shakes her head. “I can’t believe my brother is responsible for that.” Then she looks at me seriously and squeezes my hand as I sit down. “I love you,” she whispers softly, tears in her eyes. “And swear to god, he might be my brother, but I will kill him if he hurts you.”
Kiara pops a piece of bread in her mouth. “Fuck. What was that about?”
“We’re the Bitch Brigade. You said it yourself. We look after each other. And this one,” Haley says, taking my hand again, “has been my soul sister since we were born. So… my blood brother better not mess it up.”
“Haley, it’s fine. We… Ethan and I, we have an unconventional relationship. First off, this is all very new, and we need time to figure out how we want to be together.”
Although I can’t help but wonder… are you truly together if you don’t spend each and every night together? In each other’s arms, breathing the same air? Making love?
“You’re doing good, keep going,” Haley prompts me.
“Yeah, spill it,” Kiara says.
“At the beginning, I thought it’d be better if he were away. This way, I wouldn’t fall for him too much.” My friends give me encouraging looks. “But now… now, he’s all I can think about. He’s all I want, and how pathetic is that?”
“It’s not pathetic at all!” Alex exclaims.
“It’s like, I had this great, stable life as a single woman, a successful business owner, and now suddenly, the carpet is pulled out from under me. I’m struggling to keep my business together and the world feels… empty without Ethan in it.” I don’t even have Skye to take care of, now that Alex is in Chris’s life. So much is going to be different, and everything happened so fast.
“It’s called being in love,” Alex says, taking my hand. “You caught the bug.”
“That’s bullshit,” Kiara declares. “Butterfly, I thought we talked about this. Change and shit. Nothing you can do about it. Note to self, though: this is why I don’t do relationships.” She looks around the room, seeming satisfied.
Haley takes my other hand. “I think what Kiara is trying to say is, nothing lasts forever. This is just a transition. You’ll figure out your spa situation one way or another, and Ethan won’t be in the Air Force forever. You’ll figure it out.”
“You’re right.” It’s just the in-between that’s so hard. “I’m so grateful for you guys.” I clear my throat and decide to let it all out. “I just think that… it’s just that… we’ve had so little time together. And I worry. I worry that we may not be as solid as I think we are. I worry about him being alone. About needing someone by his side. You know?”
Haley squeezes my hand. “He would never. Ever. Sweetheart, you’re worried over nothing.”
“You’re right. You’re right.” God, where did my mind go just now? Is this how it’s going to be, moving forward? Constantly missing him? Constantly wondering if my voice on the phone is enough? Waiting for the other shoe to drop? This is pure horror. I need to focus back on my friends.
I take a sip from the glass Haley poured us. It hits my taste buds in an indescribable way, so I set it on the table. “Though I think there’s studies about how spending the whole night with someone brings people closer. Something about breathing the same air and how your bodies communicate with each other when you’re sleeping?”
Kiara guffaws. “What’s in that—whatever beverage you’re serving us? Grace is hallucinating.”
Haley seems offended. “It’s sumac and pear cider. Can’t you tell?”
“Yeah!” Alex says. “You know how your bellies talk to each other when you’re in bed?”
Kiara looks at Alex with a disgusted look. “Um—no, I don’t. And ew—gross.”
“My cider’s gross?” Haley says, but I know it’s to take the conversation in a different direction.
“No! Your cider is… it needs a little more work.”
Haley sighs. “Can we deconstruct the tastes?”
Kiara and Chloe swirl the drink in their mouths, sniffing, talking about acidity and fruit and roots.
Finally, my mind is off its dangerous path as an idea strikes me. “Guys! I just had an idea.” They all look at me. “What if I had my own line of products, at the spa? Locally made with all this stuff,” I say, waving my hand at the chocolate and cider on the table.
They’re all quiet, until Haley breaks the silence. “That’s a great idea. When you or we have the money to fund the research and the place to make it and—”
“I’ll look into it,” Alex says. All eyes turn to her. “We’re looking to support local initiatives in the food sector. I’m sure we can… interpret our mission statement liberally.” She recently inherited a baking empire from her grandmother, and she’s in the process of turning it into a co-op and moving the headquarters to Emerald Creek.
We end up brainstorming my project and discussing Haley’s latest creation over a bottle of my store-bought wine.
They leave late, and I call Ethan right away, hoping I don’t wake him.
“Darling,” he drawls lovingly.
I tell him about my evening, and he listens attentively. “Your friends are awesome, sweetheart. So happy you have that in your life.”
“How did your day go?” I ask, suddenly self-conscious I’ve been talking only about myself.
He sighs deeply. “Okay, I guess. I just miss you. Are you in bed?”
“Not yet. I have to brush my teeth.”
“Get ready and call me from bed? I want your voice to be the last thing I hear tonight. And I’m not sleepy yet.”
“Okay,” I breathe against my better judgment. How can I say no to Ethan asking me to be the last thing he hears?
See? We can make it work. We can have a long-distance relationship.