Chapter 11
11
GRANT
Images of Tessa continued to bounce around my head days after Thanksgiving—her smile, her laugh, her dry humor, and the way she came apart around me, bent over that sofa—it all played on repeat in my brain.
Our night together had been one of the best in my life, and that was exactly why I couldn’t let it happen again. Even with my no-beds rule, I was hopeless to think of anything except her. I liked the way she made fun of me, and wasn’t that insane? But each time she cracked a joke at my expense, it was a reminder she understood me. Either she was paying close attention or she was able to intuit what would make me laugh versus what would hurt my feelings. Either way, I liked it. Too much.
I spun my phone in my hands. I’d been considering calling Tessa for more than an hour, but I’d stayed strong. If I could get through these first hard days, it would get easier.
The phone rang suddenly and I nearly dropped it as I spun it back to face me, but much to my disappointment, it was only my mom. “Hello?”
“Hi, darling. I was hoping you could help me.”
“Of course, Mom. Anything. What’s up?”
“I’m supposed to help out with the Bridgeport Lights committee, and I just realized the next two meetings are while we’re out of town on that trip your dad surprised me with.”
Bridgeport Lights took place all of December and was the biggest event in Bridgeport every year. Every tree, post, and sign was strung in lights and every business window looked like the Christmas section at the local Walmart. Add to that the fact that it drew tourists and made it a pain in the ass to go anywhere, and I was not a fan.
“What do you need my help with?” I asked. I didn’t ask why she wasn’t calling Ethan, but seriously, she knew I didn’t like Bridgeport Lights.
Mom laughed a tinkling little laugh that I knew, from experience, was far more sarcasm than humor. “You’re an important part of this community now, Grant, and your father said you’d have time to go sit on the committee for me.”
I sighed. “I could probably make time, but I don’t think I’m the right person to sit on the Bridgeport Lights committee, considering I don’t really like Bridgeport Lights,” I pointed out.
“I thought about that,” Mom replied, clearly undeterred. “But they’ve determined all the big stuff, so you won’t be in charge of that. Besides,” she said, her tone irritatingly chipper, “this might help you grow to like it.”
“Oh yeah,” I muttered dryly. “I find unpaid labor always makes an odious experience more fun.”
“I’ll send you the dates.”
“Or you could…not.”
She hummed thoughtfully. “Messages, there we go. Favorites…there you are! Grant. I’m adding the dates and…” There was a long pause as mom wrote her text. “Whoosh!” she said triumphantly. “They’re coming your way. Thank you again, Grant.”
“Did I have a choice?” I asked, my phone dinging with a text as I asked.
“Well, honey, you always have a choice.” That was a patent lie, but she spoke again before I could protest. “And I really appreciate knowing you’ll always be there to help me out.”
“You’re diabolical.”
“Naw, I just love you.”
“Love you too, Mom,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
When Mom said “sit on the committee” I’d expected we’d be indoors, sitting even, but that was not what was happening today. The day had been shit from the start, with patients running one into the next. At four o’clock I got a call from Ethan, who’d gotten a flat tire and realized he had no spare. I was supposed to be at the Bridgeport Lights Committee meeting at four-thirty, but with Mom and Dad out of town I was the next logical choice to call for help, I just didn’t have time for it. With a beleaguered sigh, I got into my car and pulled the container of soup I’d meant to have for lunch out of my bag. It was cold, but I unscrewed the lid of the mason jar and began to drink.
Stop number one was to Mom and Dad’s house. I let myself in through the front door, then grabbed Dad’s spare keys and headed into the garage. Dad and Ethan had the same cars in different colors—the result of my old man driving Ethan’s car one afternoon and deciding he liked it. I opened the garage door, popped the trunk and hauled out the spare tire, tossing it in my trunk. Then, for good measure, I grabbed Dad’s lug wrench and jack. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to get to Ethan and discover he had neither, so I wasn’t taking any chances. I glanced at my watch as I closed everything up and locked the house—it was four-fifteen. Ethan was on the side of the road a couple miles out of town, close enough for me to drop everything off and get to the committee, if I hurried.
“Hey,” he said as I stepped out onto the shoulder of Route 38.
“Hey,” I replied, surveying his tire. It was flat, but not shredded. We could throw it in his trunk and see if it could be repaired. “I grabbed the wrench and jack from Dad’s set. Do you already have one?”
“I have a lug wrench, but no jack,” he replied, and I rolled my eyes as I turned back to the trunk, wondering why he hadn’t seen fit to tell me that in the first place. We would’ve been screwed if I hadn’t thought to bring it.
“Do you—” Ethan faltered on the question, and I paused, looking back at him questioningly. “Do you mind helping me change it? I’m sure I could do it. I’ve seen videos on it, and I think I saw Dad change one once, but I’ve never had a flat before.”
“Of course,” I replied, softening. Ethan had a job and an apartment and a wife now, but he’d always be my baby brother, probably even when he was ninety and I was ninety-eight. “Let me just make a quick call,” I added, zipping up my coat against the chill and pulling out my phone.
“Yeah, of course. Hand me over the jack and I’ll get things set up. Like I said, I’m pretty sure I can do it.”
“Loosen the lug nuts before you jack it,” I said, looking down at my phone.
Ethan snorted. “You said jack it.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I muttered, still not sure who to call and growing more irritable by the second. Mom and Dad were probably relaxing on a beach somewhere, and even if they had their phones nearby it felt wrong to disturb them, so I called the only other person I knew for sure was on this committee.
“Grant!”
“Hi, Juliet.”
“How are things?” she asked, and my most destructive impulse wanted to tell her I couldn’t get her daughter out of my thoughts—but of course I would say no such thing.
“I’m hanging in there,” I said, which seemed better than telling her my day was shit and likely to only get worse. “My mom asked me to fill in for her on the Bridgeport Lights Committee, but Ethan has a flat tire, so I’m running a little late,” I explained.
“Oh my!” she exclaimed. “Is Ethan alright?”
I glanced up at my brother, who was about to start jacking the car without putting something behind the wheel. I hit the mute on the phone and shouted, “Put something behind the back tire!” Then I hit the unmute and answered Tessa’s mom. “He’s fine. Needs a little help, but he’s fine. Anyway, if you could just let someone know I’ll be late to the meeting, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Oh! I’m actually here already and today is our first work day, so you can go straight to your location.”
My brow furrowed. “Do you know where my location is?” Was this something I was supposed to know? Mom hadn’t said anything.
“Let me check where we had you…” her voice trailed off as she found the information, and I watched Ethan, who’d stuck a brick behind his tire and was now lifting the jack. “Grant, you’re stringing trees…” Another long pause passed. “at Prospect and Crescent,” she finished. “I’ll give your partner a quick text to let her know you’re running late.”
“Thanks, Juliet. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem, hun. Have you heard from your mother? Is she having a good time on vacation?” Juliet asked.
I walked back to where Ethan had the car boosted into the air. “Haven’t heard from her, so I assume she’s having a great time.”
“Oh, well, you tell her I say hello.”
“Will do,” I replied, even though Juliet had as good a chance of hearing from my mom as I did. “Thanks again.”
“You bet,” Juliet said, then hung up. The abruptness of the disconnect was enough that I froze momentarily, pulling the phone from my ear and looking at it as if it might be faulty.
With a single shoulder shrug, I slid the phone into my pocket.
“How’s it going?” I asked. He had three of the four nuts off completely, and looked to be finishing the fourth.
“Good,” he grunted as he hoisted the tire off and dropped it on the ground next to him. “You have the spare? I’ve got it from here. I know you have somewhere you’re supposed to be.”
“Yeah,” I grumbled. “Filling in for Mom on the Bridgeport Lights Committee.”
Ethan guffawed loudly. “You hate Bridgeport Lights. Why’d she ask you?”
“I don’t know,” I snapped. “You want to take my place?”
“Fuck no, but you could tell them you’re helping me and can’t make it.”
“I’m not going to lie.”
“Well, that’s your own damn fault,” he said, lowering the jack.
I glowered at him. “Are you sure you’re good if I leave?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely, but thank you for coming out and helping. Have fun at Bridgeport Lights.” He said this last part with a smirk, and I flicked him off as I walked back to my car.
The intersection of Prospect and Crescent avenues was in downtown Bridgeport, very near my office, and I pulled into street parking, looking around to try and determine which building I was meant to go into. This corner had a bar, a house, and two restaurants. I didn’t want to have to call Juliet again, but the intersection wasn’t enough info. Nothing was here.
“Grant?”
I turned at the sound of my name, finding myself face-to-face with a woman I didn’t recognize. She was traditionally attractive, with red hair that flowed past her shoulders and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. But it was her eyes I was locked in on. They were a hazel green that should’ve been lovely, but they only made me think of Tessa. Tessa whose sharp wit and lush hips and moss green eyes seemed to have taken residence in my brain permanently.
But this was not Tessa.
“Hello,” I said, not sure what more to say to a stranger who knew my name.
“Kelly,” she said, touching her chest, and her tone made it clear I was supposed to know who she was.
I did not.
I blinked stupidly.
“I think…” she hesitated, trailing off, then picked back up again. “Our mothers had a plan to set us up? Did your mom share my number with you?”
My eyes widened, because I did know Kelly. “Yes, I’m sorry,” I agreed quickly. “My mother sent me your contact a couple days ago—” It had probably been closer to a couple weeks. “—I’m sorry I haven’t gotten a chance to call?—”
“It’s okay. I haven’t called you yet, either. It’s a crazy time of year,” Kelly said quickly.
“And I never saw a picture of you, so I didn’t recognize you,” I continued. Kelly blushed, the color a vivid red on her cheeks. She shifted uncomfortably, putting a large box on one hip. I jumped forward, reaching out toward the box. “Can I help?”
“Thank you,” she replied, relieving herself of the armful. It wasn’t too heavy, but its size made it cumbersome, and I held it with both arms in front of me. “Those are all the lights—well, not all the lights, Mrs. Davis said there were more boxes we could grab as we went—but we’re supposed to begin at this corner and do the trees between Prospect and that alley there. She pointed to a small driveway that led to the backs of the stores. “The ladder is in the doorway of Dugman’s.” She walked a few storefronts down from where we stood and produced a ladder from next to a door.
I glanced down the block. There were six trees in our section, so maybe it wouldn’t take too long. “Let’s start at this end, I guess,” I said, gesturing with my chin to the tree nearest the intersection.
“Sounds good,” Kelly said cheerily, pulling her hat tighter down over her red hair.
We set up at the first tree, me on the ladder, and Kelly holding a string of lights below. She reached up, handing me one end of the thread, and I climbed up an additional step, not sure how to begin. For a long minute, I stared at the tree, considering different strategies. “Maybe just wind it around the branches,” Kelly called up when I didn’t move.
“Okay,” I agreed with a shrug, beginning to wrap a long branch that stuck out from the trunk. “So, my mom said you were a nurse?” I asked as she fed me the string lights.
“Mmhmm,” she hummed pleasantly. “At the hospital. L and D.”
“Labor and delivery? That’s great,” I replied as I wrapped. “Guess it means you like babies?” I knew the question was stupid the moment I said it, but it was already out there, and it wasn’t like I could take it back. I snuck a glance at Kelly to see if she looked irritated, but her face was neutral.
“Of course, but a lot of my care goes to the mother, too, obviously. Do you not like babies?”
“I don’t dislike babies,” I said simply, keeping my focus on the branches I was wrapping.
“I can see myself having five or six,” she said, and I thanked god she couldn’t see my eyes blink wide in horror.
“That’s a lot,” I said, trying to make my voice light. I needed a subject change, and fast. “Hey,” I said, glancing behind me to catch Kelly’s eye. “You never told me how you recognized me. Did your mother describe me?”
Kelly chuckled, but I saw her cheeks turn pink once more. “No, actually, I remember you from high school. You were a senior when I was a freshman.” It was a small town, so this probably shouldn’t have surprised me, and yet I was shocked into silence for a beat longer than was comfortable, and Kelly filled the silence. “I actually had a bit of a crush on you.”
“On me?” My voice sounded oddly squeaky in a way it hadn’t since puberty.
Kelly laughed, holding up another string of lights, and I realized this process was going to take hours. I only had a fraction of the branches wrapped and there were five more trees after this one. “That sounds weird. I shouldn’t have told you,” she said, but her smile didn’t waver, making it clear she was more entertained than mortified by her admission.
“It’s not weird—I mean—I don’t mean it’s not weird to have a crush on me, like everyone should have a crush on me, I just mean?—”
Kelly’s laugh rang out again, and she interrupted my string of babbling mercifully. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not a crazed stalker or anything. I was really surprised when my mom told me she wanted to set me up on a date and it was you. She doesn’t have a great track record.”
I shrugged, shooting a quick glance in her direction and then resuming wrapping the lights. “My mom hasn’t really tried to set me up until now. I think maybe she’s become more interested now that Ethan and Nora made it official.”
“You’re doing it wrong,” a voice said from behind me, the biting criticism softened by the laughter in her voice.
I would’ve known that voice anywhere, and I spun around so quickly I nearly tipped over the ladder. Kelly dove forward to catch the it, but I righted myself just as quickly and the ladder stabilized.
“Grant,” Tessa gasped, and the sense memory of that single syllable was instantaneous and powerful. It was the same breathy way she’d said it in the moment before she came, though now the word was paired with an expression of fear.
“I’m good,” I said quickly, my eyes on hers.
“Lord, Tessa,” Kelly grumbled, and though it shouldn’t surprise me that Kelly and Tessa knew each other, somehow it did.
“I’m sorry,” Tess said quietly.
She looked dreadfully guilty, and I wished more than anything to cup her face between my palms and kiss her forehead and tell her it wasn’t her fault, I’d simply been excited to hear her voice. But I couldn’t do that, both because it would defy Tessa’s only rule about our relationship, and because I was supposed to be doing a better job not thinking of it as a relationship. “Don’t be sorry,” I said instead, hoping my eyes said all the other words. “But explain yourself.”
“Explain?” Tess asked slowly, clearly perplexed.
“You said I’m doing it wrong. What do you mean?”
“Maybe she meant your ladder skills,” Kelly joked, and Tessa’s responding laugh sounded nervous to my ear. Kelly probably couldn’t hear it, though.
“You’re doing too much work. You’ll either be out here until midnight or use all the lights by the second tree.”
I looked back at the tree I was working on, which was already spun in two strands of lights and failed to be even halfway covered. “What should we do, then?”
“Big zig zags,” Tess explained, demonstrating with one waving arm in the air as she spoke. “Start at the center-top, best you can reach, and do big zig zags over the top then around the sides. They’ll mostly stay on their own, but you can wrap around a branch here and there if you need. Then you twirl down the trunk and—” she turned her palms up in front of her, then spread them wide. “Voila.”
“Oh, that makes so much more sense,” Kelly said. “Have you done this before?”
“Every year,” she said cheerily. “I help with the trees along Crescent.”
I had no idea Tessa volunteered on this committee, though it shouldn’t surprise me, considering Juliet seemed to be largely running it. Kelly was a really nice woman, but I wished I’d been paired with Tessa. I could easily imagine spending the evening making her laugh and sneaking little touches. At the end of a night of hard work we’d probably end up back at Tessa’s house—and my mind was wandering. “I didn’t know you helped out on this committee, but it’s a good thing you walked by. We might’ve been here all night.”
“Glad to help.” Tessa shifted her attention away from me. “Kelly, it’s great to see you. Not sure if it’s luck or design that Grant got paired up with a nurse in case he falls off the ladder.”
“I wasn’t going to fall,” I muttered petulantly, but both women ignored me.
“Good to see you too, Tess. Thanks for the help.”
“See you Tess,” I said, and she nodded up at me before walking past. She was wearing a puffy coat that obscured her figure and a blue hat pulled down over her brown waves. I watched her as she passed, only half-paying attention to the work as I began to toss the string of lights as Tess had instructed.
I reached for my phone where it rested in my pocket, stepping into my office for a moment of privacy. I hadn’t been expecting a call from Juliet Davis, and my mind filled with a thousand terrible reasons for her call, most of them involving her daughter pinned to the wall of a hotel room. I was eternally grateful Claire and Emily had made no attempt to out me to any of our parents for my wedding night escapades, but I assumed one of them may decide to detonate that bomb at some point. “Hello?”
“Grant, hi,” Juliet said, and I let out a silent sigh of relief when her tone held its usual affection. “I wanted to update you about tonight.”
“Tonight?” I asked.
“The Bridgeport Lights Committee,” she replied. “We’re finishing decorations tonight. Your mother said she gave you the dates.”
“She did, of course,” I rushed to say, and she had, but I hadn’t bothered to check my calendar and so I’d forgotten tonight until this moment.
“Rodney Hale broke his arm—I don’t know if you heard.”
Rodney had, in fact, been into the office yesterday about his arm, and I’d sent him to the hospital for x-rays, but I didn’t explain that to Juliet. “I heard, yes.”
“Well, of course you did,” she said, as if the fact he might’ve seen me had just occurred to her. “I’m calling because I have to shift people around now.”
“That’s fine, Juliet. Just tell me where I need to be.”
“Well, I didn’t want to have to separate you and Kelly?—”
“It’s really fine, Juliet. I can work with anyone,” I said.
“Okay, but now I’m looking at the list and I see I could move Joshua Shepherd to work with Molly Trysdale and keep you with Kelly and Tess could just work alone.” Her mumbled words were less for my benefit and more just her thinking aloud, but they still got my attention.
“Tessa?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Juliet replied. “She’s done the bottom of the tree a million times. I’m sure she can do it without help.”
My mind raced for any solution I could offer that would put me with Tessa this evening. “What if I call Ethan?”
“Do you think he’d be available?” Juliet asked, sounding hopeful. “He could go and help Tess at the tree.”
Or he could spend time dressing windows with Kelly. “I bet he’s free. Let me call him. He owes me from that tire change the other night.”
“That’s wonderful, Grant. Thank you,” Juliet said.
“Of course. I’ll let you know what he says. Thanks.” As soon as the line went dead I hit the button to call my brother, determined not to let him off the hook until he agreed to help.
“Hey, man,” Ethan said.
“Hey,” I replied. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Tonight? I was just going to sit around, watch the game, nothing special. You want to come over?”
Ethan didn’t give a shit about basketball, so I was hoping this would be even easier than I’d anticipated. “I can’t, actually. I was hoping you could do me a favor.”
I paused to look down at my screen as a text from Juliet came in. Ethan made a little grunt of dismay, but didn’t reply.
Juliet: Tessa is picking up the supplies for the tree at 5 at City Hall. It would help to meet her there.
“I need your help for Bridgeport Lights tonight.”
Ethan laughed. “Fuck that, man. Mom suckered you into it, not me.”
“Ethan,” I growled irritably, “you know she’d be disappointed as hell to hear you left me in the lurch, and we’re short a person. I could use the help.”
“Grant, shit,” he complained.
Time for the big guns. “I assumed after all my help with the flat tire you’d step up. I already told Juliet you’d be there.”
Ethan sighed. “You told my mother-in-law I’d be there?”
“Not to fuck you over, I just genuinely thought you’d help me out,” I said, and though I was laying it on thick, I knew the guilt trip would win him over.
“Fuck,” Ethan groaned. “What time?”
“Five o’clock. You’ll meet Kelly at Main and Pennsylvania.”
“Okay,” he agreed, his tone petulant.
“Great, thanks.” I pulled up Juliet’s last text.
Grant: Perfect. We’ll be there.