Chapter 15
15
TESSA
“You shouldn’t park at my house,” I said as Grant pulled out of the driveway. The dessert containers sat on my lap and I fidgeted with them as I spoke. “We could park at your place and walk over to my house…or just stay at your place.” Christ, what if he was legitimately just taking me home? “I mean, you can just drop me off, too, if you’re tired or…” I didn’t want to finish my own sentence, but Grant wasn’t speaking, and I kept babbling. “You did have a long day, like your mom said, so if you’re tired…”
“I’m not tired,” Grant said, which cleared up almost nothing, so I didn’t know how to reply. “You also had a long and tiring day, I’m sure. It takes a lot to wrangle a class of ten-year-olds.”
I chuckled. “How would you know? Didn’t you skip fifth grade?” I shot back, smiling.
“Same slop, different bucket,” he replied with a shrug.
“Hey, fancy doctor, that slop you’re talking about is my career,” I said, but I wasn’t offended, I just liked to poke fun at all the stuff he said without thinking.
Grant grimaced. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I meant?—”
“I’m kidding,” I said, setting a hand on his thigh. “I know what you meant, I just figure it’s my job in life to remind you your first thought isn’t always your best thought.”
“I really don’t mean to say rude shit,” he muttered, and I laughed, big and full, as he pulled up in front of his house and the car slid into the driveway.
“Believe me, no one on Earth thinks you’re saying this shit on purpose. You’re not that funny.”
He shot me a wide-eyed look of shock, then reached across the seats and pinched my side. I laughed, pulling away until I was out of his reach. “Does the world know what a smart ass you are, or do you save it for me?” he asked, grinning, his hand still lifted toward me in threatening little pinchers, reminding me he could easily reach to tickle the hell out of me if he wanted.
“Not only you, but not a lot of people,” I admitted.
His head cocked to one side as if he were thinking, and then he said, “I don’t know your friends very well. There’s the one woman—what’s her name—you’re best friend?”
“ Their name is Val,” I corrected gently.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Val. Are they…” his question trailed off, and my brow rose, prepared to cut off any rude question he was about to ask. He didn’t say more, though.
“Val is Val,” I replied simply, mostly because he didn’t need to know more. The fact that Val was nonbinary and pansexual was their information to share, not mine.
“Sorry, that was rude of me,” Grant said, and I shrugged. I liked the ease with which he apologized. I always felt uneasy having to admit I was wrong, but Grant seemed perfectly comfortable.
“That’s okay. People ask me sometimes,” I acknowledged.
“I’d enjoy meeting them—under other circumstances, I mean. Obviously that wouldn’t be in the spirit of our rules as things are.”
Guilt shot through my veins like I had mainlined it. “They know.”
“Who knows?” he asked as he waited for the garage to open.
“Val. I tell them everything, and they know about us.”
“Everything?” Grant asked, and my lips tilted up, finding it funny what men focused on.
I shrugged a single shoulder. “Broad strokes, not the details. I mean, they don’t know about John Legend or anything.”
“Ah,” he said. Then, apparently lacking more to say on the subject, he nodded toward the door to the house. “You want to come in?”
“What if we didn’t?” I asked, and Grant frowned.
“I can take you home,” he offered. “Is everything okay?”
I shook my head, not at his question, but at his assumption. “Everything is fine,” I said, reaching across the console to rub through his pants. He hissed in surprise, and the sound made me grin. I unbuttoned his pants and opened them. “Why don’t you scoot your seat back?”
I imagined, if he’d had an older car with a handle to move the seat, he would’ve hit that thing full-force and let his seat slam back as far as it went in a single motion, but Grant had a fancy electric SUV with a fancy electric seat adjuster, so all he could do was press the button and scowl impatiently at how slowly it moved.
Finally, his seat was fully back, making space between his body and the steering wheel. I rotated over the console until one of my knees rested on either side of his thighs. “Fuck, Tess, you’re so hot,” he groaned, and I didn’t know if this was a general assessment or if he was referring to the thin slice of satin that sat pressed to his bulging cock. Scant layers separated our bodies, and there was no mistaking the heat of my desire.
I canted my hips, grinding my body against his and eliciting a low moan I swallowed in a kiss. “I don’t have a condom, Tess,” he whispered, thrusting his hips back toward me needily.
“You should,” I said, letting my forehead fall onto his as my hips ground down against him, already chasing an orgasm.
“I have them inside.”
“Where?” I asked.
“In my nightstand.”
I shook my head, my hips continuing to move as I fumbled in my seat for my purse.“That’s stupid,” I replied, and Grant snorted out a laugh.
“Stupid? I wasn’t planning for this.”
I wasn’t ready for either of us to come just yet, and I stilled, opening the little interior pocket of my purse and pulling out one of the three condoms I had stashed there. “Neither was I, but you have the condoms in the one spot you’re forbidden to have sex. Unless—” I couldn’t bring myself to say the alternative aloud, but just the thought of it hurt, and I looked down, swallowing my feelings quickly. I was doing so very badly at moving on from Grant.
“Never,” he murmured, hooking his fingers under my chin and raising my gaze back to his. “You know my rule. When I’m yours, I’m yours. And I am yours, Tessa.”
Mine . I ached to say the syllable aloud, to pull him close and drag my lips over every inch of him, repeating it until it was inarguably true. My chest felt tight and constricted, like I couldn’t breathe, and I leaned in to kiss Grant as if he held all the oxygen in the car. He may as well have, considering kissing him was the only thing that made me feel light and airy and free.
“Give me the condom, Tess,” Grant said as our lips parted.
“You’re very demanding, you know that?”
“Okay. Today you can be demanding. You say it, I’ll do it, but…”
The sentence hung in the air, unfinished, and I raised my brow in question. “But?”
He inhaled deeply as if he wasn’t sure he should say the words aloud. Considering the man usually said every dumb thing that popped into his head, this hesitation seemed worrisome. “I secretly think you like it when I’m demanding.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Your mom, your sisters—they’re all demanding, and you hate it, but I think you like when it’s me.” He paused, his eyes moving between mine, trying to read me. “But I could be a self-centered prick, so you can tell me if I’m wrong.”
For a moment I let him hang, more because acknowledging the truth was difficult than because I wanted to torment Grant, but then I spoke. “You’re right. My family always wants shit from me, and I hate it, but I like it when you’re like this. It’s not really demanding, it’s just assertive.”
The condom was on, and he lifted one hip gently, encouraging me to shift until I could sink down onto him. I sighed as our bodies joined fully. Grant pushed a lock of hair behind my ear and asked, “Why do you think you hate them doing it and don’t mind me?”
I barked out a laugh. “What kind of psychopath chooses now to ask therapy questions?”
He chuffed softly. “I felt close to you and I wanted to know.”
I squeezed down on him experimentally and he groaned, digging his fingers into my hips. Then I lifted up on my knees, hesitating only long enough to say, “They’re demanding I do things for them, and you demand I do things for me,” before letting myself drop down again.
“Tess,” Grant moaned.
I held onto his shoulders, rising and falling, drawing his face up towards mine so I could forget everything except the feel of his lips on mine and his stubble under my fingertips and his bruising hold on my hips and the way he filled me. There was just us, and the car and garage and house and street and town all disappeared.
I didn’t notice the moment when one of his hands left my hip, but I was aware of his thumb as it settled against me, perfectly following every direction I’d provided when I’d pleasured myself, and before I knew what was happening I was crying out, grasping his shoulders just to hold on. Grant came moments after me, letting out a long, low moan of satisfaction.
“Do you want to come inside?” Grant asked, lifting me up and giving me room to shift back into my seat. I straightened the panties he’d pushed to one side and settled back into the carseat. The truth was, I wanted to go into Grant’s bedroom and climb into bed with him. We didn’t even need to have sex again tonight. I just wanted to feel what it was like to be held by him, but that was exactly what I shouldn’t do. Grant hadn’t been wrong about beds. I needed to steer clear of them. Honestly, I needed to do a better job of steering clear of Grant altogether if I was going to move on.
“I would love to, but…in the spirit of things…I should probably go home.”
I sat up in bed with a gasp, my hand pressed to my chest as I caught my breath. I’d had nightmares before—terrible dreams that had me waking in terror—but this was not that.
I licked my lips, trying to remember every detail of the dream, but they were fading, even as the feeling of longing persisted.
Grant and I curled up in front of a Christmas tree—was it the one from his office? I gave him a present, but he didn’t open it. He turned to face me fully, weaving his fingers through mine when I mirrored his pose.
“ Tess.” I let him catch my gaze, though staring into his blue eyes wasn’t going to help me keep a clear head, and I felt like I needed one right now. “We could forget the rules,” Grant said, and the words surprised me. They had flitted around my head, but I hadn’t thought Grant was in the same place. “I could stop trying to fight the way I’m feeling and we could have dates and walk around town holding hands and get caught kissing in the park and maybe be blissfully happy.”
I swallowed hard, wanting to picture it, but every time I tried to see it in my mind, I saw Emily and Claire scowling instead. They would be sure he was preparing to cheat. It was impossible to imagine us and not imagine all of Bridgeport watching from the corners of their eyes, holding their breath and waiting to see if I could possibly be enough for Grant Dupree. “What’s the longest relationship you've ever had?” I asked, already pretty sure I knew the answer.
“Six months,” he said, “but ? —”
I cut him off before he said more words to weaken my resolve. “You’re suggesting things I don’t think you can give.”
“Tess,” he protested, but I let go of his hand, standing up to put some space between us.
“I should head home,” I said.
Grant had reached for me, maybe to try and stop me, but I had woken up before his hand found my arm, and now I sat, smoothing my covers and wishing for Grant’s fake words to leave my head.
The pizza box was open between us and I stared at it, willing myself to think of anything besides Grant, but I couldn’t.
“Remember this afternoon, when you didn’t want to talk about it?” Val asked, taking a bite of pizza. “I totally respect that, but it would really help me to know how much I hate Grant Dupree.”
“We don’t hate Grant,” I said flatly. They peered at me from under long, dark lashes, looking for more clarity than I wanted to offer. “I had a dream.”
“A sex dream?” they asked.
“More like a professing-feelings dream.”
Val’s eyebrows bounced. “Romantic. Tell me more.”
My lips tilted up. “He said he wanted a real relationship.”
“Was it great? What did you say?”
My stomach twisted uncomfortably and I set my piece of pizza down. “I said no,” I replied quietly.
“Oh,” Val said thoughtfully, taking a bite of their pizza. “But was it like one of those weird dreams where Grant turns into an old lady and then your mailman?”
My nose curled and I stared at Val, but they continued eating, unperturbed. “No. It was Grant. He said we should stop sneaking around and just be happy together.” It was exactly what I wished he would say—but that shouldn’t surprise me, considering it was my dream.
Val’s lips rolled between their teeth and their brow lowered as they considered this, then they shook their head. “You know I love you, but you seem to be having a very dramatic response to what seems like a pretty normal dream. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
I shifted on the couch, curling my legs under me. “You misunderstand,” I explained, and a dry laugh escaped me as I looked at my best friend, who was waiting patiently for me to tell them more. “God, ever since I started this whole thing with Grant you’ve had to be my personal psychiatrist. Are you so sick of me?”
“Fuck no,” Val said, their eyes lighting up with humor. “You usually spend all of fall complaining about some ten-year-old who’s giving you shit at school. If I have to listen, I definitely prefer the wild love affair problems to the classroom management problems.”
“Fuck you,” I said, laughing as I hit them in the knee.
“I’m serious, Tess,” they said, their expression losing the humor. “This is what we do. We watch bad movies and eat pizza and go out to the bar and figure our shit out together.”
“Okay,” I agreed quietly. “In that case, my problem wasn’t with what Grant said in the dream, it’s with what I said.”
“You said no?” they confirmed, and I nodded.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t just what I said. It was also my thoughts. It was like dream-me managed to consolidate every mysterious fear I can’t shake and make them clear to me.”
They waited, wanting to hear the reasons but respecting my boundaries enough not to ask.
“For starters, Grant doesn’t do relationships,” I offered lamely, because I knew it was the least of my concerns and Val probably knew that too.
They shrugged. “The kind of woman initially interested in the handsome local doctor probably expects him to be more like Ethan and less like Grant.”
I smothered the impulse to explain every way in which Grant was far preferable to Ethan. I knew what Val was implying. When a guy was as good looking as Grant, you expected him to have game. Grant did not have game. He was honest and sincere and way too blunt for his own good.
“Is there another reason?” Val prompted gently. “Do you worry about his feelings for Claire?”
I was sure down to my bones Grant did not have feelings for my sister, and yet Val’s question confirmed my greatest fear. I let out a long, slow breath. “Kind of. I don’t think he’s interested in Claire, but everyone in town is going to assume the same thing you did—that I’m some consolation prize when he couldn’t get the pretty sister.”
“I don’t think that. No one thinks that,” Val said firmly.
“Everyone would think that.” I poked at a piece of zucchini that had fallen off my slice of pizza. “And everyone would be holding their breath, waiting for us to fail. Basically, the only way I can come out of this without being humiliated is if we stay together forever or if we end things before they go any further. Which means, much as I don’t want to, I was probably right to break up with him in the dream.”
Val scowled at me. “Who gives a fuck what everyone thinks?”
“I do,” I moaned. “I don’t want people whispering about me.”
“It’s not that bad,” they said, and I knew Val spoke from experience. Coming out as nonbinary and changing their pronouns a few years back had brought attention they didn’t want, but Val was fearless. They didn’t worry about things like what Louise at the library would whisper about them. I did. I’d spent my whole life coming to terms with being invisible, and the last thing I wanted was to have my first-ever light shined only on the most embarrassing parts of my life.
Still, I knew Val had endured worse, and I didn’t say a word, only blinked woefully at them. They slung an arm around my shoulders and clunked their head against mine. “I think you should do what makes you happy, Tess, and if staying out of the limelight is what does it, I’m with you one hundred percent.”
“Thank you.”
Val gathered a slice of pizza, taking longer than was strictly necessary, then looked up to meet my eye. “But, seriously, is staying out of the limelight still the thing that makes you most happy?”
I swallowed hard, picking at the pizza in my hand, realizing I didn’t know anymore.