4. Grayson
4
GRAYSON
N o matter how old I get, I will never pass up an opportunity to lie in my mom’s bed, especially if she’s just gotten out of it to get ready for work. There’s something so satisfying about sinking into the spot in the mattress still warm from her body, laying my head on a pillow that still smells like the oil she brushes through her hair before she wraps it up at night, watching her put on her clothes for the day and weighing in on what shoes she should wear.
Since moving back in with her, I’ve done it often, happy to reenact the summer mornings of my childhood when I’d receive a kiss on the forehead and a reminder not to stay in bed all day before she rushed out the door, leaving me to do exactly that.
Back then, Mom thought it was cute to come home and find me napping in her bed, cartoons on her TV and several bowls of cereal on her nightstand beside a pile of books, but these days she’s less thrilled about it.
“When are you going back to work?” she asks as soon as she crosses the threshold into her bedroom, heels in one hand while the other is perched on her hip. She’s almost sixty years old, but she’s still got that curvy, slim figure that used to make my dad refer to her as a Coke bottle.
“Jax told me to take as much time as I need,” I answer from the comfort of her spot in the bed. Convincing Brian to let me go back to work in some capacity had been a challenge after we pressed pause on trying to get pregnant, but he’d agreed eagerly after he met Jax. Something about hearing my job description in a man’s voice made him so very agreeable. Now that I look back on it, I realize how problematic that was. I guess that’s why they say hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Mom tuts her disapproval as she makes her way over to her closet to grab a change of clothes before disappearing into her bathroom. I know her post-work routine like the back of my hand, so it doesn’t surprise me to hear the shower running shortly after the door closes, just like it doesn’t surprise me when she jumps right back into our conversation when she emerges fifteen minutes later.
“Jax gave you time off so you could focus on Elysian, not mope around in my bed all day.”
My stomach lurches, my body revolting at being called out in such a matter-of-fact way. Even though my mother is right, it’s still hard to hear, to know that I’m failing so epically at the thing I want most in the world. And it’s not even the designing or the creating part that’s hard— because I never stopped sketching and sewing—it’s everything else.
The social media platforms I don’t know how to show up on, the would be customers I don’t know how to connect with anymore.
It’s the empty, black squares on an app all about pictures and aesthetics and the silence underneath the few posts I’ve felt brave enough to put up.
It’s the pity likes from my mom, cousins, aunts and Amina—Jax’s wife.
It’s the website with no pictures of me or my products and no copy to explain who I am or what the brand means to me.
It’s Brian’s voice in my head telling me I’ll fail, and the crippling fear that he’s right.
“I’m trying. It’s just hard when?—”
She waves a hand in the air, cutting my sentence in half. “No, no, no. I don’t want to hear none of that. You have that strong, sexy, extremely intelligent lawyer in your corner taking care of everything on the divorce front, putting in all the work to sever ties with your old life. It’s up to you to lay the groundwork for your new one.”
The eye roll at her description of Xavier is unintentional, but it doesn’t stop her from swatting me on the hip as she urges me towards the center of the bed so she can sit on the edge and put her lotion on.
“You’re right,” I tell her, sitting up and resting my back against the headboard.
“Of course I am, baby.”
“And so humble too,” I muse.
“I don’t need to be humble when I have correctness on my side.”
“Now that’s a word, auntie,” a voice says from the door. Mom and I both look up to find Kendra strutting into the room with a wide grin on her face.
I scoot to the edge of the bed and meet her in the middle of the floor for a hug. “What are you doing here, Ken?”
She squeezes me long and hard before pulling back. “Lottie Dottie said you needed a little pick me up, so the girls and I decided to come through.”
“And thank God you did. I don’t think this girl has left my bed all day,” Mom says from behind us. One glance back reveals her on all fours in the center of the king sized bed, starting at the furthest corner to wrench the sheets free from the mattress.
Choosing not to engage with my mother’s dramatics, I turn back to Kendra. “I appreciate y’all coming to cheer me up, but I don’t feel like going out or anything.”
“Who said anything about going out?” Kendra asks as she grabs my hand, leading me out of the room. I follow her into the dining room on hesitant feet and smile when I see Chantel and A’ja gathered around the table with their laptops, snacks and glasses full of wine in the center. Kendra leads me to the head of the table and forces me to sit down.
“What is all this?”
Chantel passes me a glass of wine and smiles. “The first official Elysian Re-Launch planning meeting.”
“The what?!”
A’ja rolls her eyes, her fingers typing away on a laptop she soon spins around the places in front of me. “Girl, you heard what she said. Now log me into your Insta, so I can see what you been in here doing.”
I don’t protest. I mean, how can I when I have three people here and willing to help me with all the stuff that’s been stressing me out for the last few weeks? After I log A’ja into my socials, I open my laptop, which had been waiting on the table for me, and give Chantel access to my bank accounts, so she can create a budget for me to produce a small collection to launch at the event Kendra is apparently planning.
“Jax says you can use the event space at the back of Refrain, and he’s going to make sure his friends Mallory and Sloane are there. Apparently, Mallory works for some big venture capital firm and her entire job is finding small businesses for them to fund and making sure they’re successful afterwards. She’s also a plus sized girl, so maybe you can gift her a piece from the collection.”
Chantel and A’ja hum their agreement while I make note of the suggestion. “That’s a great idea, Ken.” I look around the table, at all of the work we’ve put in, in just a few hours. “These are all great ideas. Thank you guys for doing this.”
My voice breaks as tears begin to crowd my vision. Suddenly, there are three sets of arms around me, squeezing tight, and three sets of lips murmuring soft assurances in my ear, making me believe that it’ll all be okay. When I’m safely on the other side of my little breakdown, everyone returns to their seats, and we get back to work.
“Have you heard anything from your lawyer?” Chantel asks after a while, glancing at me over the blue light glasses she has perched on her nose.
I use the pencil in my hand to scratch out the sketch I was just working on and then flip the page to start new. “He called yesterday.”
A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of Xavier Allen’s phone voice. It’s the perfect balance of gruff and tender, professionalism stained with sin. The man could be a phone sex operator if he wanted to.
A’ja cuts her eye at me. “And?”
“And apparently I have to go to court tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?!” Kendra shrieks. “Why didn’t you say anything before now? I could have taken the day off.”
“Because I didn’t want you to take the day off. It’s just a hearing. Xavier says we’ll be in and out because it’ll only take the judge a few minutes to rule on the temporary orders.”
Kendra arches a brow. “What’s that?”
Leaning back in my chair, I try to remember Xavier’s exact wording when he explained it to me yesterday. “Orders that address issues that need to be handled immediately while the divorce is still pending. Usually stuff like child support, custody or spousal support.”
Chantel picks up her wine and takes a sip. “But you guys don’t have kids, and you said your post-nup prevents you from collecting spousal support, so what else is there to handle?”
“Property,” A’ja offers, plucking a grape from the charcuterie board in the center of the table and popping it into her mouth.
I nod, bracing myself for the hell my cousins are going to raise when they hear the rest of the story. “Yep, apparently Brian wants the judge to order me to stay away from the house?—”
“You’ve already been doing that,” Kendra says.
“And,” I continue, “he wants me to give back my car.”
The white Audi Q3 was Brian’s gift to me for our sixth wedding anniversary. I’d never put much stock into vehicles, only really caring about their ability to get me from point A to point B, but over time I’ve come to love the SUV. It also happens to be my only source of transportation, so losing it would probably mean having to quit my job since Jax is primarily operating out of his restaurant in New Haven, and I’m now an hour away, in the outskirts of Fairview. Brian, of course, knows all of this, which is why he’s trying to force me to give it back.
All three of my cousins show signs of disgust and outrage, but it’s A’ja who voices it first. Her button nose is wrinkled with fury. “What a fucking asshole. I hope he catches a cold in his balls and dies of testicular pneumonia.”
“Pretty sure that’s not a real thing.” Chantel laughs before adding, “But I get the sentiment.”
“Is Xavier going to fight it?”
Kendra, the sweetest and most considerate of all of us, looks so concerned, and I can see the wheels in her brain turning, probably trying to figure out how she can help if I end up losing my car. Before she can offer her vehicle or start talking to me about joint car schedules that include picking up and dropping off her seven-year-old son, Crew, I place a reassuring hand over hers.
“Yes, and he’s confident he’ll be able to get it thrown out.”
“Good,” she whispers, relieved. “I’m so glad you have someone like him protecting you from that abusive asshole, Brian.”
I pull a face, something about the phrasing hitting me all wrong. “Brian is a lot of things, Ken, but abusive isn’t one of them.”
The entire room goes quiet. Chantel’s fingers pause on the keyboard of her laptop. A’ja stops the music on her phone. Even the damn heat turns off, leaving us in the awkward silence that follows my statement. I look around at all of them, confused by their confusion.
“What?” I ask, genuinely curious. “I really don’t think abusive is the right word. I mean, it’s not like he hit me or anything.”
“Emotional abuse is still abuse, Gray,” A’ja says, her tone soft, her eyes pitying. “You know that, right?”
“Of course, I know that. I just—” I stop, looking around the table, seeing a rebuttal to my unspoken statement in all of their eyes. “I wasn’t abused .”
The words leave my mouth, but there’s no conviction in my tone. No certainty to lay the declaration on top of, just doubt. Just questions and the painful re-framing of every moment I shared with my husband. Every critique presented as a helpful suggestion. Every discussion rigged for an outcome in his favor. Every discouragement phrased as a question about my capacity. Every cut down growing bolder and bolder until he didn’t even have to hide them anymore, until I just accepted that whatever he gave me was what I deserved.
I slap a hand over my mouth as my mind and body reel, processing this new reality in a painful span of seconds that feels like it lasts for an eternity. I don’t realize that I’m sobbing until the hard press of my mom’s arms around my shoulders brings me back to my body, to the trail of wetness running from my eyes, over my cheeks and down my neck. I don’t know where she came from, but I’m glad she’s here.
“Shhh,” she coos, rocking me back and forth. “You’re okay, baby girl. You’re okay.”
“I stayed,” I sob, the words coming out broken. “He hurt me. He kept hurting me, and I just stayed. Why would I do that, Mommy? How could I be so stupid?”
“You’re not stupid, Grayson. You’re brave. You’re so brave, baby. You got yourself out of there.” She peppers kisses over my temple and wet cheeks. “You are so brave, and I’m so very proud of you.”
My mother’s words are the coat of armor I wear to court the next day. They keep me insulated from everything happening around me. From Xavier sitting next to me at the table in front of the judge’s bench, from the argument Brian’s lawyer, a sleazy looking bald man named Monty Barnes, makes for me to return the car, from the judge’s ruling in my favor.
Nothing goes out, and nothing comes in.
That is until Brian corners me in the parking lot outside of the courtroom. I’d left Xavier behind as soon as the hearing was over, ignoring his offer to walk me to my car. As soon as Brian catches up to me, I regret that decision.
He grabs me by the arm, touching me like he still has a right to, and forces me to spin around and face him. His cheeks are tinted red from the anger coursing through him and the harsh bite of the wind whipping around us. I snatch away, pulling my coat in tighter around me as I stare at him, wondering how I ever saw anything but a monster when I looked in his eyes.
“Out of all the attorneys you could have gone with, you decide to go with him ?” he sneers, which makes me want to laugh. Xavier had said it would bother Brian to see us in court together because of their history. I didn’t think I’d get to see that in action, but I guess I was wrong.
Brian isn’t as tall as Xavier, but he’s still taller than me, tall enough that I have to tip my head back to look up at him. He’s handsome in a classic kind of way—I can still acknowledge that even though I know what he is now—but I’m not moved by his features like I once was.
“It’s not like you left me a lot of choices, Brian.”
A frown tugs down the corners of his mouth, telegraphing just how much he hates that I know exactly how dirty he’s been playing since the beginning of this divorce. “Yeah, but you still should have gone with someone else. You know he only took this case to piss me off.”
I tilt my head to the side, studying him. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
He flounders for an answer, spending less than a second on formulating one before deciding to switch gears. “I don’t get you, Grayson. You don’t want me, but you want the car I bought you for our anniversary. Didn’t anyone tell you that walking away from me meant walking away from everything with my name attached to it?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you that speaking to my client without me present is inappropriate and highly unethical?”
The question comes from behind me, hitting my ears at the same time a set of warm, leather clad gloves cup my hip and gently, but forcefully, move me to the side. In seconds, I go from standing face to face with Brian to standing behind Xavier as he towers over us both, looking down at my soon to be ex-husband with a murderous scowl.
“Your client is my wife,” Brian protests. He tries to sidestep the larger man to get to me, but Xavier isn’t having it.
“Not for long,” Xavier tosses back, stepping to the left when Brian does and forcing him back with a large hand on his chest. “Now get the fuck out of here before I report this little incident to the judge.”
Wide, angry eyes pass over the two of us, and I don’t know if Xavier feels the waves of outrage rolling off of Brian, but I do. As he walks away, I marvel at how obvious it all is now—the bitterness coursing through him, the hatred and malice—wondering if he was good at hiding it or if I was just adept at not seeing it.
“Are you okay?” Xavier asks, rounding on me when Brian is out of our sight. It’s a clear, bitterly cold January day and what little sunlight there is has decided to play on the lines of his face. Normally, I don’t call men beautiful, but that’s always the word that comes to mind when I’m in Xavier’s presence, because no other word really does him justice. He has one of those faces that suggests his creation was a labor of love, a slow, intentional process that resulted in rugged, yet symmetrical, features that exist in perfect harmony with the oiled mahogany of his complexion and the deep, black waves that hug his scalp.
He runs a large hand over those waves, genuine concern in low, hooded eyes that spell bedroom, not courtroom.
“Grayson?”
I jolt, heat cresting on my cheeks at having been caught staring. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I saw him corner you. I figured he wouldn’t take losing the hearing well, which is why I wanted to walk you to your car in the first place.”
“Right. I’m sorry I didn’t take you up on that. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t,” he growls. “Because next time I won’t ask.”
The bite he pairs with that bark has heat trickling through my core, and I clench my thighs to quell the involuntary reaction, which only grows stronger when Xavier comes up beside me and puts his hand on the small of my back.
“Let’s get you to your car.”
We walk the short distance to my vehicle in silence, and I get the sense that Xavier is still fuming. It doesn’t feel like he’s angry with me so much as he is at the situation. I haven’t known him for long, but I am learning his expressions. To recognize what he looks like when he’s ready to sink his teeth into something—or someone—and destroy them.
And right now, that someone is Brian.
Once we’re at my car, I unlock the door from my key fob, and Xavier opens it. His jaw is tense, but his eyes are soft as they pass over my features.
“I’m okay,” I assure him.
He nods, running the hand not holding my door open over his chin. “I don’t think I have to remind you of this after today, but you can’t speak to Brian alone, Grayson. He’ll take anything you say or do and twist it around for the good of his case, and I’m already struggling to find a strong angle for our counterclaim, as it is.”
Most of our conversations of late have either been about this hearing or about the counterclaim. Xavier says we need something good, but real. He doesn’t want it to be sensationalized or manipulated information meant to warp perception like the evidence Brian’s built his case on. Before last night, I had no idea how to help him help me, but now, after the epiphany I had at the table surrounded by the women who love me and recognized the abuse before I did, I think I might.
I swallow past the lump in my throat, past the embarrassment and shame, and look Xavier square in the eye. “Do you think we can build a case around emotional abuse?”