Chapter 14 #2
“Hey, roomie, so…here’s the thing. I think about you. A lot. Like, a lot a lot, and I was wondering if maybe you thought about me, too?”
Nope. Too stalkerish, especially given the whole secret podcast situation.
Fuck, the podcast…
I can’t think about that now. If I think about that and what Grammercy might think about it, I’ll completely lose my nerve.
I have to take this one hurdle at a time.
First, I’ll find out if Grammercy’s even open to being more than friends.
Then , I’ll figure out a way to tell him that I was a borderline creepy fangirl before we met in person.
Surely, that’s the kind of thing that gets easier after you’ve gotten to know each other better.
I mean, doesn’t everything get easier with time? And it’s not like I’ve exploited our relationship for content. I haven’t even recorded an episode since Mimi and I moved in.
Weirdly, I haven’t felt the need.
Before, my podcast was my outlet, my way of feeling like I had some agency in a life that felt more and more out of my control .
But now, I’m looking into going back to school, actually have a couple of interviews lined up for jobs I would be excited to have—as a mailroom girl at the city paper, with a chance for advancement, and as a social media manager for a local clothing brand that liked the copy samples I sent in.
Suddenly, the podcast feels less vital.
And who needs to fantasize about hockey players on a mic when she has a real-life NHL dreamboat sipping orange juice shirtless in her kitchen?
Fanning my face, I push the thought away. Must not think about shirtless Grammercy or I’ll get even more flustered than I am already.
The cab turns onto Dauphine Street, and soon we’re in the thick of Friday night in the Quarter.
Music pours from every doorway—jazz, blues, and someone attempting “My Heart Will Go On” at a karaoke bar and failing spectacularly.
The sidewalks are packed with tourists clutching their plastic go-cups full of wicked mixed drinks, locals who know which bars to avoid, and tarot readers promising to tell your future with a worn pack of cards.
For a moment, I’m tempted to slap a ten-dollar bill down and see what one of them has to say about my plan, but I’m already running late. If I don’t stay focused, Grammercy might get there before I do.
“Here’s good,” I tell the driver as we approach the Old Ursuline Convent and the streets get even more packed. I tap my card to his reader, thank him, and emerge into the humid embrace of a New Orleans night.
Even in October, with Halloween just around the corner, the air is thick enough to swim through, perfumed with night-blooming jasmine, a hint of seashore, and stale beer from one of the cheap, college-kid clubs behind me.
Ahead, the convent looms elegant and mysterious in the gaslights, its shuttered windows keeping their secrets. Instantly, I decide I love that Grammercy wanted to meet here. It has the poetically spooky New Orleans energy I love.
The gate near the cemetery entrance is just as Grammercy described it: aged but beautiful, adorned with wrought iron leaves and flowers.
It’s a great meeting spot, actually, visible from the street but set back in an alcove away from the crush of the Friday night party.
I’m able to watch the pulse of humanity from a safe distance, shaking my head as a group of women in sparkly dresses and devil horns stumble past, cackling about someone named Derek who apparently can’t hold his liquor and looks like he pissed his pants.
Poor Derek. But then, I’ve rarely met a guy named Derek who wasn’t a menace to polite society. And his own pants.
I lean against the cool brick wall near the gate, grateful for something solid to ground me. My pulse still races and my legs are shaky, and not just from the stilettos I rarely wear. Every time a tall, dark-haired man rounds the corner, my heart leaps into my throat.
But none of them is him.
Which is good, since I’m still not sure what I’m going to say.
Maybe, just something simple like, “Hey, Grammercy, that hug last night after we left Mimi’s room? I um… Well, I liked it. Maybe more than I should have. And maybe we should…talk about that?”
I pull in a deep breath and stand up straighter. Yeah, that could work. It’s honest, direct, vulnerable, without baring my soul in a way that might make him uncomfortable if he isn’t feeling the same way.
I’m starting to decompress a little when a voice slurs from not far from my sheltered nook, “Well, well, wow! This is why it pays to look around corners.”
I glance up to find a guy about my age, maybe a little younger, swaying toward me, his beer bottle dangling between two fingers like he forgot he was holding it.
His USC polo is untucked on one side, and his khaki shorts are unzipped, making me think he was too drunk to remember to pull his shit together after his last potty break.
Great. Just what I needed. A California frat boy loose in New Orleans. The California boys always overdo it. Those stingy pour bars in L.A. don’t prepare them for how strong—and massive—the drinks are around here.
“Hello, pretty lady,” he continues with a messy grin. “You looking for some fun? You can join us. We have plenty of room.”
Plenty of room in what, I wonder as I spot the gaggle of polo-shirted guys behind him. In their posse? Because they sure aren’t driving a vehicle down this part of the French Quarter.
But I know better than to ask drunk boys questions.
“I’m waiting for someone, but thanks,” I say, shooting him the kind of tight, toothless smile that says keep walking, friend .
But he doesn’t keep walking.
Nope, he gets closer, speeding his pace at the last moment until he’s suddenly too close for comfort.
“Lucky someone, to get to spend the night with…all that,” he slurs, planting one hand on the wall beside me.
He isn’t boxing me in, but he’s making me uncomfortable, and leaning so close I can smell a mixture of bourbon and red wine that makes me certain Bro probably isn’t going to feel too good tomorrow.
“I’m Brad,” he half-belches before swallowing the rest of the noxious puff of air.
“Sorry. Yeah. Brad. Cheesy but true.” He taps his chest. “And it’s my birthday.
We’re going to party at a strip club, but like…
funny strippers. Not serious ones. You want to come?
It’ll be fun and I’ll totally buy you drinks. ”
“No, thank you. I’m waiting for my husband,” I say, holding up my left hand as I scoot away. Grammercy’s ring catches the light, dazzling even in the shadows around the church.
Brad squints at it like he’s trying to solve a math problem. “Oh, fuck. Wow. You don’t look old.”
“Thanks,” I say wryly. “I’m not. Just married. But have a good night.”
Sadly, this none-too-subtle hint doesn’t penetrate for Brad, either. “Husband, huh? Why’d you get married so young? Doesn’t that suck? Aren’t you bored? Don’t you like to party?”
“I party with my husband ,” I say, hitting the word even harder this time. “I’m all good, happy as a clam, I promise.”
“Come on, Brad,” one of the guys in a nearly identical polo calls out from behind him. “We’ve gotta go. Ben needs another beer, and Kip wants to get to the club before the lady with the forked tongue goes on at ten.”
“Her tongue is two tongues,” a bleached-blond guy says with a laugh. “What is that even about?”
“So fucked up, man,” Brad agrees, laughing at the non-joke as he lurches closer again. “So, pretty girl in the black dress, are you sure you don’t want to play hooky with us? I mean, if your husband was so great, he wouldn’t have left you all alone on Bourbon Street, right?”
“Come on, Brad. For real!” His friends hover near the street, looking torn between fetching their friend and self-preservation.
“Come on, baby girl,” Brad coos in a gross “seductive” voice, I hope has never worked on any girl. Ever. “At least let me buy you a drink while you wait. We could go back to the bar we were at before. They got shooters as big as my hand, and?—”
“No, thank you,” I say more firmly as I press back against the wall.
“Aw, don’t be like that. I mean, you don’t get dressed up like that if you don’t want men to look at you. Right? You’re kind of asking for it.”
My jaw locks as “asking for it” leaves his puffy mouth.
Three words only ever used by men who are definitely not good guys.
“Leave me alone. Now.” I put pure steel in my voice this time, but Brad’s too drunk to notice.
“You know what I think?” He pokes his tongue around the edges of his mouth before his lips spread into an uglier grin.
“I don’t think there is a husband. I think you’re just one of those girls who wears a big fake ring when she goes out to cockblock the guys she doesn’t like.
Which is fucked up, lady. Real fucked up. ”
My heart starts racing for all the wrong reasons now. His friends are still there, but they’re distracted by something on one of their phones. And a jazz quartet suddenly started playing around the corner, making it harder to hear…everything.
Like a woman calling for help, for example.
For just a moment, despite the crowd and laughter mere feet away, I feel very alone and unsafe.
Brad’s voice drops into his “sexy” register again, “So, why don’t you stop playing games and have a little?—”
“Excuse me, friend, but you’re standing too close to my wife.”
The deep voice cuts through the night like a hot knife through butter. Calm. Controlled, but with an edge that makes the hair on my arms stand up even as my shoulders sag with relief.
Grammercy.
Thank God.
Brad jerks back, and I can see past him to where Grammercy is walking our way, cutting through the dazed frat boys, looking like every fantasy I’ve ever had come to life.
His black button-down clings to his broad shoulders, his sleeves are rolled up to reveal my favorite forearms on earth, and his lips are set in a line that says he isn’t about to take any shit.
But it’s his eyes that make my belly flip-flop and do a swan dive onto the pavement. Dark. Focused. Fixed on Brad with an intensity that makes some primal part of me very, very happy.
I’m a strong woman, capable of fighting my own battles, but damn…I like knowing that this time I don’t have to.
This time, my sexy fake husband is going to scare the gross guy away with his manly awesomeness.
“Oh. Um. Hey, man.” Brad tries to straighten, clearly realizing he’s made a tactical error. Even drunk, he can see he’s outclassed. Grammercy has four inches and at least forty pounds of muscle on him. Also, he’s sober. And pissed . “We were just talking.”
“No, you weren’t.” Grammercy steps between us with his innate, athlete’s grace, angling his body to shield me from Brad’s breath. “You were bothering her. And now, you’re going to apologize and find somewhere else to be.”
Matching polo shirt steps in, tugging at Brad’s arm, muttering something about not looking for trouble on his birthday. But Brad’s that special kind of drunk that makes cowardly men courageous. And stupid.
His face flushes red as he spits, “Give me a break, dude. She was making eyes at me the whole time like she was into it, how was I?—”
“You wish, asshole,” Grammercy snaps, deep and dangerous enough to make me shiver. “She’s miles out of your league. Now, apologize to my wife, and get lost.”
My wife.
There they are again. Those two words… Two simple words that shouldn’t hit me like a lightning bolt to the heart, but they do. The way he says them—not like I’m his property, but like I’m his precious person. His girl.
His favorite.
He says it like the words taste as good in his mouth as they feel hitting my ears. Like he’s just been looking for an excuse to say them out loud and proud.
Something inside me splits open, and joy comes rushing in.
I’m so happy, so grateful, suddenly so certain that all my stressing about this attraction being one-sided was for nothing, that I act on instinct. My hands move before my brain gives them permission, reaching up to turn him around and pull his lips to mine.
Our mouths meet, and the world explodes.
This isn’t like our courthouse kiss—sweet and surprising and over too soon. This is a lifetime of craving a connection just like this one compressed into a single point of contact.
This is every moment I’ve watched him with Mimi and known he was the father I’ve always wanted for my little girl. Every night we’ve talked way too late on the terrace, and every morning I’ve caught him shirtless in the kitchen and melted in the warmth of his sunshine smile.
And from the second we collide, I would bet my hand that my fake husband feels the same way.
His fingers curl around the back of my neck as he devours my mouth, like he can’t stand the thought of letting me go and…
Wow…
Oh, wow…
I thought I knew what chemistry felt like, what desire felt like, but I was wrong. The longing rising inside me is unlike anything I’ve ever known. This is passion and need and tenderness, and every romantic wish I’ve ever had coming true.
The kiss is so intense that my knees buckle, but Grammercy is right there to catch me.
He wraps his other arm tight around my waist, pulling me flush against his powerful body as I spiral deeper into the storm.
The solid heat of him, the way our tongues communicate all the terrifying, thrilling things we’re too polite to say aloud, the sound he makes low in his throat as his heart hammers against mine, it’s… almost too much.
It’s like drowning, but I never want to come up for air.
His fingers dig deeper into my hip, and I cling to him like?—
“Uh, what the fuck,” a voice mutters, followed by a soft gagging sound.
Grammercy and I pull back, gasping for breath as we glance over to see a green-looking Brad fighting the urge to vomit.
“Come on, Brad, for real,” his twin says, his eyes locked on Grammercy like he’s just performed some kind of magic trick no ordinary man will ever be able to duplicate.
And isn’t that the truth?
If a kiss like that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.
“Let’s go, chère ,” Grammercy mumbles, threading his fingers through mine. “These boys have already wasted enough of your time.”
“Good night,” I toss over my shoulder as Grammercy leads me toward the front of the church. “Oh, and next time a woman tells you she’s waiting for her husband, I suggest you believe her.”
Her husband…
Her sexy as hell husband, who’s currently watching her with dark eyes that say he’s not done with me tonight.
Not by a long shot.