Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I can’t believe you just walked out mid-shift.”
I stared out the passenger window in stony silence, my entire body angled away from Grant, where he all but lounged behind the seat of his father’s electric car. The radio was on, but he hadn’t changed it from whatever finance garbage his dad listened to. Honestly, though, I preferred rhetoric about investment banking over Grant’s annoying way of repeating the same thing over and over.
“Like, you were supposed to go to work,” he went on. “You were at work . And you just— left . Without saying anything to anyone.”
I couldn’t tell if he was truly clueless or just trying to push me until I cracked. But every time he mentioned me walking out mid-shift, my nerves frayed a little more. Now, miles down the road from my impulsive decision, the implications hit me. Walking out mid-shift was an immediate dismissal. Especially when Mr. Roberts gave the clear warning to the staff against doing that before the Spring Has Sprung fundraiser. He already proved he was trigger-happy by firing Paige—and I just walked out of Alderton-Du Ponte as if I didn’t care if I lost my job or not.
Which… now that I had the chance to tamper down my anger, I definitely cared. I watched the scenery blur past, biting back the urge to tell Grant to turn around.
“The Lovey I know would never have done that,” Grant murmured, a strange quality to his voice. Almost something like admiration. “Never. You’ve changed.” He paused, and I thought he was finally finished. “Jeez, you walked out ?—”
“God, would you just—” The four words came out in a rush as I turned toward him, an exasperated snap of patience. He had his sunglasses on, but from the side view, I could see his eyes widen. I let out a sharp breath, voice lowering. “Would you stop talking?”
Grant’s lower lip puffed out in a pout. “ And you’ve gotten snappy.”
“You must bring it out of me.”
“I didn’t last night.”
I cringed as the merry-go-round returned to that stop. “Last night?—”
“You were surprised to see me, weren’t you?” Confidence dripped from Grant’s voice as he smoothed his hands down the leather of the steering wheel. “I—I was hoping for a different reunion, though. More… special. I wanted to bring you flowers?—”
“Why on earth would you bring me flowers?”
“To apologize.” I stared at him, long enough for him to shift self-consciously. “What?”
“Now?” My voice was flat. “You want to apologize now ? It took you six months to be sorry about cheating on me?”
Grant turned to look at me, then, pulling off his sunglasses as he did so. “I’ve always been sorry. I’ve always wanted to tell you I was sorry, except you blocked me before I had the chance to. No, it didn’t take me six months to be sorry, but it did take me six months to be able to try to make it up to you.”
I didn’t realize how irritated I’d be, listening to him. Whenever I thought about Grant in the past, it’d always been accompanied by a sick feeling. Now, though, there was nothing but annoyance. “Watch the road,” I grumbled, turning to glare out the passenger window.
“We’ve got a little longer until we get to Bayview,” Grant said, giving away the location. “Can you just hear me out? Even if it’s just to pass the time?”
“I was willing to hear you out in September. It’s March, Grant.”
“You blocked me?—”
“So what? You could’ve used a friend’s phone to call me. Used their social media to message me. Hell, maybe splurge and fly home to express just how deeply sorry ?—”
“My dad blocked my credit card!” Grant’s own exasperation cracked through now. “I did buy a plane ticket to come home, Lovey— that weekend . He canceled the ticket, canceled the card, and only sent me just enough money every month to get by on. I didn’t come home for Christmas because my parents didn’t allow me to. Because they didn’t want me to come back to you.”
If Mr. Holland hadn’t all but cornered me the other day, mildly threatening me to stay away from his son, I might’ve called BS. Actually, even still, I wasn’t sure I bought it. I folded my arms across my chest, glaring out the window. “You could’ve still used a friend’s phone.”
“Well, it was the beginning of the semester, and then the end of the year, and then the beginning of a new semester, and then I figured—why not wait until spring break?” Grant’s voice returned to its hopeful tone. “I could convince my parents in the meantime that I moved on from you. I could come home and see you for longer than a weekend and really talk .”
It was such a Grant Holland thing—to do things on his own schedule, his own timeline, uncaring of anyone else’s plans. That was the Grant I knew. In his mind, those six months meant nothing, because he’d been so busy. College, a girlfriend, a social life—he had it all to keep him busy. I had Alderton-Du Ponte, a place where the memory of him was inescapable.
“You thought I’d just be waiting?” I demanded. “ I was the one that dumped you . Not the other way around.”
“We had something special,” Grant said. “I thought that you’d remember that, too.”
Though it was petty, I muttered, “So special that you had to get another girlfriend, huh?” We were getting close to entering Bayview’s city limits, and I watched the buildings come closer into view. I knew what he was doing. Mr. Holland had mentioned that he was bringing his girlfriend to Addison with him, and, presumably, she hadn’t arrived yet. He was most likely trying to set the narrative with me before she arrived. “Fine, say your piece, Grant. But after this, it’s never happening again.”
Grant sat up in his seat, clenching the wheel tighter. I could practically hear his thoughts. My chance . “Would you believe me if I said that what you saw had been our first kiss?”
And we were already starting off with a lie. “You’d been dating since June?—”
“We met in June,” he corrected calmly. “Through our parents. They wanted us together, but I… I held out.”
Did he want a round of applause? “What a gentleman.”
“I don’t love her,” Grant said with zero hesitation. “I love you.”
I’d always wondered what it’d be like when I saw Grant again, if old feelings would return. The anger lingered—of course it did. I’d probably never be able to shake it. But honestly, I had worried how I’d respond to Grant’s schmoozing—because I knew it would come. If there was one thing similar between Aaron and Grant, it was that they both knew how to be charming.
You can be with someone for four years, rip their heart out, and still call it love? Aaron had asked me at the piano. If that’s what love is, I don’t want it.
“That isn’t love.” I’d meant it before, and I meant it now. “If you loved me, the idea of losing me would’ve driven you mad. You wouldn’t have been able to put it off because a semester was starting . You wouldn’t have cheated on me to begin with.”
“Things with her aren’t that serious, but you and me?—”
“When does her flight get in?”
That was another thing about Grant Holland. He might’ve thought out the future, but he never thought the present through. “I—she?—”
“I’ve moved on, Grant.” I turned my attention back out the window. “You took too long.”
Grant drove through the Bayview streets silently, no doubt trying to come up with his next line. But there wasn’t much to say, was there? I should’ve been more heartbroken, should’ve been raging at Grant, begging him for answers. Aaron seemed to draw out the fire within me so easily, but even now, sitting in a car with my cheating ex, that fire was dormant.
And perhaps that spoke more than I realized. That wasn’t love , I’d said. For him, nor for me. And it’d taken me this long to realize it.
The broader idea of it caught at me, though, and the conversation Aaron and I had about it. I don’t understand love , he’d said, a confused twist to his expression. I mean, sure, love could be complicated, but loving someone wasn’t that confusing. Aaron was a pianist. Didn’t he understand what it meant to follow the flow of the notes?
I told her that people like us aren’t made for love. I thought she was like me, but she wasn’t.
Like you?
Like me .
Someone who wasn’t meant for love. So that was what Aaron had meant? That he wasn’t made for love? Aaron doesn’t believe in love , Annalise had said, but that wasn’t it. Not quite. Not believing in love and thinking you weren’t made for it were two different things.
He didn’t think he deserved it .
A soft breath escaped me, and I wasn’t sure why the thought hit me square in the chest this time. That was why Aaron wasn’t concerned with marrying for love, why Annalise said he didn’t believe in it—he didn’t believe in it for him . Meant for love, as if it was some predetermined fate he couldn’t change. As if, when he’d been born, the universe had decided Aaron Astor didn’t deserve to fall in love.
I only wondered where he'd gotten that thought for a brief moment before the next domino in my realization fell. His family. Never finding love from his brothers, from his parents—had that led him to believe he didn’t deserve it?
I closed my eyes. How many times had Aaron convinced himself love wasn’t something meant for him, simply because it had never been given freely? How many times had he laughed off the idea of it, not because he didn’t want it, but because wanting it would only make the absence hurt more?
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. Love wasn’t something you had to be made for—it was something you found, something you chose. He wasn’t unworthy just because the people who should have loved him first never did.
But even if I did tell him, I wasn’t sure he’d believe me. Not after I had become essentially another person in his life to point out his flaws.
“Lovey.”
My eyes flew open, and I found the car parked along Bayview’s main street. Grant held himself stiffly in the driver’s seat, not quite looking at me. “I’m sorry… that I’m making you so uncomfortable.”
I sighed. I’d almost forgotten he was even there. “Where was Caroline’s reservation?”
Grant tipped his head to peer out the windshield. “Pierre’s.”
My stomach dropped. Pierre’s was a rooftop restaurant, and known for its almost severe exclusivity. Walk-ins were not a thing, which meant that I, a no-one from Addison, would be turned away on sight.
“What’s your plan?” Grant asked, as if seeing my downward spiral with me. “Follow them up there? You think they won’t see you, at the hostess station waiting for a table? Do you even think you’ll be allowed in looking like that?”
I glared at Grant. “ You wouldn’t get in either. Not with jeans.”
Grant tilted his head. “So, what are we doing?”
“We—” I gestured between us. “—are not doing anything. I used you as my ride. I’ll figure it out from here.”
Honestly, though, what had I been thinking? Had I planned to storm into wherever Caroline and Aaron had a reservation for, plop down beside them, and order the avocado toast? The decision to follow them had been so impulsive with no rational thought involved. I was going to get myself fired from Alderton-Du Ponte because I didn’t think through my knee-jerk decisions?
In that moment, I couldn’t shake the resentment—at Grant, for being dumb; at Aaron, for being heartbreaking; at myself, for consistently making situations worse.
“When did you even find out about Caroline’s reservation?” I asked him. “Didn’t you just get in last night?”
“I called her last night. After I ran into you at the elevator.”
Wait, so he called Caroline after seeing me—and Caroline didn’t call me? Something else occurred to me, far too belated. “Did you talk to Mr. Roberts about the elevator?”
Grant frowned in confusion. “Did I tell your boss I ran into you?”
“No, I mean—did you tell Mr. Roberts about the elevator being locked? That Paige locked it with Aaron and me inside?”
“No.”
I stared at him, scanning his expression.
“I didn’t. When would I even have had the chance to?”
I couldn’t tell if he was lying—I never thought he was a good liar, but he’d hidden his second relationship from me. I couldn’t trust my judgment with him. Did Mr. Roberts just make up the influential guest to take the blame off himself for firing Paige? I wouldn’t have put it past him. More likely, someone checked the security footage, caught the mistake, and forced his hand before the board found out.
Grant lifted his chin. “I heard Aaron Astor has a girlfriend.”
Heard it from Caroline . “He does.”
“But he called himself your fiancé last night.”
My jaw ached, and it took me a second to realize I was clenching it. I refused to have that conversation with him—he’d twist it into Aaron pretending so I could make him jealous. I just knew it. “Listen,” I began, drawing in a breath and forcing myself to meet Grant’s gaze. “I don’t want to argue with you. I don’t… want to be angry with you. Even though it’s late, I appreciate your apology. But I can’t go back to how things were. And I don’t want there to be any miscommunication about that.”
Grant’s eyes were so sad. The blue depths seemed brighter, as if the tears were bottled up in their color. “If I’d come earlier, would you have said the same thing?”
Probably not , I didn’t say. If Grant had come that weekend in September, like he’d claimed he’d tried to do, things might’ve been different. “We’ll never know.” I sat back in my seat. “I’m sorry you had to waste gas, but can you drive me back to Alderton-Du Ponte?”
Grant didn’t reach for the gearshift. He still faced me, drawing in a shaky breath. “I wasn’t just sitting around these past six months,” he said. “I was working.”
“Cool.”
“I put all my paychecks into my savings,” he went on in the same semi-urgent tone. “My parents gave me a good chunk of Christmas money, too. I put that away.”
I squinted at him from the corner of my eye. “Is this ‘ brag about our bank accounts hour ,’ or?—”
“I don’t have a lot, but we could go in on it together.”
Okay, maybe I should’ve just gotten a rideshare back to Addison if he was going to talk nonsense. “In on what ?”
“Your mother’s dream house.”
It was like everything went quiet. Even the investment banker on the radio seemed dumbstruck, going mute. I slowly turned my head toward Grant. His eyes were still fiercely blue, but now glowed from within. It was hope that’d sparked in his eyes, chasing away any sadness that’d been there a moment ago. He looked at me as if he’d just flashed his trump card, his ace in the hole, and thought, ah, yes, this will change her mind .
I stared at my ex-boyfriend, the one who’d been long-distance for the majority of our relationship, and saw his words for what they were: manipulation.
Two weeks ago, had he come home and presented the same offer, I might’ve accepted. Two weeks ago, I’d even considered calling him to be my co-signer. And even now, I hated myself for thinking about it. I hated myself for being tempted by it, even if it was only for a moment.
But everything fell into place with Aaron before Grant had his chance. It was strange to think about—that Aaron had swooped in at exactly the right time.
I turned back to the roadway, hiding my trembling hands in my lap, curling my fingers into fists. “Take me back to Addison,” I told him, no room for anything else.
This time, wordlessly, Grant obeyed. He reached for the gearshift, merged in with traffic, and got on the road that’d lead us out of town. And the entire way back, neither of us spoke.