29. Grace
Grace
The knock made me jump, which was ridiculous, because I’d been staring at the adjoining door for the past ten minutes, willing it to open. I’d kicked off my shoes the second I got inside, then stood in the middle of the room like an idiot, waiting.
He’s going to come through that door, I’d told myself. Any second now.
But seconds had turned into minutes, and I’d started to wonder if I’d imagined the way he’d looked at me when Arthur said goodnight. The way his eyes had tracked me all through dinner, even when he was pretending to focus on his food.
But now he was knocking, and my heart was going absolutely wild in my chest, and I was crossing the room before I could talk myself out of it.
I swung the door open with way too much force.
Garrett stood motionless in his dark Henley and jeans, filling up the doorframe and looking at me with those dark eyes that always seemed to be working through something complicated. His hair was slightly mussed, like he’d been running his hands through it. His jaw was tight, like usual.
“Hi,” I said, like a genius.
“Hi.” He didn’t move.
“Did you want to come in?” I stepped back from the adjoining door, as though inviting him in was the most natural thing in the world. “Or are you here to check my locks?”
“I probably should.” Another one of those half-smiles crossed his face as he stepped through the doorway. “Check your locks, of course.”
My room was identical to his. Sitting area by the door with a couch and television, a king-sized bed, high ceilings, a bathroom out of a dream, and windows overlooking the city lights. “So.”
“So.”
This was it. This was the moment I’d been thinking about since he stopped kissing me on the train. Since before that, if I was being honest. Since I’d found him in Tristan’s kitchen shirtless at one in the morning, researching Fabergé eggs like some kind of brooding museum security guard.
I’d had a whole fantasy about how this would go. I’d be confident and enticing. I’d say something clever that would make him actually smile. I’d be like the heroines in my books, the ones who tested their grumpy protectors at every turn and made them crack.
Instead, my mouth opened and what came out was: “This is the part where I’m supposed to be witty and flirtatious, but I’m terrible at it.”
Smooth, Grace. Really smooth.
“You’re not terrible at it.”
“I am, though.” I felt the blush climbing my cheeks already.
Great. “I had this whole plan where I’d be sassy and sexy, and you wouldn’t be able to say no.
But just thinking about it, I know I’m blushing so hard, and I’m seriously thinking about locking myself in the bathroom and never coming out again. ”
“It would make my job of checking your room security easier.” His real smile was threatening to break free. That was a good sign, right?
I pointed to my left. “Front door’s over there. I’m pretty sure I did the lock right.”
But he took a step closer to me, not toward the door. Not touching me, but close enough I had to tilt my head back to look at him. Close enough I saw the flecks of gold in his brown eyes and a tiny scar near his hairline I’d never noticed before. “What did your plan involve, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Playful banter? Maybe some strategic accidental touching?” The blush was definitely spreading now. Down my neck, probably. “I didn’t get very far in the planning process. There may have been wine involved when I came up with it.”
“Strategic accidental touching?”
“Forget I said that. Forget I said any of this.” I covered my face with my hands. “I’m going to go lock myself in?—”
He took hold of my wrists and guided my hands from my face. “I like that you’re like this.”
“You like that I’m an awkward mess who can’t flirt?”
“I like that you’re honest.” He swept his thumbs over the backs of my wrists. “You’re not a mess.”
Kiss me, Garrett. Kiss me already.
“You’re…” He squeezed his eyes shut as he let go of my wrists and stepped back.
That didn’t feel like a prelude to kissing.
“Women like you—” He stopped, scrunched his face as though those were the wrong words, and restarted. “You light up every room you walk into. You make people feel like the world isn’t as dark as it actually is. Like somehow things might be okay.”
Oh, shit. This was the part where he’d let me down gently.
“Someone like that shouldn’t be with someone like me.”
It’s not you, it’s me. He was breaking up with me before anything could happen.
“I’ve got darkness in me that would snuff out your light.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, like he needed to physically restrain himself from touching me. “You deserve better.”
“You’re a soldier.” I stepped toward him, closing the distance he’d created. “Just because you were trained to do dark things to protect people doesn’t mean you aren’t deserving of happiness.”
“It’s not about the military. It’s about… You don’t understand what I’ve done.”
“Then explain it to me.” I lifted my chin. Held his gaze. “Tell me the worst thing, the thing you think will make me run. And then let me decide for myself whether I’m running.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me. A battle raged behind his eyes, one I couldn’t see but could feel, like how you feel a storm building before the clouds arrive. The same battle he fought before each time he confessed a painful truth.
“My father,” he said finally. “I told you he was abusive. That he drank.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell you how it ended.”
“So tell me.” I moved to the bed and sat on the edge, giving him space to say whatever he needed to say. My whole body was still humming with want, with anticipation, but the ache in his voice made me push it all aside. “I’ll listen.”
He didn’t sit. Instead, he paced to the window and stood with his back to me, staring out at the city lights. “It was my sixteenth birthday.”
I crossed my legs, holding myself in place.
“Mom had thrown him out. She’d finally gotten a restraining order.” He let out a slow breath. “But he came to the house, saying he deserved to celebrate my birthday with us.”
I crossed my arms next.
“I wanted to call the cops, but for some reason… she still loved him despite everything. I could smell the tequila from across the room, but she let him in.”
My heart jumped up into my throat, and my brain lurched forward. Ended. He’d said this was about how things had ended. Whose end?
“We all went to the kitchen where she was making a pot roast and had put down some potatoes. He had a bottle with him, pulled it out, and said it was for everyone.” He took one hand out of his pocket and pressed it flat against the glass.
“She stood up to him, which was probably the worst part. She told him not to drink in her house.”
Everything inside me wanted to cross the room and hug him. He obviously needed it. But does he want it, Grace?
“Her house,” he whispered. “I think that was the part that set him off. Because that was when he… he hit her with the bottle.”
I gasped and covered my mouth.
“It was so hard it threw her into the cabinets, and she fell.” His next breath was shaky. “But the bottle broke, and there was glass everywhere. The whole room stank of tequila, and that was when he got really angry.”
Really angry? I set my feet on the floor, barely on the bed anymore. Let him finish.
“He wasn’t angry because he’d hurt her, or because she was bleeding on the floor. But because she’d made him break his bottle. Because now he didn’t have anything left to drink.”
Oh god. Tears pricked at my eyes. Part of me didn’t want to know how the story ended, but he needed to get it out, and I needed to be there for him when he did. How could he think any of this made him a bad person?
“I called 9-1-1, but he had the neck and shoulders of the bottle in his hand, and he went after her with it.” His voice cracked. “I got between them. Told him to stop. Begged him.”
He’d been a kid.
“He took a swipe at me,” Garrett’s hand moved to his forearm, rubbing at it through his sleeve.
“He sliced my arm open, then my shoulder, and kept swinging. I don’t remember exactly how it all happened, but I tried to get the broken bottle away from him, tried to keep him away from her, and tried to give the police enough time, but he?—”
He stopped. His body froze, except for his shoulders, which betrayed how hard his lungs were working.
“He slipped and fell. Or maybe I pushed him. I’ve played it over in my mind a thousand times, but I can’t figure out the physics of it all.
One of the pieces of glass…” His voice grew quiet, so quiet I almost didn’t hear, and his hand flailed near his neck.
“He bled out on the kitchen floor while my mother screamed, and I just stood there. Watching.”
I got up from the bed and crossed to him, putting my hand on his back. I felt the tension in his muscles, how he was holding himself together through sheer force of will. “Garrett.”
“It was ruled self-defense. There was a history of police reports, hospital records, and the restraining order, of course. But everyone knew what happened. What I’d done.
” He shook his head. “We had to move. Couldn’t go anywhere without people staring and pointing.
‘That’s the kid who killed his father.’”
“You were protecting her,” I said. “You were a child protecting his mother.”
“I killed him.”
“You were defending her.” I circled to his front, keeping one hand on him and putting myself between him and the window. His eyes were dry, but the pain in them was worse than tears. And it absolutely broke my heart. “That’s not the same thing.”
“She died two years later.” He scoffed. “She was barely forty years old, and she died of a heart attack. They said it was some congenital thing, but I think her heart simply gave up. All those years of being afraid, of him hurting her, of living like that? It wore her down. If I’d stopped him earlier… ”
“You stopped it when you could.” I slid my arms around his torso and pressed my cheek against his chest, right above his heart. “When you were old enough, when you were strong enough. You were a child, Garrett. You can’t blame yourself for not saving her sooner when you were trying to survive.”
“I loved him,” he choked out. “Even after everything he did. I kept hoping he’d change. If I was capable of loving a monster like him, what does it say about me?”
“About you? It says your heart is generous. It says your love is a gift, Garrett.” I squeezed my arms around him, despite his not responding physically. “He could have killed you, but you stood up for your mother and saved her life. That’s not darkness, Garrett, that’s heroism.”
He made a sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a sob—and wrapped his arms around me. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make it all go away.”
I pulled back enough to see his face. So close he was a little blurry. “Make what go away?”
“The pain.” He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, then cupped my cheek. “You quiet the voices in my head.”
“Because they can’t get a word in edgewise?”
Garrett smiled. Oh my god, he smiled, and it was beautiful, and it was all mine. “Because you make good arguments. Because you’re so full of light and sunshine, I want to see the world the way you do. I want to pretend that light is real.”
I turned my face into his palm, pressed a kiss there, and my body reminded me of my plans for when he came into my hotel room. “Then kiss me, Garrett. Kiss me and don’t stop until you feel the sunshine.”
His brows furrowed. “I have no idea what that means, but I sure as hell want to find out.”