Chapter Twelve #2
She knew she shouldn’t share her work problems with a client.
It would be unprofessional. But she also realized, to her surprise, that she wanted to talk to him about her work issues.
They were becoming friends, and he had an excellent track record on business matters.
Grant might be a great person to weigh in on her concerns.
“I have this friend,” she said.
“Excellent.” He crossed his arms and leaned them on the table. “Go on.”
She described the situation at her office as generically as possible and in the context of a law office, which she reasoned would have similar circumstances with attorneys and workloads.
Grant listened patiently, his handsome face giving little of his thoughts away.
When she finished, she reached for her glass of wine. “That’s the gist of it,” she said. “Not the end of the world, but incredibly frustrating for my friend nonetheless.”
Grant followed her lead, taking a sip of the merlot before speaking. Emotion flickered over his features when he met her eyes. “I can understand your friend’s frustration,” he said. “It sounds as if she’s dealing with some last-century nonsense. Has she spoken with HR?”
Tessa warmed, bolstered by his agreement. “No, because everything is subjective, and ultimately the owner of the company is in charge. He could say anything to support his decisions. Maybe, in his eyes, the younger, newer employee is truly better suited to this client.”
Grant released a long soft breath.
“What?”
“I think that’s likely untrue, but it’s also possible that you’re right.
” He lifted his palms briefly in acquiescence.
“The bias is blatant, but the issue is subjective. Maybe that’s why no one’s held the owner accountable.
So he gets away with it, because if nothing is reported, there’s no chance for change. ”
Tessa’s shoulders sank. He meant well, but there was a wide divide between them that he hadn’t considered.
“You make it sound simple to speak up against him. A man. A boss. But women don’t report a lot of things because we so often aren’t heard.
Or worse, we’re mocked and called hysterical, emotional, unstable—”
His eyes widened at her gentle reproach. “I didn’t— I mean, I never meant to—”
She forced a small smile to ease his discomfort. “I’m sure she assumes that if she reports him, nothing will change, but everyone will know she went to HR, including her boss. That would make her workplace even more uncomfortable, and her boss might treat her even more unfairly.”
Grant sat back in his seat, tapping his thumbs against the table’s edge.
Tessa braced for whatever he’d say next, imagining the inevitable argument to come. The defensive stance she’d be forced to take, the one he’d force her into. Exhaustion seeped through her, and she released the stem of the glass she’d fiddled nervously with while she spoke.
Grant stretched an arm across the table slowly and touched the tip of her pointer finger with his. “I am so very sorry.”
Tears stung Tessa’s eyes unbidden. The swell of emotion surged. She blinked back a lifetime of frustration and forced two words free. “Thank you.”
The appetizers arrived, and they dug into them in silence, giving her time to collect herself.
And long before their meals arrived, the easy rhythm between them had returned.
They spoke at length about their love of Harbor Heights, their jobs, and animals.
Somehow the previous tension hadn’t built a wall, but rather a battering ram, and Grant moved solidly from a client with friend potential to friend who happened to be a client.
“Do you have any siblings?” he asked, helping himself to another slice of warm bread, then sopping up sauce from his plate.
“A brother,” she said. “How about you?”
“Three sisters.” Grant made a silly face. “All older.”
“Oh no!” She laughed at his goofy expression. “What was that like?”
“Loud,” he said. “Energetic?” He frowned. “Probably great for me, honestly, but I hated it a lot of the time. Like while waiting in line for hours to use the bathroom.”
She laughed. “You all shared a bathroom?”
“We shared everything, including a car when the two oldest were home from college and we all had our licenses.”
“No.”
He nodded. “I also learned the importance of sunscreen, which I appreciate today, and the merits of personal hygiene back when all my buddies were content to smell like a locker room. I learned to be humble when one of my sisters’ high school boyfriends did them wrong and the most I could do as a middle school kid was slander them online. ”
Tessa’s bottom lip eased forward as she imagined a young Grant desperately wanting to defend his big sisters.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “Reddit is a powerful tool.”
Tessa cracked up.
“How about your brother?” he asked. “What’s he like? Older or younger?”
Tessa worked to hold her smile. “Younger.”
“Oh.” Grant leaned forward, clearly reading something in her face or voice. “We don’t have to talk about—”
“No.” She shook her head. He’d told her about his siblings. She could tell him about hers. “It’s fine. It’s just—”
“Complicated?”
“Exactly.”
Tessa had a decision to make. She could keep letting Grant in, or she could pull back now, before it was too late.
She still had time to revert to a strictly professional relationship, instead of indulging her heart any further.
Before getting willfully lost in this pseudodate and fledgling friendship.
“My mom had some problems with alcohol,” she said.
The words formed and left her mouth before they fully registered as thoughts.
“She left Dad and me when I was a baby. He did his best to keep her in my life, carefully, during the times she was sober, and he kept her at bay when she wasn’t. She usually wasn’t.”
Tessa pulled in a long steadying breath and went on before she changed her mind.
“I grew up thinking about my mom the way most kids think about their fun aunt. I didn’t have a mom, but I had a dad who played both roles like a champion.
Anything he didn’t know, he learned.” Her dad became a black belt at French braiding and an expert in all things My Little Pony and Roblox related.
During her middle school years, he took on a variety of roles, including her feminine hygiene products researcher, makeup tutorial video watcher, and team dad for her soccer team.
He knew the lyrics to all her favorite songs in high school and the names of all her favorite bands, artists, and influencers.
Because if it mattered to Tessa, it mattered to him.
“What about your brother?” Grant asked.
Tessa bit the tender flesh of her bottom lip and winced. “I met him when I was twelve. He was eight. My dad married his mom a year later.”
Grant’s head tilted slightly with interest, but he didn’t speak, didn’t rush her or fill the silence as she considered her next words.
“Alice, his mom, was the most incredible mother,” Tessa said.
“She was everything to me, to Devin, and to Dad. Then she found a lump in the shower around their second wedding anniversary. Late-stage breast cancer. She was gone within a year. Devin was twelve. I was sixteen. Dad lost the love of his life. Devin lost his mama. I lost a woman I’d barely known, but who’d meant more to me than people who’d been around my whole life. ”
The rush of emotion caught her off guard, and a self-conscious laugh bubbled through the pain. “It’s been nearly two decades. You’d think I’d be able to talk about it without crying.”
“I wouldn’t,” he said. “I’d never get over having a wonderful role model who made my family whole, then losing her.”
A renegade tear spilled from the corner of her eye, and she wiped it quickly away. “Thank you.”
“Are you and your brother still close?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not at all.”
Grant tented his brows but didn’t push for more.
Tessa took another bite and chewed slowly, then finished a story she very rarely told.
“I had a dad my whole life and a mom for my first two years of high school. Then Alice died, and she took a huge piece of each of us with her. Devin spiraled, Dad focused on him, and I held down the fort while trying not to be a burden. I blamed Devin for taking Dad from me then, and I stayed angry with him for continuing his destructive patterns years later. Mostly I hated when he used his mom’s death as an excuse to be a disaster of a human and for living a reckless life that would’ve worried and horrified her. ”
Tessa flinched as shame spiraled through her, with guilt and humiliation riding sidecar. She’d never spoken so candidly or so transparently about her family to anyone she’d known so briefly.
If Grant thought she was petty and ridiculous, she’d lose a new friend and a client. Two hits she wasn’t prepared to take.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know where that all came from.”
But that wasn’t true. She dreaded the family dinner with Devin as if it was a mile trek across hot coals, and it was coming up fast.
“Hey,” he coaxed, drawing her gaze to meet his. “There’s nothing wrong with how you feel about any of this. Missing your dad’s attention when you needed it most is understandable. It’s reasonable, human, and valid. Wanting your brother to get his shit together is a pretty fair expectation too.”
Tessa examined him, searching for any sign that he didn’t mean the things he’d said.
She started getting a little lost again in those blue eyes as she searched.
“I don’t feel the same now,” she said, wanting him to know she wasn’t as horrible as she sounded.
“I’ve spent years in counseling to process my pain.
I have plenty of tender spots when it comes to my family, but I’m okay now. ”
The server arrived with the bill, interrupting her confessional. Grant placed his credit card immediately on top. “I’ve got it.”
The server turned on her toes and smiled. “I’ll be right back.”