Chapter Twelve #3
“You didn’t have to buy me dinner,” Tessa said, thankful for the change of subject. “You hired me. I should’ve covered this one. It’s a business expense.”
“Or,” he said softly, “it’s a friendly meal where I got the chance to know you a little better.”
The server returned Grant’s card a moment later, and before Tessa could process his implication that their dinner wasn’t strictly professional, they were headed back outside.
“Tell me about your friends,” he suggested while they waited to cross the street. “You’ve mentioned them a few times. You seem close. Have you known them long?”
“I have,” she said, answering his last question first. “And we are. How about you?”
“I have four close friends,” he said. “Two I’ve known since elementary school and two more I met in college. They’re all married or live out of state now, but we still rent a beach house every May and meet up. It’s pretty cool having people in my life who knew me before I knew me, you know?”
“I do.” Tessa only hesitated a moment before sharing yet another important thing in her life.
“Kate, Hallie, and I have been in a book club together since college. It’s just the three of us now.
We read whatever we want, and we talk about our lives.
Earlier this month, I realized that none of us are truly happy in the ways we expected to be by now. And why shouldn’t we be? We’re great.”
Grant listened closely, hands clasped behind his back as they walked.
Tessa wet her lips. “Somewhere along the line, we became complacent, but the heroines in our books are fearless and confident. They improve the lives of those around them, and they go after what they want. So my friends and I made this sort of spectacularly bookish pact.” Her heart rate rose as she spoke, suddenly unsure if she’d started a conversation she shouldn’t finish.
The women at her office understood and supported her, but would Grant understand?
Would he think she was being overly dramatic or silly?
He waited, giving her the time and space to decide.
Something in her said that he wasn’t the sort of man to be anything other than supportive. He’d shown her as much every step of the way so far, hadn’t he? And what she and her friends were doing wasn’t silly. It was brave. If he couldn’t see that, he wasn’t a good friend for her.
She cleared her throat. “We promised one another that we’d only make decisions that the heroines of our stories would make, if our lives were books.”
Grant stilled, expression unreadable for a long moment. “The stand against the patriarchy?”
She nodded. “Among other things.”
“And you’re all doing this right now?” he asked. “We’re within the thirty days?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
Tessa’s nerves flared, and she felt miserably exposed. “We’re taking this seriously,” she said, defending the pact. “It’s important to us.”
“It’s marvelous,” Grant said finally. “I was wondering what the hero in my life’s story would do. It’s an incredible question, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it begs the question, Are we living our best lives? Or have we fallen into the rhythm of basic existence.”
Tessa’s hand leaped to his bicep. “Yes, exactly that!”
He nodded. “It’s so easy to get into a pattern that leads you through the days without really experiencing anything worth getting up for in the morning. Right? Shower. Eat. Work. Eat. Gym. Eat. Bed.”
Warmth spread from her core to her extremities, and she longed to hug him for understanding. “We were all there. In that rut of predictability, dissatisfied but unwilling to face the discomfort of change.”
“And now?” he asked, dropping his gaze to her lips, then to the place where her hand rested on his arm.
Tessa released him, hating the telltale rush of heat to her cheeks. Then she told him all about the colossal mess she and her friends were making in their pursuit of happiness.
“Extraordinary,” he said. “It makes me want to start another book club. Everyone should do this.”
Tessa sighed. Sadly, the act of changing one’s life was not for the faint of heart.
“I thought it would be easier,” she admitted. “Maybe that it would go more smoothly. I don’t know, but something other than how it’s actually going—which is rough.”
“Makes sense. Change is hard,” he said. “For you, but also for the people around you.”
They moved forward again, more slowly now.
“In my experience,” he began, “most people won’t even notice the changes you make, because your life is irrelevant to them.
Some will notice long enough to comment—nice haircut, or whatever—then never mention it again.
The ones who scream loudest are usually those who don’t understand why you’re doing things differently, and it impacts them.
Sometimes it’s because they love you and want to be sure the change is making you happy.
Other times it’s because the change you make inconveniences them, and they want you to change back.
” He seemed to weigh what he would say next.
“My oldest sister went back to college at twenty-six. She married her high school sweetheart after getting pregnant and dropping out of UVA at twenty-one.”