11. Sophie
Sophie
I'm doing it again.
I've been sitting in my car in Patty's driveway for six minutes staring at the coffee carrier in my passenger seat.
Three cups. One decaf with almond milk for Patty.
One black with sugar for Grant. One with cream for me.
I got them at the drive-through on autopilot because apparently my hands have decided what we're doing even when my brain is still running the pros-and-cons spreadsheet.
Grant's truck is in the driveway.
Which means I have to go inside.
Which means I have to face him.
My bestie Bonnie called it on Saturday: "You're already mourning this relationship. He hasn't even left yet and you're acting like he's gone."
"I'm protecting myself."
"No. You're sabotaging it. You're making it easier for him to leave by pushing him away first. Classic Sophie bullshit."
I'd wanted to argue. The fact that I couldn't is its own answer.
Grant showed up. He has consistently, reliably shown up. He learned Patty's medication schedule in no time. He fixed the porch railing without being asked. He makes her toast at the exact ratio she likes because he read my sticky notes carefully and followed them to the letter, which is—
Stop. You’re spiraling.
I grab the coffee carrier and get out of the car.
Patty answers the door looking like someone who has been waiting.
"Sophie! I was starting to think you forgot about me."
"Never." I hand her the decaf with almond milk. "How are you feeling?"
"Better than I have any right to be." She steps back. "Grant's in the kitchen. He's decided I need more protein. He's being very bossy about it." A pause. "You'll need to handle that."
I can hear him from here. Pan on the stove, fridge opening, the particular rhythm of someone moving through a kitchen when they’re on a mission.
"I can come back later."
"Don't be ridiculous." She takes my arm. "Grant! Sophie's here with coffee."
He turns from the stove.
We look at each other across Patty's kitchen.
He looks tired. His hair is messier than usual. He's wearing work clothes and those work boots and he's so solid, so simply, visibly here, and I've spent four days missing him with a specific physical ache that I would find embarrassing if I had the energy.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey."
"I'm going to sit down. My show's on." She pats my shoulder on the way past. "Stop being scared of good things, honey,” she adds in a whisper.
She's gone before I can respond.
Grant sets down the spatula. "Coffee run?"
"Habit." I hold out his cup. "Black with sugar."
"You remembered."
"Of course I remembered." He takes the cup. Our fingers touch for a moment. The contact still does the same thing it's been doing since the hospital elevator, which is extremely inconvenient but apparently a permanent feature.
"How was work?" he asks.
"Three stomach bugs and a broken arm. How was—" I gesture vaguely. "Everything."
"Mom had a good weekend. Good appetite."
"That's great."
We're so polite we're practically strangers.
I lean against the counter. "Grant—"
"Sophie—"
We both speak at the same time. Then, we both stop and laugh. The tension breaks just slightly.
"You first," he says.
"I'm sorry. For disappearing. For making this harder by pulling away when you're trying to make a huge decision and you need… I'm sorry. That's the main thing."
"You don't have to apologize for having feelings."
"I'm not apologizing for having feelings. I'm apologizing for the specific way I expressed them, which was to go silent for four days."
He sets down his coffee. Steps closer. "I went to the cemetery yesterday to see Dad."
I hold my breath. We haven’t really spoken about his late father.
"Sat there for a long time." He holds my gaze. "Said the things I should've said three years ago. And I figured something out."
"What?"
"That I've been researching jobs and running salary numbers and trying to make this decision logically—" He pauses.
"And none of that is the actual decision.
The actual decision is whether I'm the kind of man who stays.
" He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand warm at my jaw.
"I want to be that man. For myself. And if that includes you, then that's what I want. "
My throat is tight. "I want to believe you."
"I know."
"I'm working on it."
"That's enough." He almost smiles. "That's more than enough."
Something smells wrong.
"The eggs!”
"Shit!" He spins to the stove. The eggs are decisively burnt. He scrapes them onto a plate anyway, examines them to assess structural damage. "I'm impressed you noticed before the smoke alarm did."
I watch him plate the burnt eggs with fruit and orange juice, and I notice the moment I've been avoiding: I love him. The matter-of-fact realization that this thing I've been managing and containing and hedging is simply true.
I love Grant Guilligan. He is leaving in seven weeks. These facts currently coexist.
"Can I ask you something?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"Why did you really leave after the wedding? You said it was because of me. But why leave instead of staying and," I search for the word. "Dealing with it?"
He's quiet for a long time. Then: "I was a coward."
"Grant."
"I was. I felt something during that dance I had no business feeling.
You were twenty-three, just married, starting your life.
I was thirty-eight and burned out and I had no right to want you.
" His jaw is tight. "So I left. I told myself it was the honorable thing.
Really, I was protecting myself from something that scared me. "
"Falling for someone?"
"Falling for someone and having to decide what to do about it." He crosses his arms, meets my eyes. "I wasn't ready for that. Staying would've meant choosing. And I didn't know how to choose to stay."
"And now?"
"Now I'm terrified," he says. "But I'm here. I think that counts for something."
It counts for everything.
I put down my coffee. Cross the kitchen. Stand in front of him. "I'm scared too. I'm scared you'll stay for the wrong reasons and wake up in six months and resent me. I'm scared I'm not worth—" I stop.
"Not worth what?"
I don't finish the sentence. But he hears it anyway. I can see it in his face — the careful attention he gives everything.
"You are worth it," he says quietly. "You've always been worth it."
Patty calls from the living room. "Are you two done having your feelings? I'm hungry and the eggs are getting cold!"
We look at each other.
"Coming, Ma!" Grant calls back.
***
I stay two hours. We go over Patty's medication schedule, meal prep the week's food together — bland, easy food that won't trigger her nausea. Chicken soup. Scrambled eggs. Grant is a surprisingly competent cook when not emotionally distracted, which I choose not to comment on.
When I'm washing up the prep dishes, Bonnie texts.
Bonnie: How's it going?
Me: Better. We talked.
Bonnie: And?
Me: He's staying. Probably. He needs to make one more phone call first.
Bonnie: Are you okay with that?
I look through the doorway into the living room. Grant is showing Patty something on his phone — a photo, looks like. She's laughing. He's smiling a real smile, unguarded, the kind I've been cataloguing because they're rare and they hit differently every time.
Me: Yeah. I'm okay.
Bonnie: Good. Now stop being an idiot and let yourself be happy.
Me: Working on it.
Bonnie: Oh, has anyone told Chris yet?
I stop mid-scrub, water still running over a plate I've already rinsed twice.
Me: No. Not yet.
Bonnie: Sophie.
Me: I know.
Bonnie: I'm not trying to ruin your good mood. I just think that's a conversation that gets worse the longer nobody has it.
She's not wrong, which is currently my least favorite thing about Bonnie.
I haven't let myself think about Chris finding out, from anyone, in any way that isn't Grant and me choosing the moment ourselves, because every version of it I've tried to picture ends somewhere I don't want to look directly at yet.
Small towns don't keep secrets on anyone's schedule but their own.
I turn off the water and don't look at the succulent-adjacent part of my brain that's already started rehearsing how that conversation might go, because none of the versions I come up with are good ones, and I have exactly zero interest in borrowing trouble on a day that's otherwise been kind to me.
Me: I'll figure it out.