Chapter 15 #2
We pass more shops—art galleries, a boutique with dresses in the window I can't afford—and Grant keeps the conversation going, filling all the silence I'm leaving, and god, I'm grateful he's making this easy, but that's the whole fucking problem.
The sun's dipping lower when Grant drives me back. His truck pulls up in front of Ward & Weller and the shop looks dark, and my first thought is Holt left and my second thought is why do you care, he's not waiting for you, why would he wait, it's not like he's said anything or done anything.
"I had a really good time today," Grant says, and he sounds genuine, like maybe he didn't clock how checked out I was.
"Me too." The lie sits bitter on my tongue, not because it was bad but because it was fine, and fine is somehow worse. "Thanks. For coffee and everything."
"Can I see you again?"
I hesitate. Just a second, maybe two, but it stretches between us like miles. He reads it immediately because of course he does. "Sorry, was that too—"
"No, I just—"
He shifts in his seat, turns to face me, and I watch him make a decision, see it happen in real time.
He leans in. Slow. Giving me every opportunity to stop him, to pull back, to say no thank you, and I want to want this, he's cute and interested and patient, everything a guy should be, this is what first dates lead to, this is normal.
His face gets closer and I can see his eyes are light brown with little gold flecks and—wrong. Everything about this is wrong.
It hits my body first, before my brain catches up. Nausea rolling through me and my skin crawls like something's touching me that shouldn't be, every nerve ending screaming abort abort abort, and I'm pulling back before I understand why, just knowing that I can't, I can't do this.
Grant stops immediately. Doesn't look offended, doesn't push. "Sorry. Too fast?"
"No, it's—" I can't catch my breath and my skin feels too tight. "I'm not ready."
"The complicated thing."
"Yeah."
He sits back and drums his fingers on the steering wheel once, twice, studies me. "The offer stands. If you change your mind. But I'm not gonna push."
"Thank you." He's being so nice and I feel like garbage, complete garbage. "I'm sorry, you're really great, Grant, this isn't about—"
"I know." His smile's soft, understanding.
I don't answer because what's the point?
"For what it's worth? I hope he figures his shit out. You seem like someone worth figuring it out for."
I get out of the truck before I cry, before I apologize again for being a disaster, for wasting his afternoon, for not being able to feel the right things for the right person. "Thanks, Grant."
"Anytime."
His truck pulls away—clean and quiet and everything mine isn't—and I stand in the parking lot watching it disappear, and the hollow feeling in my chest spreads like water through cracks, filling all the empty spaces I didn't know were there.
Holt's truck is parked around back. I see it and this rush hits me—adrenaline flooding my system, pulse spiking in my throat and my hands and every single place blood moves through my body. All the reactions that didn't happen with Grant, all the ones that should've happened.
I need to go upstairs. Need to avoid this. Need to figure out what's wrong with me that I can't appreciate someone nice and normal and easy. My feet walk toward the garage.
The bay door's open. Floor fan rattling.
Music playing low—just bass and rhythm, no words.
He's at the workbench with his back to me, one hand braced against the surface like he's holding himself upright, and I ought to turn around, ought to leave him alone, ought to not do this to myself right now. "Didn't know you were still here."
He turns and everything sharpens, comes into focus, and every fucking time he looks at me it's like this—the rest of the world goes fuzzy at the edges, my lungs forget their job, the temperature spikes even though nothing's different except his attention on me.
"How was it?"
That's all he gives me. But it's so loaded I could unpack it for hours.
"It was fine."
His jaw tightens and I watch it happen, watch the muscle jump. "Just fine?"
"Yeah." I cross my arms, uncross them, shove my hands in my pockets because I don't know what to do with them, don't know what to do with any of this. "Just fine."
The silence stretches and he's studying my face, like if he looks hard enough he'll decode what I'm not saying, what I can't say, what I don't even understand myself.
"You going to see him again?"
My chest hurts, physically hurts. "I don't know. Maybe not."
Something flickers across his face—there and gone before I can name it, before I can grab onto it and demand he explain what it means—but he doesn't say anything.
Just nods once.
Goes back to the wrench in his hand like this conversation's over, like my answer doesn't matter, like he didn't just ask me something that feels like it should matter.
"I'm going upstairs."
I turn.
"Scout."
I stop. Don't turn around because I can't, because if I look at him right now I'll—I don't know what I'll do. My ribs feel too tight around my lungs and every nerve ending goes still, waiting.
Please. Please say something.
Tell me you want me to stay.
Tell me you noticed I was gone.
Tell me you spent today thinking about me the way I spent the entire date thinking about you.
Tell me this matters.
Tell me I'm not making this up in my head. Please just say something.
The silence stretches and I'm counting heartbeats.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Counting how long it takes for him to figure out what he wants to say, to be brave enough to say it, to just—seven, eight, nine, ten.
My lungs are burning and when did I stop breathing? Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Please.
"I’m glad you had a good time."
The break is clean. Precise. Like a bone snapping. I feel it happen, feel the exact moment hope turns to something sharp and jagged that catches in my throat.
I keep walking. Don't look back, don't let him see. Climb the stairs, close the door, lean against it and press my palms flat because my hands are shaking and I can't make them stop.
I sit on the edge of my bed and this weight settles in my chest, terrifying and certain: I want the hard thing, the complicated thing, the thing that makes sense of nothing except how alive it makes me feel.
But wanting it doesn't mean I get it. Doesn't mean he'll ever be brave enough to reach for me.
And waiting—waiting while he's ten feet away saying nothing—this is torture, this is its own special hell, this is me sitting here alone knowing exactly what I want and having absolutely no idea how to get it because it requires him to want it too.
And how am I supposed to know if he does when he won't say anything, when he just looks at me like that and then turns away, when he calls my name and then says nothing like—like what?
Like he's scared? Like he wants to but can't? Like I'm making this entire thing up in my head and he actually feels nothing?
I don't know. I don't know anything except that Grant was nice and easy and I pulled away, and Holt is difficult and silent and I'd crawl across broken glass just to hear him finish one goddamn sentence. So yeah. I'm completely fucked.