Chapter 14 Abbie
ABBIE
His footsteps follow me down the stairs and out the back door into the lot behind the taqueria.
"Abbie. Stop."
"No."
"Please."
The please makes me turn around, keys in hand.
He stops a few feet away. Not crowding me.
Not blocking my path to the driver's side door.
Just standing there in his probably-expensive shirt with his hair falling across his forehead and his hands open at his sides like he's trying to prove he's not a threat.
I want to throw my keys at his head.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I ask.
"I gave you your year." His voice is steady but there's something raw under it. "I changed. Now I have to prove it."
"That's not... that's not what we talked about. We didn't talk about anything, actually, because you showed up at my client meeting without warning like some kind of corporate stalker."
"I know."
"You know? That's it? You know?" I can hear my voice getting louder, bouncing off the dumpster and the back wall of the taqueria, and I don't care.
"Gray, I have spent twelve months building something that has nothing to do with you.
Twelve months of people asking me if I'm really Grayson Valentine's wife, if I got my clients through VTG connections, if my work is actually mine or just an extension of your empire.
I have fought for every single piece of credibility I have, and you just walked into my meeting like you owned the room. "
"You're right."
"Stop saying that. Stop agreeing with me when I'm trying to be angry at you."
"Would you prefer I argue?"
"I would prefer you weren't here at all!
" It comes out as a shout. His jaw tightens.
Good. He should hurt. "I was doing fine.
I was doing better than fine. And then you show up with your stupid longer hair and your, your earnest face, and suddenly my client is more interested in Grayson Valentine's unexpected appearance than in the campaign I spent three weeks developing. "
"I'm sorry."
"For which part? For crashing my meeting? For making Camila think I'm some kind of charity case who can't make it without her billionaire husband swooping in? For the fact that she was asking questions about you when I was supposed to be pitching her campaign?"
"All of it." He takes a breath. "Every part. I thought... I don't know what I thought. That it would be like before. You and me arguing over something, and then you'd remember what we were like when we were good."
"We weren't good, Gray." The words are exhausting to say. "That's the thing you keep forgetting. You keep talking about 'before' like before was this perfect thing I should want to get back to, but before was me organizing my entire life around your schedule."
"I know."
"You keep saying you know. But knowing and understanding are different things." I lean against my car, suddenly too tired to stand up straight on these ridiculous heels. "My birthday, Gray. You forgot my birthday."
His face crumples. Actually crumples, like I've punched him somewhere vulnerable. "I forgot. I was in Lisbon, and I—"
"I called you. I asked about the photograph. You talked about the signing and your flight home, and you hung up without remembering."
"It mattered."
"Did it? Because from where I was standing, it seemed like everything mattered more.
Lisbon mattered more. Work mattered more.
You were always stuck somewhere. That's the point.
" I shake my head. "There was always a reason.
Always a perfectly valid explanation for why you couldn't be there, why I had to handle things alone, why our life together kept getting pushed to the bottom of your priority list. And I believed the reasons.
I made excuses for you to my family, to our friends, to myself.
I told myself it was temporary, that things would slow down, that eventually you'd have time for us. "
"I should have made time."
"Yes. You should have. But you didn't." I look at him, really look at him, and try to find the man I married somewhere in there.
"So when you say you've changed, when you talk about proving it, I need you to understand what you're trying to prove.
It's not that you can show up unannounced at my office.
It's that you can show up when it counts.
When it's hard. When there's no business advantage to being there. "
He doesn't answer right away. The lot hums around us, traffic on Washington, the kitchen exhaust fan kicking on, someone dropping a crate of bottles inside.
"You're right," he finally says. "About all of it.
The birthday, every time I chose work over you and told myself it was for us, for our future.
It was bullshit. It was me being scared of what would happen if I stopped running, if I sat still long enough to realize I'd built a life I didn't know how to live in. "
"That's very insightful. Did your therapist teach you that?"
"Yes." He almost smiles. "She's very good. Expensive as hell, but good."
"I'm glad my walking out was therapeutically beneficial for you."
"It was the worst year of my life." The almost-smile disappears.
"I'm not saying that to make you feel guilty.
I'm saying it because you should know. Every morning I woke up in that house alone, and I had to face the fact that I'd driven away the only person who made any of it matter.
The company, the money, all the things I told myself were so important. They didn't mean anything without you."
"So who are you now?"
"I'm still figuring that out. But I know I'm someone who can use a circular saw now.
Someone who learned that grout comes in different colors and that it matters which one you pick.
Someone who spent most of the year renovating a house in Topanga with my own hands because I needed to build something that wasn't about profit margins or expansion plans or quarterly reports. "
I stare at him. "You what?"
"I bought an old house. Up in the canyon.
It was falling apart, and I hired a contractor to teach me how to fix it instead of just paying someone to do the whole thing.
I nearly cut off three fingers in March, and I got a splinter so deep in my palm that I had to go to urgent care, and the first time I tried to install a toilet, I flooded the bathroom so badly that the floors warped and I had to redo them completely. "
"You installed a toilet."
"Badly, the first time. Better the second time.
Decent by the third." He's watching my face like he's trying to gauge whether this means anything to me.
"It's not perfect. The grout in the bathroom is uneven, and one of the cabinet doors doesn't close all the way, and the porch has this creak that I can't figure out how to fix no matter how many YouTube videos I watch. "
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I wanted to have something that wasn't the Trousdale house.
Wasn't the place where I ignored you, where you felt like a ghost in your own home.
I wanted something new. Something that only exists because I spent this year thinking about what I did wrong and trying to become someone who deserves another chance. "
"A house isn't proof," I say. "A house is a thing. A very expensive thing that you bought because you're rich and you could."
"I know. I'm not trying to—" He stops, visibly frustrated.
"I'm not saying the house makes up for anything.
I'm saying it represents something. A year of me learning how to use my hands instead of my checkbook.
A year of me failing at things and having to try again instead of paying someone else to fix my mistakes. "
"You still showed up at my client meeting like you had a right to be there."
"I know. That was wrong. I got impatient and I made a bad call and I'm sorry.
" He holds my gaze. "But Abbie, I don't know how else to show you.
I can tell you I've changed, but words don't mean anything after the number of promises I broke.
I can give you space, but I spent a year giving you space and it started to feel like I was just hiding.
Like I was telling myself I was being noble when really I was being a coward.
" He takes out his phone, then pauses. "I’ll withdraw from this pitch and apologize to Camila for hijacking your meeting. Your work doesn’t need my endorsement.
" He sends the withdrawal before putting the phone away.
"So your solution was corporate ambush?"
"My solution was showing up. Even when it's uncomfortable.
Even when I know you'll be mad." His voice cracks slightly.
"I confused doing something with doing the right thing.
I did it wrong. I'm going to do things wrong sometimes.
But I'd rather be here doing things wrong than be in Milan pretending everything is fine while you build a life without me. "
I don't have anything ready to say to that.
"The house," I say finally. "You really built it yourself?"
"Mostly. The contractor helped with electrical and plumbing because I didn't want to burn it down or flood the neighborhood.
But the floors, the walls, the kitchen cabinets, the porch, that was me.
My hands. My mistakes. My calluses that took three months to develop.
" He holds up his hands, palms toward me, and I can see them, the roughness, the small scars, the evidence of work that had nothing to do with signing contracts and shaking hands.
"I want to see it."
His face transforms. Hope, naked and terrifying and so raw that I almost can't look at him. "Yeah?"
"Alone."
The hope doesn't dim, exactly, but it steadies. Becomes something more careful. "Whatever you want. There's a key under the third pot on the left. I'll text you the address and nothing else."
"You promise?"
"You have my word. No ambushes, no flowers, no showing up at your meetings." He pauses, and a flicker of humor crosses his face. "Unless you ask."
"Don't hold your breath."
"I've been holding it for a year. I can hold it a while longer."
He steps back, far enough that I could get in my car and drive away without brushing past him. I open my car door. Hesitate.
"Gray."
"Yeah?"
"If I go to the house and it turns out you've filled it with roses or hired a string quartet or done anything even remotely resembling a grand gesture, I will set it on fire. Do you understand?"
"No roses. No string quartet. No gestures of any size." He almost smiles. "Just bad grout and a squeaky porch."
"Good."
I get in. Start the engine. Look in the rearview mirror as I pull out of the spot.
He's standing exactly where I left him. Hands at his sides now, not in his pockets. Hair a mess. Watching me go like he can wait forever.
I hate that he can.
I hate even more that I'm going to go see the goddamn house.