Chapter 42 Gracie
I’m no stranger to romance novels. Yes, I may love a zombie horror flick as much as the next girl, but when I’m really in the dumps, I gravitate toward stories with a guaranteed Happily Ever After.
This week, I let myself get lost in the latest Margot Bradley rom-com, consuming every page like the hope and laughter they provided would inject helium directly into my heavy heart.
I understand that Happily Ever After rarely works out in real life, and it certainly hasn’t for me—yet.
But over the last few dark days, I’ve realized HEAs don’t belong exclusively to romantic love.
They can be found in the burgeoning trust between an estranged mother and daughter. Sometimes, they can only be achieved by ending a relationship. But they can also be found in the friendships that carry you through it all, even if you have to face the occasional I Told You So.
I take a deep breath as I hoist Randy under my arm and grip the bag of doughnuts with my other hand in front of KILN.
There might not be room for me, but Sofia did say she’d be willing to cram me in a broom cupboard if I ever wanted to give Grace more pretty and powerful than ever it was before.”
“I’ll settle for profitable,” I say with a laugh, wiping stray doughnut crumbs from my hair before sobering. “Thank you for always believing in me, Sof.”
“Well, duh. And as it happens, I have a little surprise for you, too.”
“Oh?”
She takes another huge bite of her doughnut and grabs the bag as she stands. “Follow me.”
When we reach the door of the studio where the potluck was held, I give her a quizzical look. But she just opens the door with a smile, and at first, I can’t fully process what I’m seeing. Instead of printmaking tools, the space is filled with beautifully familiar furniture and sewing equipment.
Everything has been arranged so thoughtfully, with ample workspace in the back and a small showroom and fitting area near the front windows.
It feels like home, but somehow so much better.
Wonder and disbelief expand in my chest, filling me to the point of bursting when I hear the other door to the space open.
“A little more to your left—ow! No, your other left, Judy! Are you sure you passed the bar?”
And just like that, my heart is a racehorse, flinging itself forward again and again against my chest. I watch Jude walk backward through the door, holding one end of my serger.
He and Henry are both breathing heavily as they carry the heavy piece of equipment, but I’m pretty sure my lungs are working harder.
Quickly, I turn to Sofia, who’s grinning at me like my approaching cardiac arrest is her greatest triumph.
The guys finally get the table in place, and Jude turns to survey the studio, pushing back the hair that’s fallen across his brow. When he sees me, he goes completely still.
Every cell in my body begins pushing forward, urging me toward him, but I resist, frozen in place.
I want to cringe away from the pain of seeing him again.
From his wide, amber eyes to his beautiful, nervous hands, every one of his features feels like a relentless thumb pressing into my bruised and tender heart. But I can’t look away. I never could.
“Gracie,” he says, taking me in with eyes just as starved as mine. After a moment, he slowly approaches. Yearning arches through me as he gets closer, unthinking and wild before logic catches up.
I spent years with a man who never gave me all of himself.
Jude’s brand of withholding might be different from Calvin’s, but I refuse to be with someone who makes me beg for scraps of trust and honesty.
Even if it means fighting upstream against all the love still flooding through me, I’m not taking any more steps backward.
“Welll, I think Henry and I are going to eat some doughnuts,” Sofia announces. “Just text if you need me, Gracie,” she says, giving me a significant look that says she will show up with armor and a sword if necessary.
I give her a shaky nod. “Okay.”
Sofia gives me an encouraging smile before looking up at Henry, who I’m delighted to find is staring at her in a dazed, hit-in-the-head-with-a-mallet sort of way. When she gives him a shy smile and immediately averts her eyes, I’m almost distracted from my impending conversation with Jude. Almost.
But then they leave, and all that’s left is him and the ache of holding back a river’s worth of love and longing. “What are you doing here?” I manage, wishing the giant windows didn’t turn his eyes into pools of sunlit honey, deep enough to drown in.
He takes a quick look around the studio, pushing his hair back. When his gaze lands on mine again, he says, “I thought it was obvious. I’m grand-gesturing you.”
My brows pinch together. “But this was Sofia’s plan,” I say uncertainly. “This is her grand gesture to out–grand gesture me.”
He shakes his head. “While she did provide some strategic assistance, I retain full proprietary rights to this grand gesture.”
“But… how?” I say, feeling dazed. “This was a printmaker’s studio.”
At this, he looks a little embarrassed. “After Sofia mentioned how badly she wanted you to rent a studio space from her, I couldn’t let go of the idea.
I was still undecided about keeping Larkwood at that point, but I thought you might want a space for personal projects.
Even if you just wanted to sew a giant quilt with the words JUDE SUCKS. ”
I can’t quite stop my smile until I think of the softspoken printmaker I’d met at the potluck. “But the artist who was here before—you didn’t threaten him with legal jargon to get the space did you?”
This pulls a smile from him. “No, I just got lucky. When I reached out to Sofia, she told me a studio was opening up, and this was it.”
I close my eyes as the full impact of what he’s done settles into me. “But Sofia never said a word.”
“Uh, yeah,” he says with a chagrined look. “That was harder to manage. But in the end, I convinced her that you’d know soon enough anyway and that it was, ah, more romantic as a surprise.”
At one point in our relationship, I definitely would have asked if even saying the word romantic meant breaking the blood pact he’d surely made when becoming a divorce lawyer. But now, his efforts to make me feel cared for come as no surprise. In some respects, it is romantic. On the other hand…
“But, Jude,” I say, slowly. “This wasn’t your decision to make. This is my life. What if I hadn’t wanted a studio?”