26. #3
"I don't want to spend the next three years proving I'm not Rodney."
"Then don't."
My brows pulled together.
Grant continued before I could question him.
"You're not there to rehabilitate Rodney's reputation. You're not there to convince everybody that you're secretly a good person. You're there to become a lawyer."
"You can't control what they walked into that room believing about you," he said. "Some of them might change their minds. Some won't. That's their business."
His thumb moved once against my side.
"But if you leave because of what they think, you make it yours."
I stared at him.
The irritating thing was that I knew he was right.
Not completely.
I still reserved the right to hate Professor Platek's class for at least another twenty-four hours.
But underneath the embarrassment and anger, I knew exactly why quitting had been my first thought.
Leaving was easier than staying somewhere I wasn't sure I was wanted.
And I'd spent enough years adjusting myself around other people's discomfort.
Grant watched me quietly before speaking again.
"Think about what you had to do just to get yourself here."
My throat tightened slightly.
"Don't hand Rodney this too."
I looked at him sharply. "Rodney isn't the reason I want to quit."
"I didn't say he was."
"You kind of did."
"No." Grant shook his head. "I'm saying he's already taken enough choices away from you that you started expecting other people to decide whether you belong somewhere."
His expression softened.
"If you decide six months from now that you hate law and you'd rather do something completely different, I'll support you. If you decide tomorrow that you genuinely don't want this anymore, I'll listen to you."
His fingers moved lightly along my waist.
"But don't quit tonight because one bad class made you feel like you needed permission to be there."
I looked down at the small space between us.
I hadn't hated law school.
I'd hated feeling judged.
There was a difference.
"I hate when you make sense."
"I know."
"I was hoping you'd tell me Professor Platek was a bitch and I should drop her class."
His laugh vibrated softly through his chest as I leaned forward and rested my forehead against him.
"I don't think I'm very confident," I admitted after a moment.
Grant's arms came around me. "I think you're learning."
I closed my eyes.
His hand traveled slowly up my back before settling between my shoulders.
"I spent so much time thinking getting away from Rodney would fix that," I said. "Like once I started doing things for myself, I'd automatically know how."
"That's not how it works."
"I'm realizing."
"You've been making yourself smaller for years." His voice was quieter now. "You're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly know how much space you're allowed to take."
My fingers curled slightly against his shirt. I groaned and buried my face against his chest again.
Grant laughed softly before catching beneath my chin and lifting my face toward his. The kiss he gave me this time was quick, barely more than a press of his mouth against mine.
"This part of your life is going to be uncomfortable sometimes," he said when he pulled away. "You're doing things you've never let yourself do before. Give yourself enough time to get good at being uncomfortable."
I considered that.
"I can try."
"That's all I'm asking."
"Thank you."
"Always."
I stayed against him for another few seconds before finally stepping back.
Grant glanced toward the computer behind him, and whatever he saw on the screen seemed to immediately lose whatever importance it had held before I arrived.
He reached around and shut it down.
I looked at him. "You're calling it a day already?"
"Yeah." He grabbed his keys from the desk.
I followed him into the hallway while he switched off the lights behind us. We moved through the quiet office together, Grant checking one of the doors before locking the back entrance once we stepped outside.
The afternoon air had cooled slightly, and our cars sat several spaces apart in the nearly empty lot.
"I'll meet you at the house?" I asked.
Grant nodded. "I'll see you there."
I started walking towards my car. For all the ways I'd imagined my first day ending, this wasn't one of them.
It hadn't been the day I'd wanted.
But maybe Grant was right.
One bad day didn't get to make the decision for me.
By the time we finished dinner, the first day of law school didn't feel quite as catastrophic.
Grant hadn't brought the conversation up during dinner. He'd let me talk about other things instead, listening while I talked about the book I was reading.
By the time we'd cleaned the kitchen and gone upstairs, most of the embarrassment from earlier had dulled into something I could at least think about without wanting to disappear.
Our shower helped too.
There was something about ending the day this way that I'd gotten used to faster than I wanted to admit. Dinner. Cleaning up. Showering together. Eventually climbing into the same bed.
None of it had been formally decided.
It had just started happening.
Grant was already dressed for bed by the time I came out of the bathroom, a pair of pajama pants sitting low on his hips while he moved around the bedroom putting away the clothes he'd discarded before our shower.
I was still wrapped in my towel.
I sat near the edge of the bed with one leg bent in front of me, working lotion slowly into my skin from my ankle upward.
When I looked up, Grant was watching me.
Not subtly either.
There was a time when being watched like that would've made me immediately self-conscious. I would've wondered what he was looking at. Whether there was something wrong. Whether I should cover myself.
With Grant, I'd slowly stopped doing that.
His attention didn't make me feel inspected.
It made me feel wanted.
"Have you spoken to Sean or Alexander?" I asked. "I feel really bad and I wish there was something I could do."
Grant shook his head, "I called them both when I heard the news, but I haven't heard back from either of them. Don't carry the blame for what happened. You can't be sure they got fired because of you."
I shot him a straight face.
I switched legs, smoothing lotion over my shin while Grant eventually moved closer. The mattress dipped behind me when he sat down, one of his hands settling lazily against my bare thigh.
"How are you feeling now about earlier?"
"Better."
"Better enough to go back?"
I gave him a look over my shoulder.
He smiled.
"I'm going back."
The words came easier than I expected.
Grant didn't celebrate them. Didn't give me the I told you so expression I would've absolutely given him if our positions were reversed.
His thumb simply moved once against my thigh.
"Good."
I screwed the cap back onto the lotion and set it on the nightstand.
"I've been thinking about what you said."
"Which part?"
"About confidence."
I adjusted the towel higher around my chest before turning enough that I could see him properly.
"I think I kept expecting all of this to feel different."
"I don't think I'm where I want to be yet as a person."
"You don't have to be."
"I know." I looked down at his hand on my leg. "That's what I'm starting to understand."
My fingers traced absentmindedly over the back of his.
"I've never really been a confident person. Even before Rodney, I don't think I was. Then I spent years second-guessing everything because it was easier than dealing with what happened when I made the wrong decision."
Grant's fingers curled slightly around mine.
"So maybe this is just part of it."
I leaned sideways until my shoulder rested against his chest.
His arm came around me, and I smiled as I settled more comfortably against him.
My phone vibrated against the nightstand.
Neither of us moved for it.
A few seconds later, it vibrated again.
I sighed and reached over. Reese's name sat across the screen.
My smile faded.
I hadn't heard from her since last week.
The message I'd sent apologizing that evening had gotten nothing but a thumbs-up.
I opened the message.
No hey.
No explanation.
Just the question.
I stared at it longer than necessary.
"What?" Grant's voice came from behind me.
"Reese."
I didn't elaborate.
I remembered the bag. She'd left it after lunch at the house almost a year ago, and after months of it sitting in my closet, I'd stopped thinking of it as something that needed to be returned urgently.
I typed back.
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.
Then disappeared.
Appeared again.
Of course she had.
I could practically hear the attitude through the screen. Before I could respond, another message came through.
I glanced at the time.
9:06.
Her response came quickly.
I pressed my lips together.
"What's she want?" Grant asked.
"She left a purse at the house a while ago. She needs it."
"Tonight?"
I glanced back at him. "Apparently."
Grant made a quiet sound but didn't comment further.
I looked back at my phone.
This time, Reese took longer.
Three dots appeared immediately.
I sighed.
Grant's hand was still resting against my thigh, his thumb moving absentmindedly over my skin while I stared at the messages.
The old house was about thirty minutes away.
Which meant an hour round trip, assuming I could find the bag quickly.
I really didn't want to go.
The typing bubble appeared. Stopped. Then came back.
I frowned. Another message followed.
My stomach sank anyway.
I read it twice.
Grant shifted beside me. "What did she say?"
"Nothing."
It wasn't nothing.
I knew exactly what Reese meant.
Maybe she hadn't written it outright, but she didn't need to.
She'd reached out to me after I'd ignored her calls. After I'd spent weeks pulling away from her without explaining why. Now the first thing she'd asked me for, I was making difficult.
I knew that wasn't entirely fair.
It was only nine.
The purse had been sitting at my house for nearly a year.