Chapter 15 #3
“Do you want anything to drink? Or need a snack? This shouldn’t take more than thirty to forty minutes.” She smiled teasingly. “If all you’ve had is that doughnut this morning, I wouldn’t want you getting hangry on me.”
“I am quite hungry, actually. My swim this morning was a little more aggressive than I anticipated. But I don’t want to spoil my lunch, so I’m happy to wait. Can I help, though? I take direction well—I can be your sous chef.”
“You take direction well, huh?” Tobin grinned, unable to resist the innuendo.
Grier smiled through pursed lips, a slight curl tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I walked into that, so point for you. But, I’d like to remind the contestants, this is not a date. So are you going to make me work for my meal, or am I to be pampered like the princess I am?”
Tobin smirked as she watched Grier flip her braid over her shoulder, feigning superiority.
“Grab a colander from the cupboard over there, Cinderella. You can work for your meal today.” Any excuse she could make was welcome if it brought Grier closer to her. “These veggies need washing. When you’re done with that, you can start grating the parmesan.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” Grier saluted her as she smirked. “Careful, Doctor. I might get used to ordering you around.”
Not a date. Not a date. This is not a date.
Grier came around the counter, retrieved the colander from the cupboard, and then checked Tobin gently in the hip as she settled in front of the sink to start washing the vegetables.
Tobin had never felt so at ease with someone in her kitchen.
Her heart fluttered, and she realized this was definitely something she could get used to.
“Would you like to eat at the table or out on the deck?” Tobin asked a little while later, as she plated their lunch, a market-fresh garden pasta in cream sauce, and pulled some fresh garlic bread from the oven.
“Is that a real question? The deck. Always the deck.” “The lady likes an ambience with her meals.”
“The lady does. Point me to the utensils and I’ll grab them. Drinks?”
“The silverware is in that drawer,” Tobin said, indicating with her hip. “There are a variety of drinks in the fridge. Please grab me a water, and whatever you want for yourself.”
They sat on the sectional, plates on a convertible cushion flattop between them, facing each other. It was friendly, and intimate.
Tobin wasn’t caught off guard—as she might have been with anyone else—when Grier, without preamble, steered them directly to the reason for their non-date today. “So that explanation I was promised as a lure to get me over today. Now seems like a good time to start.”
The nonchalance with which Grier eased into the conversation— casually slurping a string of pasta—refreshed Tobin.
She was having a reckoning of sorts, coming to terms with the knowledge that talking with Grier was comfortable, easy even.
Grier seemed to value thinking before speaking, and even their difficult conversations felt respectful and tempered.
Tobin looked at her and buried her fear. It no longer had a place between them.
“I was scared. Am scared. But, also, was. I’m still scared, but I’m trying to honor the fear by letting it live, without giving oxygen to its fire.”
“Do you always speak in metaphors? Or is this just for me?” Grier smiled, jabbing a little. Tobin appreciated it—it made her feel safer.
“I’ve been known to wax poetic when the need arises.” She smiled, directing her emotion directly into Grier’s eyes. Then she continued.
“I was engaged before.” She forced herself to maintain eye contact, even though those four words were some of the hardest she’d ever spoken. She wasn’t used to saying them—the hurt was too raw. “Before my accident.”
“So, the ex you mentioned at the gala wasn’t just a girlfriend, but a fiancée.” It was a statement.
Tobin watched as Grier unconsciously reached for the pendant around her neck, fiddling with it as she remained quiet, listening.
“Yes. I hope you don’t think I was trying to mislead you. I don’t talk about it much. There are more scars than what the eye can see from that accident, and she is several of them.”
Grier didn’t break eye contact, but her eyes flitted across Tobin’s face, seemingly searching for something—some answer—inside her.
“I don’t blame you for withholding. I understand.
” Grier reached across the little tabletop and found Tobin’s hand, offering a reassuring squeeze.
Tobin accepted the gesture and felt her shoulders relax while cool, invigorating air filled her lungs as she released the breath she had been holding.
She’d never felt so safe talking about one of the most horrific periods of her life.
“I’m sorry she left. No one deserves to be abandoned, but especially not like that. Thank you for sharing that with me.”
Tobin took another steadying breath and allowed Grier’s acceptance to settle in her chest. There was more she had to say.
“She didn’t abandon me—we agreed to end the relationship because we were both scared.
She was afraid of losing me in another accident, and I was scared of seeing the hurt my accident caused her.
It’s a fear I still have—in a new relationship, I mean.
I’m genuinely afraid to let someone in, only to hurt them—unintentionally— through another accident.
And to be hurt by them when they decide the risk is too great… that I’m not worth the risk.”
There it was. She couldn’t take it back.
The truth—hot and raw—hanging in the space between them.
She watched Grier untangle her thoughts, wishing for her hand to still be on top of hers.
That small touch would have been a kindness of unimaginable proportions in this moment, when she felt the most exposed, laid bare for Grier to draw the same conclusions Talia had.
Tobin turned to look out at the lake, unable to watch the realization hit Grier’s face—the one that said she wasn’t enough.
“Will you look at me, Tobin?”
She couldn’t fight the pull of Grier’s alluring eyes, even knowing the answer she’d find in them could steal her breath—and with it, her hope.
“You are the one who gets to determine your worth. If someone else can’t rise to your value, then they are the ones who are not worthy of you. Not the other way around.”
Tobin just stared at her. A lump the size of the Sahara formed in her throat, and she felt the sting of tears stab at her ducts. She blinked furiously, trying to contain them.
“Your accident sounds horrific, even without knowing the details. But your breakup took courage, not cowardice. It takes a profound level of emotional maturity to realize that two people aren’t as compatible in the face of certain challenges as they once were—to accept that, and to correct it.
And yet it feels like you’ve been carrying this burden for, what, three years?
As if you’re somehow to blame for an accident that could have killed you, but instead gave you the chance to actually live.
The accident wasn’t your fault. Maybe it’s time you start living. ”
Tobin couldn’t breathe. How was it possible for Grier to completely disassemble every thought she’d held within—every thought she’d held about herself—since her accident?
How did she rewrite her last three years of self-flagellation, of pity and isolation— and somehow shape it into something beautiful?
She didn’t know what to say. And somehow, Grier seemed to know that. She reached her hand across the table cushion and interlaced their fingers. “I hope you understand that I’m implying you don’t have to do it alone.”
Grier was literally reading her mind. Fuck her walls—Grier apparently had ghost-like abilities, waltzing right through them to the center of Tobin’s psyche, settling there, pacifying her demons and laying waste to years of insecurity.
“Is this still not a date?” Tobin didn’t realize she had said it out loud until Grier’s light, gloriously radiant laughter bubbled from her chest.
“I think we both knew this was never not a date. But I knew you were struggling with something. And patience is something I’m rather good at—despite how very much I don’t want to be.
” She paused, eyes flicking to the table cushion between them.
“Can we move this? I feel too far away for this conversation.”
You can have anything you want, Tobin thought.
Tobin unwillingly relinquished Grier’s fingers, rose, and moved the table cushion and remnants of their lunch to the table.
She returned to the couch, curling her legs beneath her, settling opposite Grier—who had subtly shifted closer to where Tobin had been.
Unsure what to do with her hands, she tucked them between her legs— conveniently hiding their anxious tremble.
Grier reached for her hand as soon as she attempted to hide it.
“I think we should take it slow. As cliché as that sounds, I think we both have histories that warrant a little caution.”
Tobin couldn’t form words—her throat was too constricted with emotion.
She nodded and squeezed Grier’s hand, hoping it would convey all that she was feeling—and signal her agreement.
It seemed to work, and they settled into a comfortable silence, with Grier resting her head against Tobin’s shoulder, letting out a light, gratifying sigh of contentment.
Patchouli and bergamot tingled her nose, somehow calming and invigorating her.
“You’re shaking, Tobin. Tell me why?” It was a gentle invitation. Apparently she was invigorated beyond subtlety.
Tobin looked into Grier’s warm, amber eyes and felt her heart skip a beat. Her voice was barely a whisper, “I’m not convinced you’re real.”
Grier’s close-mouthed smile shone in her eyes. “I’m definitely real.” Then her voice lowered, husky and intimate. “But I will never stop trying to give dimension to your fantasies.”