Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Harrow took her home, where she immediately headed for her bedroom. She needed to be alone—and she wanted a bath. Her brain was scrambled, the day’s events rattling around without a course. She had to sort them out. And then she needed to call Grier.
Her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of the day. Her head throbbed from the emotions—from the tears. She turned the water on as hot as she could stand it—hellfire by anyone else’s standards.
May as well burn my nerves into oblivion. What else can I lose today?
She left the bathroom fan off. She liked it when the steam overtook the space, enveloping her in mist as she slinked deeper into the water.
The haze mingled with the flicker of candlelight in the dark, camouflaging her—like she could hide from herself if she couldn’t see beyond her fingertips.
Her body was already numb from the scalding water.
If only she could numb her aching, breaking heart.
Her heart squeezed in her chest before dropping to settle like lead in her gut.
She didn’t want to hurt Grier. She’d come to care about her.
More than a little. A hell of a lot more than a little.
The thought of walking away made her already overworked heart stutter, like it was trying to slow her down—trying to stop her from breaking it altogether. To stop her from breaking.
Could Grier keep me from breaking? She shook her head, irritated with herself.
But could she?
The thoughts were invasive, vining their way from her heart to her exhausted brain.
She never listened to her heart. Her brain always overruled.
So why was she suddenly incapable of standing by her earlier decision?
Why did her heart pound so hard—so erratically— when she thought about ending things with Grier?
What was this feeling? Her heart was pleading for a control it had never demanded before. And it was loud.
She needed to catch her breath. She needed to give her brain a break. She needed to understand what this incessant nagging in the back of her mind meant—and why it felt so connected to her heart.
She needed Grier.
She slinked deeper into the water, the heat turning her skin pink under the flickering candlelight.
She started humming a nameless tune to herself—a trick Nadia had taught her—to discombobulate her mind enough to blank it.
She hadn’t needed the trick in a while, but tonight she just wanted a few minutes of nothingness.
The steam of the bath wafted around her, casting shadows over her closed eyelids as she continued to hum, drifting in and out of the tune.
Sweat beaded on her face and trickled through her scalp.
She loved the sensation, like her body was detoxing her physical demons as thoroughly as her mind was cleansing her emotional ones.
She began to release a long, cleansing sigh when she heard the click of her bedroom doorknob.
Determined footsteps pounded into the room, stopping outside the bathroom door. They hesitated. Her body tensed, bracing for whatever—whoever—was on the other side.
“Tobin?” Grier’s hesitant voice wavered outside her door. She sounded scared.
Tobin held her breath. She couldn’t move. Her body froze, not even breathing, waiting to see what Grier would do.
“Tobin, I’m coming in.”
The movement of the door stirred the steam, and Tobin’s eyes found Grier’s through the broken vapors; her body went haywire. Suddenly, the bath was too hot. Her heart was trying to escape her chest, and she couldn’t… breathe.
Grier was here, in her scrubs and she looked so… good. She had clearly come straight from work, and her disheveled hair only added to the inferno of emotions Tobin knew were raging inside her—the inferno she caused.
Grier was here. And she was mad.
She stormed in, the amber of her eyes reflecting the candlelight like they were aflame themselves. She stopped abruptly in front of the tub, chest heaving, visibly struggling to restrain her emotions. Tobin could tell she was on the cusp of losing that battle.
They stared each other down. They were a series of eyes, twitching jaw muscles, and heavy breaths—at an impasse. Neither moved, their entire relationship hanging in the delicate balance of their silence.
Then Grier crossed her arms in front of her waist and whipped off her scrub top, followed quickly by her pants.
“Wha—” Tobin stuttered. Because what was happening?
Grier stood in front of her in her bra and underwear.
Then those hit the floor, and she stepped into the tub opposite Tobin, naked and fuming.
She didn’t even flinch at the heat of the water as she sank into it, sloshing copious amounts outside the tub.
If Tobin didn’t know better, she could’ve sworn the temperature rose with the addition of Grier’s fiery spirit.
“What are you doing?” Tobin demanded. She had no idea what Grier was doing, but she could tell the woman was in control now—and she was at her mercy. But she wasn’t going to let Grier take over without resistance.
“When we fight, we get naked,” Grier retorted defiantly. She glowered at Tobin from across the tub. Tobin was confused and flustered and—if she was being honest—a little turned on. But she’d be damned if she was going to act on that right now.
Her body tensed, bracing for the fight that Grier seemed hellbent on bringing. “Fight? I didn’t know we were fighting.”
Grier laughed, and it chilled Tobin’s libido with the depths of its frigidity. “No? That’s interesting. Because when someone shuts me out, I generally assume we’re fighting. So what would you call this, Tobin?”
Tobin didn’t like her tone. She especially didn’t like the way her name sounded on Grier’s lips right now.
She hadn’t experienced Grier mad yet, and she knew—even from this brief encounter—that she never wanted to be on the receiving end of Grier’s wrath again.
She was formidable, and the glint in her eye told Tobin she would be relentless in pursuing whatever point she was trying to make.
“Space. I’d call this space,” she spat the words.
Then she gestured between them. “But you clearly don’t understand the meaning of that.
” She hadn’t intended to be so defensive.
But really, what was she supposed to do in this situation?
No one had ever shown up to fight with her—naked. She was making this up as she went.
“No.” Grier was quiet, but resolute.
“No?” Tobin’s confusion escalated. Her heart was still racing, and she grabbed the edges of the tub to steady herself, giving herself something to anchor to.
“No,” Grier repeated. “You don’t get space.
Not right now. You can have time—all the time you need to heal from whatever the doctor said this morning.
But space? No. You do not get to shut me out.
” Her voice had risen steadily, firmly, until it suddenly stilled.
She whispered, her ferocity breaking like the mist between them, “You don’t get to push me away. You do not get to break up with me.”
Grier’s temper evaporated, and the raw hurt settled over her features.
Tobin’s chest squeezed, knowing she’d caused this. She caused Grier’s pain, and her subsequent temper, all because Tobin was too scared to let her in. She didn’t want to break up with Grier. She didn’t want to lose this—this woman who would show up to fight with her. To fight for her.
Tobin felt her emotions boiling, rising like the steam. She looked away from Grier, trying to staunch the tears before they escaped. But that was another fight she lost. One by one, her tears trailed down her cheeks. She didn’t even bother wiping them away.
“Tobin…” The gentleness had returned to Grier’s voice, like a balm—soothing and patient.
“I’m barren,” Tobin whispered, barely audible even to herself. A feral, choked whimper escaped her throat.
In a flurry of water and limbs, Grier was there—around her, above and below her—everywhere; Grier holding her, stroking her, shushing her.
Tobin didn’t fight when she felt Grier reposition them, so that Grier was underneath her in the tub.
Tobin sat sideways in her lap like a toddler, her face buried in Grier’s chest, her hands fisting over Grier’s shoulders, sobbing and gasping and finally, finally, breaking.
She sobbed until she couldn’t breathe, until her breath rattled and she struggled for oxygen.
Grier rocked her in her lap, kissed her hair, laced their fingers together and squeezed—reminding her that she was there, that Tobin wasn’t alone.
Still, she couldn’t stop the descent. Her vision blurred, her lips tingled, her lungs clambered for air—and she just couldn’t… get enough… oxygen.
Grier read her body in the way only Grier could.
She squeezed her tight, whispering words Tobin couldn’t comprehend into her ear, trying to focus her, to call her back to the present—to her.
Tobin’s mind chased frantic, incomplete, and wholly irreparable memories of her forfeited dreams. She lost her presence, her body; her mind faded in and out.
It felt surreal, her consciousness disconnected from sensation, like she was floating through a hollow dreamscape, echoes of her past, present, and future swarming like shadows of reality.
She vaguely felt Grier grab her hand and press her palm to her chest. She registered the rise and fall of her own body as Grier took giant, soothing breaths and, abstractedly, registered that Grier was coaching her to follow the rhythm.
She clung to Grier—to her voice, to the steady inhale and exhale of her lungs—and she listened to the steady, persistent beating of her heart.
She followed those sounds, those signs of life and love, and she brought herself back.
Back to the bathroom, to the bathtub. She brought herself back—to Grier.
She took one huge, calming, rattled breath and rooted her mind to her body, now limp and weak in Grier’s lap.