Chapter Eleven Mercy #2
I hummed, my eyes closing more tightly as I admitted all this nonsense stuck in my own head. Stuck. It was all stuck and I couldn’t get it out. “I couldn’t go in. I didn’t want to make it worse. For the kids. I feel like I make everything worse right now.”
“Nonsense.”
“The questions were stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Grant let out a heavy exhale, and I pried my eyes open to study his face in the low light of the room. My fingers pushed past the edge of the blanket, trembling slightly as I touched the hard line of his jaw. “You didn’t shave today.”
It was Grant’s turn to close his eyes. A slight wrinkle appeared in his brow, like the feel of my fingertips on his skin was painful. “N-no, I didn’t.”
The hitch in his voice made my head spin even faster. “I like it.”
“I know.”
The ragged answer was more than I could bear. Tears blurred my vision, a tingling at the bridge of my nose heralding all sorts of badness. “Why did I marry you, Grant? I know you won’t answer me because we’re drunk and I’m impossible and I wish I wasn’t, but—”
He caught my fingertips and brushed them across his lips. His warm, dry lips. “You’re not impossible. You’re confused, and I don’t blame you.”
“But you still won’t answer me.”
His eyes locked on mine. In a dark room with a spinning head and a misplaced sense of what was right and what was wrong, Grant was the only anchor.
“You were lonely.”
“What?”
He exhaled, tucking my hand carefully underneath the blanket again. “You told me you were lonely. Sick of feeling that way. And that maybe we could take care of each other the way he used to take care of us.”
I bit down on my bottom lip so hard that it hurt. No crying. There would be no more crying.
I remembered. Not the things he wanted me to, but the loneliness. The deep, curling throb of knowing that I was acutely, entirely alone.
“I miss Connor,” I whispered. “He’d know what to do with me, don’t you think?”
Grant’s eyes softened as he searched my expression. “Yes, darling. He would.”
“Who were you talking to earlier? You sounded mad.”
He tilted his head, pausing for a moment before he answered. “I wasn’t mad.”
“You’re not answering the question.”
His lips curved in a faint smile. “Nothing gets by you, does it?”
My chin trembled. “Some things do.”
“I’m so sorry.” He raked a hand through his hair, shoulders slumping. “That was thoughtless.”
“Will I forget this too?” I whispered. “I don’t want to. It feels really important. It is, isn’t it? It’s important that we talk about these things. I don’t know why it’s so hard.”
It was easier to speak this way, under the pleasant, filter-less haze of alcohol, but the fear shoved past, shouldering its way to the front of my mind.
“Rest, darling.”
“No, I—”
“Shhh. I’m right here. You won’t forget.”
He couldn’t promise me that. No one could. No one could fix it. Or fix me. No one could make this easier. No one . . .
I must have said it out loud. Grant sighed, and then brushed hair off my face in a touch so gentle I wasn’t even sure it was real.
“Sleep,” he said, voice hushed and exhausted. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
The morning brought with it a weak sunrise stuck behind thick gray clouds and a mouth so dry that it would wake the dead. For a few minutes, I lay there and allowed the fog of a deep, uninterrupted sleep fade, knowing with every fiber of my being that I didn’t deserve to feel as human as I did.
Only the faintest headache lingered at my temples, and I soothed the dry mouth with another long drink of water from a magically refilled glass that had been very empty the last time I had it in my hands.
The fact that I’d worried about forgetting even a single detail of that evening was fucking hilarious. I covered my face with both hands and groaned as all the little nuggets clicked back into place.
I’d asked Grant Hastings if he knew how to find a clit.
Fucking kill me now.
Maybe this was a secret talent of mine. How I’d managed to take the bombshell about fantastic sex and make it the least horrifying part of the previous day.
This couldn’t keep happening. I had to figure out a better way to navigate this. Grant and I had to figure that out together.
I rolled onto my side, facing the closet and the bathroom, and bolted upright at what I saw: Grant, sound asleep on the floor, with a single pillow and a throw from the couch covering him from the waist down.
His face was peaceful in sleep, the chiseled features softened in the dim light of the room. A white Chelsea T-shirt covered his broad chest, which rose and fell on deep, even breaths. One hand lay on his chest, the other on his flat stomach.
He’d stayed.
He’d stayed.
Even though he wasn’t within touching distance, and he’d relegated himself to the floor, the fact that he’d remained to make sure I was all right was a level of intimacy that took my breath away.
How was I supposed to do this? How was I supposed to take all the pieces of the man I knew before and boil them down until they were unrecognizable?
Because that’s what was happening. He was made of all the same things as before—the wealth and the austerity and the manners that seemed like they were plucked from another world—and yet he was not the same man I remembered.
Every answer seemed to leave only more questions in its wake, and I couldn’t help but wonder when that would stop. When would it be simple? Would it ever?
I dropped my chin to my chest and let out a shaky exhale, cursing myself for thinking that alcohol could’ve helped any single part of this equation. There was no further harm done, but I couldn’t deny that was due more to Grant than me.
It was a bitter truth to swallow, a chalky pill that refused to go down, because the Grant I remembered would’ve held it over my head—reminding me that my age and my personality precluded me from sound decision-making.
I watched him for a few more minutes and then crept past his sleeping form, praying to any deity willing to listen that he wouldn’t wake and see me in my skivvies. In the closet, I found another pair of pajamas and slipped them on, breathing more easily when my body was covered.
Nudity wouldn’t help this situation any more than the alcohol had. Not because he’d never seen it before, but because he had. I couldn’t dwell on it for too long—I’d absolutely spiral, and I was done letting that be my default reaction.
I thought I’d have more time to process what it looked like, to deprogram myself a little bit, to make a grown-up decision about what the best course of action was, but after I snuck into the kitchen, ate half a blueberry muffin, and opened up the cupboard to pull out the canister of coffee grounds, the back of my neck tingled, awareness lighting up my nervous system like a fucking Christmas tree.
Instead of turning, I filled the carafe, added water to the tank on the machine, and measured the grounds into the paper filter, adding a couple extra scoops because if ever there was a morning that warranted extra caffeine, this was it.
After pressing the button, I pinched my eyes shut and counted to five, each count a deep breath in and then out, then turned in place.
Grant was leaning against the island, his long legs covered in gray joggers that hung low on his hips.
Paired with the shirt of his favorite British football team, it was a shockingly casual look that swept my nerves into a quick, dizzying spin.
His eyes, the same stormy gray as the clouds, were locked on mine.
When he spoke, his voice was gravelly from sleep and so intensely pleasing to the ear that I fought a shiver.
“I think it’s time for that talk now, don’t you?”