Chapter Seventeen Mercy #2
There was an insatiable, growling sort of discontent underneath the surface of every interaction, and it had been there since the moment he’d walked into my hospital room.
We’d managed to keep it muted, to keep it from overtaking the fragile peace we’d found.
I wasn’t sure we could do that for much longer.
That sound filled my head, buzzing like angry bees.
Who was I during that time? If I’d had such a transformative effect on Grant, it was only logical that he’d done something similar to me.
“I don’t know how to reconcile the things you’re telling me, Rose.” I ran a hand through my hair, and when the hair tie gave up its battle, I twisted it around my fingertip. “We have chemistry,” I said carefully. “But I don’t know who that person is, the one you’re talking about.”
“You’re still her.”
“Am I?” I held her gaze and lowered my voice. “I’m not so sure.”
Rose chewed on her bottom lip, her expression thoughtful. “If you aren’t, why are you going so far to help him? You could’ve walked away. Could’ve told him no. Let him handle the consequences of my grandmother and father.”
There was a pit in my stomach, a twitching discomfort at the thought. But facing that question felt like poking a sleeping bear. It would wake eventually, right? Wake up growly and hungry and violent, and I’d have to hope for minimal fallout.
Why was I helping Grant?
The answer was locked down just as tightly as everything else in my head, and for the moment, I was content to let that be the truth.
“I could have,” I admitted. “I thought about it.”
“Did you?”
I nodded slowly. “I still do. Right before you came, I . . . I thought it might be best for me to leave. Stay somewhere else for a while.”
“Oh, Mercy.”
I braced myself for an argument, but it never came. “We agreed to table that discussion until you leave.”
Rose kept her eyes on me, a frown bending the corners of her mouth. “Where would you go?”
I shrugged. “Rent something. I don’t know. I didn’t get that far.”
“But you stayed. For this.”
“It doesn’t feel fair to make him give up a life he enjoys simply because your family can’t understand why he wants to live differently,” I said. “Your brother deserves the right to make his own choices.”
Her soft smile surprised me. So did the light in her eyes.
Somehow I’d answered correctly. Passed some invisible test that I hadn’t known I was taking.
I didn’t want to be tested anymore.
Anger was a quickly lit fuse in my blood, flaring hot and high like she’d cranked a burner knob too far.
I stood up, brushing past her with a tight jaw.
“You know, I’m getting a little sick of everyone yanking on strings just to see if I react in the way they’re hoping.
” My gaze met hers. “I’m not your puppet.
Or your entertainment. Or your grandmother’s excuse to get away with being a bitch. ”
“Oh, she hardly needs an excuse. And I’m not yanking on anything, Mercy.
” Rose crossed her arms, not even remotely cowed by my little outburst. Another trait she had in common with her brother.
“I love my brother, and though you can’t recall at the moment, I love you too.
I want him to be happy, even if it means he stays across a bloody ocean.
He hardly tells us anything. All I know is what I saw, and I saw a couple who might not have started their relationship according to any conventional standards, but you fit together like a bloody lock and key.
My grandmother saw that too. And she’s mourning the loss of a future for the Hastings family that’s been upheld for hundreds of years, which is why she’s digging in her heels now, grasping at one last chance to make it come to pass.
You might not like to hear either reaction, but I’m not going to dance around you in the same way he is. ”
My voice was trembling when I answered. “So what am I supposed to do with that? With you. And her. And . . . and him? I don’t know how to be the version of me that doesn’t exist anymore, and I feel like everyone’s sitting back and watching to see if I can perform to their liking.”
“Just be you, Mercy,” she begged, coming closer to clasp my hands.
“Disagree with him and argue and push him to the brink of madness, because that’s what you did before.
That’s what we all saw, that’s who we fell in love with.
And that’s who my grandmother respected, even if she’ll never admit it out loud.
You’re trying to win her over, when you need to put your foot down and tell her to back off. ”
The mess on the counter was proof of what she was saying. A sink full of dishes. Mixing bowls and spatulas and knives. The smell of potatoes turning golden brown in the oven, the sweetness of lab-manufactured lemon cutting through.
It was Grant’s birthday, but everything that had happened was about someone else.
Something else. They’d be home soon, and I’d been doing exactly what Rose said.
Bending myself into a knot to pass some invisible test set out by someone who didn’t know fuck all about me in the first place. And I was doing it for him.
But I didn’t know why.
I couldn’t bring myself to figure that out.
Instead of clarity, my brain conjured a memory.
I must have been twenty-two, leaning against the kitchen counter at Connor’s house as he presented Grant with an unconventional birthday meal.
We both sang loud and off key—Connor because he was a terrible singer, me because I was forced to be there and I knew it would drive the birthday boy crazy—and Grant stood in the corner of the kitchen, hands in his pockets and expression stoic.
Without a smile, he leaned forward and blew out the candle, eyes flickering to mine as the smoke curled into the air. Instead of taking the first helping of his birthday dinner, he set it wordlessly on a plate and handed it to me.
I rubbed my forehead and gave Rose a fleeting look. “I don’t want to make beef Wellington for dinner, do you?”
Her smile was huge. “Not even a little bit.”
She opened up the trash and I binned the entire thing. By the time they returned, I’d changed into a pink cotton sundress that swished around my thighs, the kitchen was almost cleaned up, and plan B of the birthday lunch was already underway.
Rose dried the last mixing bowl and gave me a wink as she set it on the counter. Before turning around, I drained the rest of the soapy water. I could feel Grant’s gaze on my back.
“Welcome back.” I slung the dish towel over my shoulder. “How were the gardens?”
“Beautiful,” Caroline answered with a smile. “I can see why you both love them.”
Lady Hastings conceded that with a small noise. “They were adequate, I suppose.”
Rose rolled her eyes and Grant shook his head, gaze moving around the kitchen with a wrinkle in his brow. “How did it go here?”
“We changed plans.”
Grant’s eyes found mine, one eyebrow arched high on his forehead. “Is that so?”
His grandmother surveyed the clean island, holding only the lemon bars, cut neatly into eight squares on a very fancy plate. “Please tell me we’re having more than those.”
“Of course.”
The doorbell rang, and all three of them turned toward the noise.
“Who’s that?” Lady Hastings asked.
Instead of answering, I went to the door to accept the steaming boxes from the delivery worker with a smile. After they were safely on the counter, I opened the first box with my very best Vanna White impression.
The Iron Lady’s mouth fell open, but I hardly noticed.
Grant was smiling, a dimple creasing his cheek, his eyes brighter, warmer, more beautiful than I’d ever seen them. My heart gave an untimely lurch, and I took a deep breath to steady its frantic rhythm.
I was right. Happiness did look good on him. Very, very good. To be the cause of it, even over a simple meal, set something at ease within me. For the moment, I wasn’t a puzzle to be solved or a problem to be handled, something breakable to be coddled.
It was just me and Grant, smiling over a shared memory.
“Good Lord, what is that?” Lady Hastings asked.
Rose handed her brother a plate from the stack on the island, and he pulled from the corner of the rectangle. The cheese stretched out, snapping when he set the piece down. There was some sauce on his thumb, and he sucked it into his mouth, his gaze steady on mine as he served me the first piece.
“This, Granny, is Detroit-style pizza.” Then his smile deepened, and I felt it all the way down to my toes. “My favorite birthday meal.”