15. Undivided Attention
Chapter Fifteen
Undivided Attention
Grant
My survival of the next two weeks isn’t to do with anything resembling self-possession.
Work is an endless churn of meetings, forms, and the kind of student emails that make you want to fake your own death and move to a lighthouse in Alaska.
But the undercurrent—humming beneath every minute—is Neve Hart, dangerous and relentless and everywhere in my head.
Changeover day arrives too soon, and with all the gentle subtlety of a migraine.
Sera goes to Marie’s. I’m alone in the apartment, the silence a kind of tinnitus, and none of my tricks for coping work.
I stare at the ‘prescription’ Neve gave me, trying not to think about how sad it is, having kept it.
I’m supposed to do something to make it easier. Be kind to myself.
So, I text Cade.
Me:
Drinks tonight? I could use a couple. Maybe Sky Loft?
Cade:
Why the hell would we throw money away at a bar when I have top shelf at home?
Come over. I’ll make you something with a stupid garnish, and we can talk shit about my wedding budget.
I can’t argue with that, so I pull on a hoodie and head over.
The walk to their place is brisk, and I use it to rehearse my lines—pretending I’m not going to spend the entire evening bracing for Neve to come up in conversation—they’re both too good at their jobs to believe there’s nothing going on between us if the subject comes up.
It’s not exactly that I’m worried they won’t approve or some archaic bullshit—but I’d like to have the discussion with Neve first.
Cade is in the kitchen when I arrive. I step in without knocking, because he told me to.
He nods to me, flashing a smile as he shakes a cocktail like the world’s most indolent bartender.
The place smells like orange peel and something herbal.
Fia perches at the end of the kitchen island, laptop open, spine straight.
“Hey, man. I’ve got a Dark and Stormy with your name on it.” Cade sets the glass down in front of me.
I take a sip. It’s heavy on the ginger, but even more so on the rum. “You trying to kill me?”
He grins. “You’ll thank me when you can’t feel your face.”
Fia glances up, studying her fiancé, then me. “Should I go and work in the office?”
Cade just wordlessly slides her a sleek-looking martini like she’s royalty, and the corner of her mouth ticks as she fights a smile.
Cade and I fall into our old rhythm, the way we always do. He sets up an impromptu tonic bar on the kitchen counter, parading his obscure gins and homemade syrups, each one with a story longer than the actual pour.
He launches into a playful rant about the commodification of weddings, but it’s mostly because he’s been cornered by Liv into helping her make centerpieces out of “upcycled” wine bottles, which Fia agreed to.
“I guess I just want to know if this is how it starts,” he says with a chuckle. “Am I going to be handcrafting birdhouses by the time I’m forty because my wife said so?”
Fia cuts him a look, but doesn’t speak. I can see the smile hiding at the corners of her mouth.
I snort. “Not what happened when I turned forty, but who knows if I’m a great example.”
Cade laughs, then sobers, and there’s a quiet beat between us that feels like the hinterland of a more honest conversation.
The kitchen fills with the faint shushing of the dishwasher, the wet rattle of ice cubes in the shaker, and Fia’s typing.
I almost relax. Cade has always been easy to talk to, not just because he’s a good listener, but because he never expects me to say anything confessional.
He fills the silences with stories and conjecture about wedding budgets, burning through topics like kindling.
I let the conversation run, and the drinks run with it.
At some point, Fia starts fact-checking his more outlandish claims, occasionally interjecting with flat, surgical corrections. It’s enough to keep Cade honest, which is a full-time job.
We eat and talk and, for a few brief, bright minutes, I revel in what it feels like to have a real, unpunctured friendship. A lot of friends withdrew after my divorce—never asserting to picking sides in so many words, but they chose Marie over me.
When I don’t respond to some joke Cade makes about wedding DJ disasters, he shoots me a sidelong glance. “You’re quiet tonight.”
“It’s changeover day,” I say with a shrug. “Changeover day sucks.”
Cade gives a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, man.”
Fia studies me, then clears her throat quietly. “So, I’ve been listening to the recordings from your sessions with Neve.”
There it is.
My stomach drops through the floor. How do I explain I intentionally corrupted the recording because that session got way too close to my own personal shit, and then I openly flirted with a student?
“Oh?” I keep it deliberately innocuous. “You were that worried about her saying something inappropriate?”
She arches a brow. “I pulled a couple of her sessions in the half-semester audit. She’s good. Very engaged.” She shrugs. “I only got to hear one, though. The last file was corrupted.”
I keep my face very carefully impassive. “Really? That’s weird.”
Fia gives a small, precise shrug, but the weight behind her gaze is anything but neutral.
She’s reading for context, for the story under the story.
It’s what she does, and for a split second, I’m hyperaware of every microexpression passing through my entire body, every eyelid twitch and swallow, the way my hands rest on the counter, the way my shoulders begin to creep up until I forcibly relax.
You’re fine. Just be normal.
She tips her glass, but continues watching me over the rim. “Corrupted files aren’t uncommon, but you should double-check next time, or we won’t have enough to grade her.” The words are even, but the edge glints underneath, a scalpel hidden in loose velvet.
Cade, happily oblivious, polishes off his cocktail and thunks the glass down. “You say ‘corrupted’ like it’s a conspiracy.” He laughs, but Fia doesn’t quite smile.
I force a snort. “If Neve’s conspiring, she’s playing it close to the vest. She’s been nothing but professional.” But I haven’t, I don’t say. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll check my setup.”
Fia’s mouth quirks, but her eyes never leave mine. “Might be nothing, but it’s worth a look.” Her tone is dry as gin, but there’s something almost gentle in it, if you know where to look.
I definitely know where to look. Every muscle in my body feels like it’s been wired for overclock.
Conversation flits off in another direction. Cade launches into another lighthearted rant, this time about floral arrangements. Every so often, Fia’s gaze lands on me, brief and analytic, as if she knows she didn’t get the whole story.
I lock down my reactions and ride out the rest of the evening, letting the alcohol and the background noise buffer me from the undertow. But underneath, I’m replaying the tiny, silent calculus of how much they do or don’t know about me and Neve.
I’m not an idiot. I know how it looks. I know the way my chest goes tight anytime someone mentions her, and how my pulse spikes if I so much as think about the last session.
The real reason I tanked that file isn’t a mystery—I was reckless.
I let it get too real when I was supposed to just follow the script.
I let her see too much, let myself say things I shouldn’t have even said out loud, least of all to a student.
Least of all to her.
I wonder if she thinks about it, and if she knows just how close I came to telling her everything—the worst parts, the underbelly, all the things I can’t say to anyone else.
What Marie did, the garbage she pumped into my head, the things about myself that she picked apart when I’ve only ever wished someone would just accept them.
I let myself back into my apartment, skin chilled from the cold outside.
The click of the lock and the hush of the thick hallway carpet make the silent totalizing.
You could lay a stethoscope to the walls and hear nothing but the faint electric sigh of the refrigerator and my pulse, ratcheting up when I think of the woman with the golden hair and the feline eyes.
I clock my reflection in the oven glass as I drop my keys back in the drawer, face a little flushed.
I’m not drunk—it takes a lot more to take me down, and I only had a couple of cocktails—but there’s a pleasant, slow-motion disinhibition in my limbs that makes the whole world feel a degree warmer.
My brain is too loud, the aftershocks of that maybe-knowing look from Fia and, underneath it, the restless, hungry flicker of Neve, Neve, Neve in my veins.
I go through the usual motions, almost on autopilot.
I check the mail (junk), drink a glass of water, scan the living room for evidence of entropy.
Everything is in its place, which is somehow worse.
There’s no Sera to mess up the couch pillows building a fort, or leave a scatter of picture books on the floor. No noise. No life at all.
I pull out my phone, preparing to give in to a moment of weakness—but what I want is already there, a notification lighting up the lock screen. I open the message before I can think better of it, brows flying up when I see what she’s written.
Don’t:
I didn’t take you for a coward, Grant King
Me:
Meaning?
Don’t:
I’m still a little insulted that you saw me fully NAKED and didn’t even attempt a photo
not even when I suggested it
The laugh that escapes me is soft, more exhale than sound.
My head tips back against the kitchen cabinet, and I stare up at the ceiling.
She’s relentless, but I think I like it.
I know I do. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been wanted like this.
In fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever been wanted like this.
Every message from her is like a shot of adrenaline, but also a dare—the kind that makes you want to throw caution out the window and see what happens when you stop pretending that you’re strong enough to resist.
I should stop pretending, because I know I’m not strong enough to resist her.
My thumb hesitates over the keyboard. I could play the game, pretend that I’m above it.
But I’m not, and I don’t want to play games with Neve.
I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m a grown man—sixteen years older than her—who loses all executive function the second this woman so much as breathes in my direction.
I don’t even have the drunk excuse—I’m not drunk. I’m of sound mind and body, give or take a cocktail, and almost a decade of being utterly touch starved.
The only intoxication blurring my impulse control right now is her.
Me:
If you’re genuinely insulted, you’re welcome to send me a photo now. I’ll make sure it gets my undivided attention.
As soon as I hit send, my heart stutters, then goes triple time. It’s a terrible idea, and the best idea I’ve had all week.