30. All the Old Scripts
Chapter Thirty
All the Old Scripts
Grant
I’m in my office grading papers when she knocks, and steps inside without waiting for a response—and I’m stupid enough to grin when she turns to lock the door behind her.
But when Neve faces me again, the ice in her expression stops me dead.
“What’s wrong?” I set my pen down, standing from my desk chair.
She doesn’t speak, just holds up the small stack of papers in her hand. A few emotions pass across her face, as if she’s searching for the right words, or a reasonable place to start. “I, uh—I just got my paper back for Intro to Readable Body Language. The visual media breakdown.”
“Okay,” I say carefully, but my stomach plummets. The grading is anonymous, but I had a feeling I might have ended up being a second reader on her paper. The way she’s reacting is as good as confirmation.
Neve is flushed, jaw tight. I already don’t like where this is going. I reach for the rubric on instinct—still sitting on the corner of my desk from where I finished the last round of grading—but she marches up to me so quickly I almost stumble back against the desk.
“You marked me down for failing to reference the underlying emotional context,” she says evenly. “The whole second section is about that. You annotated the paragraph. You literally wrote, ‘good point.’ And then undercut it in the final grade.”
My skull feels full of static. “If you want an independent review, I can pass it to another staff member. I was already the secondary reader. Doctor Levenson’s comments were nearly identical to mine.”
“Except he didn’t dock my grade for it,” she snaps. “Why did you?”
“My grade didn’t deviate enough from the primary reader to warrant concern over—”
“How exactly does this not warrant concern? This is my education, Grant. I’m concerned.” She swallows hard, taking a long, slow breath, then blowing it out of her mouth, as if she’s trying to center herself—then she looks at me expectantly.
When I shrug, her eyes flash with murder, but I keep my voice steady. “You can request a third review if you’re dissatisfied.”
Neve’s mouth compresses into a hard line. “I don’t want to call your professional ability into question.”
I stare at her, frustration rising slow and sour in my gut. “Then what are you doing here, exactly? I need you to break it down for me, Neve—I don’t get it.”
She groans, scrubbing a hand over her face. “Yeah, well, I don’t get it either. What is this? Like, your way to throw people off the scent or something?”
“Excuse me?”
“Because we’re—” She cuts herself off, gesturing vaguely between us, then sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and bites down. She’s blinking fast, as if she’s trying not to cry.
My chest goes tight. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if she cries.
“You really think I’d do that?” I ask quietly. I want to reach out and touch her, but I think she might break my arm if I do. “I didn’t know I was grading you, Neve. It’s anonymous.”
A breath shudders out of her. All the usual wild and bright things about her are knotted up, atomic, like a slow-burn fuse hissing down to detonation.
I hate being the reason her hands are shaking.
“I have to be objective, okay?” My voice sounds too big in the air, chewing up all the oxygen. “That’s all I tried to do. No, I don’t want anybody to know about us yet, because I have to protect myself and my job and my daughter, but I graded you fairly.”
She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. Her anger is an electric thing—I can feel it arcing off her, crawling up the nerves in my neck.
“It’s not a bad grade, Neve. I’m sorry it’s lower than you expected,” I say, then I force a laugh, like I’m trying to defuse the situation. “We can’t all be as smart as your sister.”
The silence ignites, and she stares at me.
“Are you fucking serious right now?” She’s trembling, and it almost hurts to meet her gaze.
“I handed you my trauma on a silver platter. I literally told you all of it. About how every time I did something, it was never good enough, because Fia was smarter, or quieter, or easier to deal with, and you just—you say that to me?”
My chest caves in at the devastation in her face. Suddenly, it’s no longer about the grade. It’s about all the old scripts, the bullshit that’s been haunting her since birth.
I try to keep my voice steady. “Angel, just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t mean I can give you a free pass.”
She barks an incredulous sound, but it’s absolutely not a laugh. “Are you for real? That’s all this is to you?” Her whole body is rigid and vibrating, like she’s seconds from bolting—and then, she is. She spins to leave.
Nope—not happening.
I catch her wrist, gentle but unyielding, and haul her back. She whirls, stumbles, and slams against my chest. I wrap her up, crushing her close.
She makes a sound—not quite a word, not quite a whimper, closer to a growl, actually—but then she buries her face in my shirt, fingers digging in at my sides. Her body heaves once, and I hold her tighter.
“No,” I murmur into her hair. “We’re not doing this, angel.
I won’t let you walk out of here on some contrived third-act breakup.
That’s not us. We’re not those assholes who can’t communicate.
I read the books, I know how it goes, and I fucking hate it.
I hate the third-act breakup, I hate the miscommunication and the misunderstanding, I hate the regret.
I especially hate the part where I don’t get to hold you. ”
I stroke her hair, slow and grounding. My other hand rubs her back. She’s pissed—I can feel it in every wire of her body—but she melts a little more with each pass of my palm down the length of her spine.
“Tell me what I can do,” I whisper. “Just… tell me how to make it better, Neve.”
Her breath is hot through the cotton of my shirt as she groans. “You’re right,” she mumbles, barely audible. “I hate that you’re right.”
“Right about what?”
She mumbles something, words going fuzzy against my chest.
“Hey,” I nudge, voice low. “Right about what, angel?”
She huffs a laugh that shakes us both. “It’s dumb.
I knew I was being dramatic, that you didn’t grade me harshly—I think I even knew the grading was anonymous because I’ve heard Cade and Fia talk about it before—but it just…
fuck, it felt personal. It felt mean. I know it’s not, but sometimes it’s like my brain just…
jumps the tracks.” She swallows hard. “I overreacted.”
Christ. I hate how she’s trying to fold herself into this box society has told her she should fit in. She’s allowed to have feelings. She’s allowed to have every single one of them. Hell, she’s allowed to overreact. It’s a fucking human thing to do. None of us are above that.
I tilt her chin up. “It’s okay. Grading is usually anonymous, but there’s going to be overlap between us while you’re studying here. Just know that you can always trust I’ll be objective about your education. I have to be.”
She nods, nose brushing my shirt. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I frame her face in my hands, tilting it up to mine.
She pauses, as if searching for the words. “Because I basically accused you of manipulating me, and I know how much that scares you.”
Something cracks open in my chest. I cup her face.
My thumb sweeps her cheek. “Hey. I didn’t take it like that.
” My voice is rougher than I want, but I can’t seem to smooth it out.
“I know you, angel. There’s no version of you that would ever throw that at me just to hurt me. Not ever. I trust you.”
She gives a slow exhale, then lets out this shaky, incredulous laugh.
I study her face. “What’s funny?”
Her hands slide up to fit against my jaw, fingers scrubbing in my beard. “You said, the other night, that you think you’re falling for me.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t mention it—people say shit during sex, you know? But I think I’m falling for you, too, Grant King.”
Everything in me goes still for the first time in as long as I can remember. There’s not a single cell in my body that doesn’t feel this moment. I blink down at her, wild with it, and then crush my mouth to hers.
Her lips are soft, trembling, and she gasps a little when my tongue rolls over hers. When I break the kiss, my forehead pressed to hers, our noses bumping.
“I wasn’t just saying it,” I whisper. “I meant it.”
She lets out a stunned little sound. I want to bottle it. I want to memorize the way she looks right now, flushed and soft and all mine.
I kiss her again, slower this time. My hands cradle her jaw, thumbs stroking over her cheeks, and I can’t let go. She’s trembling, but so am I. My heart goes tectonic in my chest, shaking my foundations. Every word, every look, every quiver of her mouth. It’s all for me. She’s mine.
She’s mine, and I’m hers.