Chapter 8 #2
“I was. At The Huxley. And you know who else was on a date tonight at The Huxley? Maddy! With Jake!” Aspen was dimly aware that it had come out much louder than the situation called for.
Grace’s hand shot out, locked around Aspen’s wrist, and yanked her over the threshold and into the studio in one swift move. “Aspen Marie St. Claire. Inside voices, please. My landlord lives right there.”
Aspen made a small apology gesture.
Grace let go of Aspen’s wrist and crossed her arms. “Okay, let’s try this again at a reasonable volume, please. So, Maddy was on a date with her ex-boyfriend…while you, too, were on a date…and now you want to pursue Maddy because, what? Seeing her with Jake again made you jealous?”
“No. Yes. No.” Aspen held both palms up and took a breath. “Maddy was on a date with Jake, yes. And it did make me jealous, yes. But that’s not why I want to pursue her. Maddy smiled at me, Grace. Intentionally!”
Grace’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “She smiled at you?”
“Yes! Across the room, tonight, while we were on our respective dates. We locked eyes, and she smiled.” Aspen averted her eyes and shrugged. “I mean, I guess it was more of a smirk, but—”
Grace held her hand in the air to cut her off. “I’m sorry, this whole”—she moved her hand in a circular motion around Aspen’s face—“crazed spiral you’re in right now is because a woman smirked at you?”
Aspen let out a huff. This made so much more sense at the restaurant right before she abruptly ended her date with Danielle.
Danielle had been far more gracious and understanding than Aspen’s horrible date etiquette tonight deserved.
But the clarity that had hit her mid-date had triggered this high-voltage energy—or crazed spiral, as Grace so delicately put it—to course through her with such intensity that she knew there was zero chance she would be able to sit still and smile politely through any more tales about lab mice and protein molecules.
She had to talk to Grace.
Aspen paced. “Look, Maddy may not be as willing to admit it as I am—she may not even be consciously aware of it yet—but there’s something between us. I know there is. And I know that if I do things the right way, she’ll see it too.”
Grace nodded along. “Mhm. And to clarify, you left in what I’m assuming was the middle of your date to bang on my door and tell me all of this because… you want me to talk you out of it?” The last part sounded a little too hopeful for Aspen’s liking.
Aspen stopped pacing. “No. If I wanted someone to talk me out of it, I would have been banging on Chloe’s door, not yours.”
Grace narrowed her eyes. “Okay…well, if you’re not here for me to talk some sense into you, what exactly do you want from me?”
Aspen met her eyes. “I want—no, I need—you to be in my corner on this. I know it sounds crazy. I know it sounds like I’m just repeating the same pattern from high school—”
Grace nodded emphatically.
Aspen pushed on. “—But I’m not. Neither of us is the same as we were in high school. I don’t want to play games this time. I want Maddy to know I’m serious. I want to give her a reason to stay.”
“To stay?” Grace shot her a pointed get real look. “Asp—”
“Not stay stay,”—Aspen quickly cut in—“just…a reason not to leave the second Bunny’s medical clearance comes through and then disappear for another fifteen years. A reason to come back. Preferably, on a very regular basis.”
Grace’s eyes moved over Aspen’s face. Slow. Searching. She did not seem to find what she was looking for. Or she did. Either way, she made a small come with me gesture and turned toward the kitchenette. “Sit.” She snapped her fingers and pointed.
Grace picked up the electric kettle from the counter, refilled it from the tap, set it back on its base, and turned it on.
Her studio was small and lamp-lit and arranged with the spatial economy of a yoga teacher who had thought hard about the joint angle of every piece of furniture in it: a daybed against one wall, a low bookshelf along another, a kitchenette with a three-foot counter and two stools at the back.
The whole place smelled like Grace’s lavender candle she lit when she was winding down at the end of the day.
The kettle began its low warming hum. Grace pulled two mugs down from the cabinet above the kettle and then leaned her hip against the counter and crossed her arms, turning her attention back to Aspen.
“Even if by chance you’re right and Maddy did feel something for you too, Maddy has a whole life in LA, a career.
You expect to win her over and convince her to give all that up in”—Grace lifted her wrist and looked at an invisible watch—“the next three to four weeks?”
“No. Of course not, I’m not naive. And I don’t want her to give anything up.
LA is a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. If she’ll give me a chance, we can make it work.
” Aspen drove further to spend the occasional weekend in Joshua Tree.
Driving two and a half hours to have a relationship with Maddy Sterling was nothing.
Okay, maybe she was getting a little ahead of herself, but the train had left the station, and it was too late to stop it now.
Grace tapped her fingernail on the counter. “Doesn’t she spend like half the year in the Maldives, or something?”
“Fiji. Yes, that part is not ideal. But it’s only three months of the year. I think.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll figure it out.”
The kettle clicked. Grace didn’t turn to it. Her eyes went distant, and she chewed her cheek. Then her brows furrowed. “What about Jake? He’s our friend. If he and Maddy are rekindling things…” She trailed off.
“Jake knows I had feelings for Maddy in high school. I don’t think it will surprise him to find out those feelings have resurfaced. All’s fair in love and war, right?” She laughed, but it fell flat.
She understood Grace’s concern. She had the same one at dinner.
Briefly. But she had been in love with Maddy for two years before Jake ever started dating her in high school.
And it had been fifteen years since either of them had seen or spoken to Maddy.
They had both moved on. And now? Maddy was back, and they were all single, available adults. It truly did feel like all was fair.
Aspen held her gaze. “Jake and I will be okay. If Maddy wants Jake, I’ll accept that, and it won’t affect my friendship with Jake. I trust he’ll feel the same.”
That was what she had decided tonight at The Huxley.
Maddy had been at dinner tonight with Jake, she was assuming, because Jake had asked her to go to dinner with him.
Aspen had never once asked Maddy to do anything with her that wasn’t under the guise of it being logistical in some way.
She needed to ask Maddy out with no pretense.
“So much for not having a crush on her.” Grace’s face shifted, a smirk coming through.
Aspen huffed out half a laugh. Her shoulders released some of the tension she had been holding since bracing for Grace’s reaction.
Grace exhaled all the air from her lungs and threw her hands up. “Does she even date women?”
Aspen chuckled again. Her shoulders dropped the rest of the way down. “No clue. But I’m gonna find out.”
Grace reluctantly laughed too. Then her eyes closed for a beat, and when they opened, her expression had shifted back to concern again. Aspen loved her for it. “And if she leaves again with no intention of coming back?”
“Then I’ll get the closure I need and can truly move on.
” She meant it. It’s why she had to do this.
Maddy had left before because she was an eighteen-year-old whose father had just died, and her entire world had imploded.
She was grieving and traumatized and didn’t know how to cope.
The circumstances now were completely different.
“If I make my intentions clear and my feelings known, and she still chooses to leave and not come back, at least I’ll know she made that choice with all of my cards on the table.
And I’ll respect her choice. Because she never knew before.
In high school. I never told her how I felt.
And I know it wouldn’t have made a difference if I had back then…
” Grace didn’t know the full story of why Maddy had left, but it didn’t seem pertinent to her present situation.
“But now I’ve been handed a second chance, and I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering what if I had told her this time. ”
Grace took two steps closer and cupped Aspen’s face, locking their eyes.
“So what you’re really asking is if I’ll support you in this, knowing there’s a high chance it’s going to end in your destruction.
And it will be up to me to help you pick up the pieces of your shattered heart and glue you back together again? ”
Aspen hadn’t fully considered why it was so important to her to have Grace’s support in this. Until now. In graphic detail. “Yes. That’s what I’m asking.”
Grace let out a long sigh that ended with a small headshake of resignation.
She dropped her hands from Aspen’s cheeks to her shoulders.
“Okay. I will turn off over-protective best-friend mode and get on board. I’m guessing by the determined look in your eye that you have a plan for Operation Woo Maddy Sterling? ”
Aspen grinned. She had a few ideas.