The Design(43)

…



I woke up sometime later to the sound of my apartment door slamming shut. A drunk Hannah stumbled in, giggling as she made her way through the apartment. A loud thud, shuffling feet, and more giggles hinted at the fact that she’d probably just tripped over the same pair of high heels that Grayson had only a few hours earlier.

I turned my head to see Grayson staring up at the ceiling, awake as well. Chances were, he was contemplating the very things that were running through my own mind. We’d just had sex. Rock-your-mama’s-socks-off sex, but now we had to repackage our relationship as best as possible.

I kept repeating the same phrases over and over again in my head: “This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on. This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on.”

“You need to distract Hannah while I leave,” he said, pushing off the bed. I stayed still for a moment, studying the contours of his body before he found his pants and pulled them on in one deft motion.

I didn’t want to be sad that he was leaving. I would have left too if I were him. What were we going to do? Snuggle up together and fall sleep, then wake up and make breakfast together? That scenario didn’t fit into our reality, so I pushed the pang of sadness aside and tried to make the best of the situation.

“Can’t you just go out the window like they do in the movies?” I asked with a cheeky smile.

He shot me a deathly glance that was more charming than threatening, but I still pushed myself up off my bed.

“It’s up to you. Do you want your roommate knowing that I was here?” he asked, reaching for his shirt and slipping it back on. There were far more wrinkles in it now that it’d made its debut on my bedroom floor. Even with the wrinkles, when he had his shirt and suit pants back on, he looked far more like the CEO of Cole Designs and far less like the man who’d waited for me outside of my apartment earlier that night.

I found my robe behind my closet door and pulled it on before heading toward my door. I reached for the knob and glanced back. Grayson was standing there encased in moonlight, watching me watch him. There was so much to say and yet neither of us spoke a word.

I opened the door a smidgen and pushed through, praying that Hannah wasn’t standing on the other side.

She wasn’t. She was in our shared bathroom at the end of the hallway, brushing her teeth and leaning heavily on the counter.

“Hannah! You’re home!” My acting was mediocre at best, but at least she was probably too drunk to notice.

“Hey roomie,” she said, not bothering to pull her toothbrush out of her mouth. Toothpaste sprayed across the mirror and Hannah erupted in a fit of giggles. Yeah, hilarious.

“Here, let me help you with that,” I said, stepping into the bathroom and pulling the door closed behind me so that Grayson could sneak out without being seen.

Hannah kept right on brushing her teeth as I barricaded the door closed as casually as possible. I listened as she spit out details of her night—at least I thought that’s what she was saying over the sound of the electric tooth brush—but my hearing was actually tuned to the front door as I waited for the audible click.

“You missed so much!” she exclaimed, leaning over the sink and using toilet paper to wipe away her eye makeup. It wasn’t working very well, but she didn’t seem to mind. “You and Grayson were both missing! Grayson, ugh. I wish he had showed up. I really wanted to have a drink with him.” I nodded while my cheeks flamed red. Would she still be raving about Grayson if she knew what had just taken place?

“He was supposed to be there. He would have looked so f*cking hot in one of those suits he always wears.” She continued droning on about him, but my emotions were too raw to handle a drunk version of Hannah raving about Grayson. My Grayson. I left her to finish up in the bathroom and stepped back out into the hallway with a tinge of hope still burning. Maybe he hadn’t left. Maybe he was still in my room.

When I got to the doorway of my room and found it empty, I breathed in the taste of disappointment. My eyes swept over the dark space to take in the crumpled bed sheets, my clothes scattered across the floor, the condom wrapper left on my nightstand. Grayson had ripped it open with his mouth in the heat of the moment. Those things were the only evidence that Grayson had been there at all and yet they weren’t enough to sustain me.

This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, wondering what I was supposed to do. Go to sleep? Wake up and go through the motions?

This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on.

I moved to my bed and breathed in the remnants of Grayson’s cologne and aftershave. I crawled onto the very center of the sheets, where his scent was the strongest, and wrapped my bedding around myself. With every inhale, I breathed in his aftershave, and with every exhale, I reminded myself that nothing was different.

Now move on.





Chapter Seventeen


Despite my best efforts to get rid of her, Hannah stood next to me in the office’s kitchen Tuesday morning, sipping her coffee and getting on my last nerve.

“I can’t wait until I see Grayson,” she said, leaning against the counter with a dreamy look in her eyes. “I’m going to find out why he didn’t show up to the bar last night.”