Arm Candy (Real Love #2)(27)
I kiss her one last time. “I have a thing.”
“A thing? Tonight?”
“Tomorrow, actually, but it starts really early.” Like at 12:01 A.M.
A flash of what may be disappointment crosses her face before she purposefully brightens. “No problem. Maybe we can wrap up our platinum package tomorrow night.”
She lifts one eyebrow and bites her bottom lip. Waiting.
I hate to tell her no. But I have to.
“Tomorrow is bad for me.”
Her smile disappears.
Shit. This is the reason I also don’t get entwined with a woman on the day before the day. This is awkward. Grace and I don’t do awkward.
“The weekend might work,” I say.
“Sure.” She nods, but she’s not happy about it.
I finish buttoning my shirt and pull on my suit jacket. “I’ll let myself out.”
“?’Kay.”
I wave over my head as I jog down the stairs. At her door I hazard one last glance up the stairs at Grace, her hair a wild tornado, her quilt piled around her gloriously nude body. Her eyes on mine.
I don’t want to leave.
“Sext me,” I say. Then I leave anyway.
In my car I crank the heat—a cold spell kicked in while I was in Grace’s house. I shift into Drive as a text tone sounds from my cell. At the stop sign I check it.
An engorged purple eggplant lights my screen.
I scroll through the emojis and tap the peach, pleased when the cartoon fruit closely resembling Grace’s ass hits the screen as my reply.
I toss the phone on the seat and grin as I navigate home. The text tone sounds twice more, but I don’t check it until I’m in my own house, heading up the stairs.
As I predicted, the first one reads LOL.
The second one I didn’t see coming.
Here if you need to talk. About one “thing” or another.
She’s sweet.
I’m not planning on talking about it. I’ll get through tomorrow the way I do every year. As painlessly and quickly as possible.
And a little drunk.
Just a little.
Chapter 10
Davis
Five A.M. comes early.
I leap out of bed, clap my hands together, and decide it’s going to be a banner fucking day.
I’m going to make my clients a shit-ton of money. I decree it.
I realize as I shave, dress, and tie my shoes that this is a coping mechanism. But it works—which is why coping mechanisms were invented, so here we are.
An hour into my workday, one of the guys from work calls to ask for advice on an account. I take the call. Simps (short for his last name, Simpson) is younger than me both in this business and in birthdays. I first met him at a work retreat a year or so ago, and then he came to the poker night I hosted over the summer. I work with—well, not with, more like alongside—some incredibly driven men and women, but Simps manages to run circles around the competition without being a flaming dick weed, so points to him.
I’m hungry for lunch by eleven thanks to my early hours and the amount of pacing I’ve done while talking on the phone. I rinse my coffee mug and reheat a hearty bowl of chili. I pair it with a grilled cheese, and because I’m eating my feelings today, I make one layer of cheese Gruyère and the other layer Brie. I top the cheese with thin slices of Bartlett pear and the pièce de résistance: raspberry jam. I grill it to a buttery golden brown that would make any chef weep.
I bite into my masterpiece, expecting to be so turned on by my sandwich that we might need a moment together. Instead I’m hammered with a memory. One I didn’t see coming.
One I should have seen coming.
It involves my ex-fiancée, Hanna, and her affinity for Brie on melba toast with a dab of raspberry jam.
The bite goes rancid in my mouth, and it was a big one. I block my throat and chew, but for all my efforts, I may as well be navigating a mouthful of setting cement.
That memory leads to another—the way Hanna used to leave her shoes scattered around the house.
And another—her voice echoing through the foyer as she spoke to her mother for an hour each Saturday morning.
I finally get the bite down, deeply in need of a wet drink to coax it to my stomach. At the fridge I overlook the pitcher of water and a container of orange juice and focus on the line of Sam Adams bottles staring back at me.
Every year I get through this day with relatively few flashbacks. On rare occasions, thoughts of Hanna and our life together assault me. The last time it happened was four years ago—I thought I was over it. Guess not.
This is going to suck.
I swipe a bottle from the shelf and decide to start drinking sooner than I originally planned…like now.
Now seems good.
Grace
Margo comes in at five o’clock. She’s my bartending and managerial relief. I’m so glad she’s back, I could kiss her. I refrain, but I do thank her for not leaving me forever.
“How were tango lessons?” I ask.
“Good.” Her eyes brighten. “My husband and I try and do things together to keep the love alive.” She’s never shared anything personal with me since I met her, but I try not to overreact. “He can’t dance a single step, but he tries, and that means something.”