The Lies That Bind(18)

“Well, yeah, actually,” he says. “But I wasn’t just talking about looks….You have a totally different vibe.”

“How so?” I ask, as I suddenly realize that I’m not jealous. Not at all. I just want to know everything about him.

He sighs and says, “Oh, I don’t know….If you were magazines—Amy would be Town & Country…and you’d be The Atlantic.”

    I know it’s supposed to be a compliment, but I laugh and say, “Only one of them is filled with beautiful people.”

“Shallow, surface beauty,” he says with a shrug.

“Sounds like Amy would be great with my ex,” I say, picturing Matthew in the Hamptons. Feeling a little guilty, I add, “He’s a great guy…but yeah…very Town & Country.”

Grant nods, then says, “Can I ask you a ‘what if’?”

I tell him sure, and he says, “What if you had been dating him when we met?”

Even though I just had this conversation with Jasmine, the question still flusters me. “Well…I wouldn’t have been at that bar alone if we’d been dating,” I say, trying to get out of the substance of the question.

“Just pretend you were. Would you have shut me down right away?”

“Maybe not right away…That feels a little presumptuous. I really couldn’t tell if you were even interested….”

He rolls his eyes and says, “Stop with that.”

“I swear I couldn’t. At first.”

“Okay. But once you could tell?” he presses. “Then what would you have done?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess I would have worked him into the conversation.”

Grant nods, then says, “But you would’ve at least talked to me?”

“Yeah. Of course.” I smile, remembering. “But I wouldn’t have taken you home. Obviously.”

“That’s actually not obvious,” he says. “It happens. All the time. To good people.”

“I know,” I say, wondering if it ever happened to him. “But I, personally, would never do that. I mean, it may have crossed my mind with you…but I would have pushed the thought away.”

He nods, then says, “Do you believe in fate?”

I take a sip of wine before saying, “I think I do…but I also believe in free will.”

    “Isn’t that a contradiction?” Grant asks.

“Maybe,” I say. “I just mean—that we choose. But I think God knows what we’re going to choose. He knows what will ultimately happen.”

“So you believe in God?” he asks.

“Yes. Definitely. Do you?”

“I’m not sure,” he says with an expression I can’t quite read. “Ask me again in a few months.”



* * *



—

It’s sometime in the middle of the night. Our loft is dark, the curtain closed around our bed. Grant reaches back for me, pulling me closer, kissing me, touching me, the intensity building as we inch closer to the inevitable. I whisper that I want him. He groans and kisses my neck and says he wants me, too. So much. Then he asks if it’s safe, or if he needs to get something. I tell him that it’s safe, I’m on the pill, now desperate to feel him inside me. We are right there, on the threshold, when he stops abruptly and says, “Baby…we should wait.”

“Why?” I say, my heart sinking, my body aching, although I love that he’s just called me baby. I try to focus on that.

“Because,” he says with a shudder. “I’m leaving…and I think I love you…I know I love you.”

“Oh, Grant,” I whisper back, my eyes filling with tears. “I love you, too.”

My mind races, thinking in some ways, it makes no sense. Why would we wait if we love each other? But in other, bigger ways, it feels like the right decision. He holds me so tight, and I have the feeling he might be crying a little, too.

“This weekend has been perfect,” he says.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “It has.”

“And I want to do this so bad. But I don’t want to leave you after we…I’d rather get through some things…and come home….And then we can really be together.”

    “Okay,” I say.

“So you’ll wait for me?” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “For as long as it takes.”





Over the next two weeks, Grant and I spend as much time as we can together. Between work and all that he has to do to get ready for London, it doesn’t add up to much. But we spend our nights together at my apartment, sticking to our torturous plan to wait to have sex.

Meanwhile, I vacillate between the euphoria of being in love and the dread over his looming departure, counting down the days and then the hours. I would be lying if I said Matthew never crossed my mind, at least in the form of an occasional stab of shame and confusion that I could go from one guy to the next so abruptly and completely. But I tell myself that life and love sometimes don’t make sense, and it isn’t something I need to dwell on.

That is, until one morning when an email from Matthew pops up on my computer screen at work.