The Lies That Bind(32)

“No. I mean here. In this room,” he says, glancing at me, then back to his brother.

Grant starts to answer, but I stop him, and say it was my fault, that I wanted to come, that I wanted to meet him.

“Because you think you might end up with him?” Byron says. “Is that it?”

“Byron,” Grant says under his breath. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” he shouts back. “You do whatever the hell you want to do, with whoever you want to do it with, with no apparent consequence, but I can’t have the one thing I want?”

“Not if it means giving up,” Grant says, as I stand and back my way out of the room.

“I’m going now,” I say when I get to the door, but nobody is listening, the two brothers yelling back and forth.

When I get to the hall, I burst into tears, then break into a run, berating myself for coming to the hospital. For coming to London at all. It was stupid and selfish and wrong. Just as I reach the elevator, Grant comes around the corner, grabbing me by the wrist, telling me to stop.

“I have to go,” I say. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Grant says, out of breath. “He just gets this way sometimes. It’s not personal. Can you just wait for me? A little longer?”

I shake my head and say no, he needs to stay, and I need to go.

“Okay. But can I see you later?” he asks. “Maybe?”

“Just call me,” I say—because it’s easier than saying no.

As the elevator doors finally open, Grant tells me he loves me. But all I hear is him telling his brother: We’re just friends.





When I get back to our hotel, I’m relieved to find Scottie sprawled across the bed and snoring. The clothes he wore last night are in a pile in the bathroom, reeking of cigarette smoke, a telltale sign that he went out. I’m glad he did. For his sake and also because this means he may be too hungover to grill me—at least not before I can process my feelings.

I’m overwhelmed by what Grant and I finally did last night, and feeling deeper in love than ever, but I’m also traumatized and worried. We’re just friends. His words play in a loop in my head, and all the while I see that look he had on his face. What was it? Regret? Guilt? Why would he lie to his brother about us? Or was this closer to the truth? Are we, in Matthew’s words, just a summer fling?

As I get in bed, Scottie’s eyes flutter open. “Hey,” he says, making his hungover, cotton-mouth face.

“Hi,” I say. “Big night?”

“Uh-huh,” he says, then winces. “Is it just me—or is this bed spinning?”

“Might just be you.”

“Make it stop,” he moans.

“Did you drink any water when you came home?”

“Yeah. I think so,” he says, glancing over at the nightstand. “I don’t remember….”

I hand him the full glass by the bed, and say, “Drink more.”

    He does, as I ask whether whatever he got up to last night was worth the pain.

“Hell, yeah,” Scottie says, smirking through a grimace.

“Oh? How cute is he?” I ask.

“So cute. Let’s just say—I thought he was Enrique Iglesias…right down to his button nose and black knit cap.” He smiles, then asks about my night.

“Long story,” I say with a sigh.

“Wait. Did you finally do it?”

I put my face in my hands and nod, then brace myself for his onslaught of invasive questions. Sure enough, they come in a flood. Was he good? Better than Matthew? The best you’ve ever had?

I evade with a yawn, then come right out and tell him it’s none of his business.

Scottie raises his eyebrows. “Oh my God. So awesome,” he says. “You totally did it.”

I yawn again and suggest we both go back to sleep for a bit.

“Okay,” Scottie says. “And when we wake up, you can tell me the rest.”

“The rest?”

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes now closed, his forehead completely wrinkled in pain. “Something else happened. Besides the good sex.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because,” he says, opening one eye to look at me. “I know your face. I know you. But you’re off the hook for now. My head hurts too much to talk anymore.”



* * *



—

Scottie and I don’t really talk until later that day, after we’ve both napped, then walked around Kensington and Notting Hill, underachieving on the tourist front. Around two, we return to the Muffin Man for tea and scones, and I finally confide the rest—from Byron’s attempted suicide to the metaphysical debate about ending one’s life prematurely to the disastrous meeting at the hospital to what Grant said about us. Just friends.

    Scottie listens intently, as he always does. He first expresses deep sympathy for what the two brothers are going through. He then discusses euthanasia, coming down on the side of Byron, saying that he should be able to make decisions about his life—including whether to end it with dignity, on his own terms. He then opines on the obvious—that it probably wasn’t the best idea for me to meet him, especially right now, but that I should look on the bright side: the introduction happened for a reason.