“You really don’t have to walk me home,” Liv repeated for the third time as she swayed and looked up at him.
“I want to,” he assured her again.
He did want to walk her home, but even if he hadn’t, he would still be doing it. She was clearly intoxicated and he needed to make sure that she got home safely.
“Thanks…for that…” She lifted her arm and waved back toward the restaurant. “Back there with Jordan.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
She stopped and put her hand on his arm. Her head nodded up and down as she slurred, “Yesss, you did.”
Grady saw the way she was looking up at him, like he was her hero. He recognized it because it was sort of a hazard of the job. A lot of women found out what he did and looked at him the way Liv was looking at him. He didn’t like the term hero in general, and he sure as hell hadn’t done anything to justify that look in her eyes.
He decided a subject change was in order. “So how long were you and your ex together?”
She held up both of her hands and fanned out her fingers. “A little over ten years.”
“And how long ago did you break up?”
She looked at her hands and then put four fingers down, counted and then smiled. “Six.”
“Six years ago?” They’d really planned ahead for the wedding.
“Six months ago.”
Fuck.If he’d had a relationship that had lasted over a decade and ended a few months ago and the person he was supposed to be walking down the aisle with showed up to his cousin’s wedding with a date, he’d be...upset. Maybe that’s why she’d finished off a bottle of wine last night and had drunk so much tonight. She was still reeling from the breakup.
“And tomorrow would have been your wedding?”
“Weird, right?” she asked as she stumbled forward.
He reached out and steadied her. His hands grasped her elbows and she pressed her hands to his chest. He wondered if she could feel his heart pounding beneath her palms.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Me? Yeah. I haven’t even been thinking about it. I’ve had other things to deal with, you know with my grandad.”
He’d been asking if she was okay to walk but now he knew she hadn’t really had time to get over her breakup because she’d been so busy taking care of her grandfather.
He slowly lowered his hold of her and they continued walking.
“Actually...” She stopped up short and turned toward him. “It’s not even that. I think after I got over the shock of the breakup, I was glad he did what he did. Life isn’t perfect, and if he was going to bail the first time he didn’t get his way, pffft I’m glad he did it before we got married.”
“Is that what he did? Bail?” Grady knew that it was none of his business, and he doubted that Liv would have been talking about this so freely if she hadn’t had some liquid truth serum, but he still found himself asking the questions.
She held up her pointer finger in front of his face. “One year ago, I moved to my grandad’s house, you know, to take care of him. At first, I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be there. But after a few months I knew it was going to be for a while. Jordan said if he was important to me, I would figure something out and move back in with him. When I said I couldn’t do that he said he didn’t see how our relationship could progress if I didn’t put him first. So yeah, the first time he didn’t get his way in ten years he bailed.”
Grady had never been a particularly violent man. But he wanted badly to knock a few of Haircut’s perfect teeth out of his mouth.
“Whoa.” Liv stopped and her eyes widened. “You look mad.”
“I just…” He paused, there was no way he could tell her what he was actually feeling and thinking. He had no reason to feel as protective as he did about her and he didn’t want to come off like a psycho. “I just don’t like assholes.”
Her head fell back and a laugh bubbled up. “I know you meant people, but for some reason I just got a visual of you know, actual…” She made a circle with her finger and thumb and she hiccupped again and put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I think I might be a little drunk.”
“Let’s get you home.”
They walked another block in silence, then she started humming theme songs to TV shows and telling him to name them. He was able to name X-Files, Laverne & Shirley, Friends and The Addams Family, although in fairness the snaps were a dead giveaway. He missed Dawson’s Creek, and Love Island, two shows he’d never seen before.