“Grace,” I said her name in a similar tone. “There’s no hurry for me to get a job. I’ve got savings.”
“What were you saving for?” she asked, pulling us off topic.
Annoyed, I looked away. I was gonna have to stop pushing it. It wasn’t getting me anywhere. I rubbed a hand over my face, feeling the growth of hair. I shrugged. “A house? Something to settle down with? The shit you’re supposed to do when you grow up.”
“You shouldn’t blow through your savings,” she said as she sat forward again. “Especially if it was something that you have been working toward for a while.”
“There’s no hurry to get to that,” I said, leaning back. I slouched further on the couch, giving up. “It was an idea at some point when I had someone that I thought I’d live in it with. Now I’m comfortable with how things are here. Buying a house with Cam seems weird, and I don’t want anyone to assume we’re more than friends.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about it,” she grumbled. “You’re too sensitive as it is when it comes to things touching while we’re in bed. I’m pretty positive that if anyone looks at you, they’ll see you’re straight.” She stopped scrolling and turned to look at me again. “Did you ever work in finance?”
“There’s not really a finance department at the dealership. There was a bank that your dad has an arrangement with. He gives them business with clients if there’s someone there to take calls,” I explained evenly. “If a finance guy is ever at the dealership, he works for the bank, not your dad. He’s just getting a kickback for helping your old man out.”
“Do you think you could do that?”
“I’m embarrassingly shit at math,” I admitted.
“I need you to help me out here, Adam,” she finally snapped. “I have no idea what you’re capable of and how to help you move on from the shit show I caused.”
“Why do you feel you have to fix it?”
“I need to do it,” she said, offering me no room for argument. “I regret letting it go the way it did. If I had been smart, I wouldn’t have even done all of it. I should’ve just made fun of finding Cameron on a dating app and left it at that.” She turned back to her computer. “You’d still be living your lives like nothing happened.”
I looked at the back of her head, taking in her tangled hair. From what I could see of her cheeks, they were flushed, and the set of her shoulders was tight. I didn’t like the feeling it gave me. I’d rather be turned on and turned down than see this.
“Would you regret all of it if your brother hadn’t walked in on us?” I asked. “If this hadn’t all gone to shit?” I put my chin in the palm of my hand, eyeing her as I contemplated what her reaction might be. And why I cared.
Grace didn’t look back at me, her attention on my computer. She went to another page on the job listing, biting her lip. Her lack of an answer bothered me more than I wanted it to. The longer the silence stretched, the more angry I found myself feeling.
I got up and reached over her shoulder to close the laptop. I didn’t pull back. I leaned into her shoulder. “If you think you would have regretted it, then why are you here?”
I could hear her swallow, and it irritated me she would even be afraid of me. “Grace,” I said, trying to sound reasonable.
“No, I wouldn’t regret it.” She looked up at me. “What would you want?” She shifted so she was facing me. “What do you even want me to say? That I wanted this? I wanted to have a relationship with the three of you?” Her voice raised as she got in my face. “Do you want to hear about how much I wanted this?”She didn’t let up even as I pulled away. “How about how much it fucking hurt when you threw all the blame on me? Do you want to hear about that too?”
“I hear you,” I shouted. “I get it.”
“Do you?” she snapped back at me. “Because you seem to think the only reason I’m here is because I was down to fuck. Let me make something clear,” she said as she stood up. “That’s not the case anymore. This isn’t about sex anymore. This is about salvaging the shit I thought was developing here before Kyle came and fucked it all up for me. Do you understand?”
I wasn’t prepared for her honesty. I definitely wasn’t ready for the shock of having her damn near slap me in the face with it. I struggled to think of something to say to her, something that would calm her down and keep her from continuing the tirade. I raised both hands and scooted back on the couch, giving her room.
Something in her eyes darkened, and she straightened away from me. “Do you get it, Adam?” she prodded. “My only regret is that I got caught up in it so fast that I was worried about making it work before it even had a chance.”
Grace didn’t give me the opportunity to say anything after that. She turned swiftly and started toward the door. I wasn’t dumb enough to let her get there. I caught her around the waist with both arms and pulled her to a halt.
I held onto her, knowing if she left again that it might give her a reason to not come back. “If you don’t regret it, then don’t feel like it’s just on you to fix it,” I said into her ear. I tightened my arms around her even though she didn’t break the hold I had on her. I just needed to hang on. “Stop trying to fix it. I’m just as guilty as you are for starting all of it. I want to be in it. I want to keep you. But you can’t shoulder the responsibility alone.”
“If you don’t want me to fix it,” she whispered, “what do you want me to do?”
I held onto her, suddenly speechless. Fear choked me as I buried my face in her hair. I could think of a few things that I thought might placate her. All of them made me feel exposed. I didn’t like it and I couldn’t make myself say something that wasn’t true.
But I couldn’t say the L word either. Not yet. Not after everything that happened, and when it felt like shit was still uncertain.
“I just want to forget Kyle fucked it all up,” I admitted finally. “I just want it to be like it should’ve been when the four of us were together.” I took a breath, breathing her in. She smelled like me, likely from the brief shower she’d had. “I just want to hit rewind. Fuck my job. Don’t leave.”
Grace leaned back into me. “I need to go home. If I’m going to make it look like I was sick, I’ll need to be there before Shay gets home in case Kyle calls her.” She turned without pulling out of my grasp. “But just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I won’t come back. It doesn’t mean this is over.” She took a breath and cupped my face. “I wouldn’t have come here last night if I didn’t want something from you.”
“I want to give you whatever you want,” I assured her.