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“Why?”
“Seriously? Because I’ve been trying to reach out to you for days without any response from you.”
“Some men might take the hint.”
His deep chuckle sounded right beside me as I finally managed to get the oversized suitcase in the trunk. “Some men are too easily scared at the sight of an angry woman.”
“Angry. Who’s angry?”
“You are,” he whispered in my ear. “And you have every damn right to be angry.”
“Gee, thanks,” I offered with a derisive snort. I frowned at the sight of Grant standing on the other side of my car. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He grinned as if this was some kind of game and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “Think I can get a ride back to Pilgrim with you?”
A ride. Back to Pilgrim. “Whatever,” I muttered more to my self than to Grant. “And stop smiling about it.”
His smile didn’t dim even a little. “Yes ma’am.”
The first hour of the drive was made in tense silence, which I didn’t mind all that much since it was difficult enough just being stuck in my small sedan with Grant’s big body and his oversized presence.
“How was your visit with Jessie May?”
“Fine.”
“Mariana finally put me out of my misery and told me you were visiting your sister.” He let out a huff of laughter and I could see him shaking his head. “I thought it meant she was finally starting to forgive me.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “It didn’t?”
“Hell no,” he laughed. “Told me how she made you promise you’d be friends forever, no matter what happened between us, and then she reminded me what a big fat jerk I was before leaving me alone at the dinner table.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that because the little girl was growing up to be quite a spitfire. “She’s comfortable enough with you to be mad, that’s a good sign.” And I was happy for him. For both of them, actually.
“That’s what I keep telling myself, Brenna.”
I ignored the way my name rolled off his tongue and the shiver it produced. He didn’t deserve my sympathy or anything else.
“I’m sorry, Brenna.”
I raised a hand up to stop his words. “We don’t really need to do this Grant. It’s unnecessary.”
He growled. “Unnecessary because you’re not mad at me anymore?”
“Unnecessary because I knew what you were doing and why, at the time.”
“You did? So what’s with the radio silence?” His outrage was palpable and I refused to be affected by that.
“Grant, all you wanted was something casual and that was working great for us, but the way you lashed out at me, that’s not how you treat a casual partner.”
“I know. That’s why I’m sorry.” He raked a hand through his hair and let out a long, slow sigh. “I shouldn’t have said any of what I said to you.”
“You think?” My sarcasm was thick because his apology wasn’t sincere. “You hurt me Grant and that’s what you should be sorry for.”
“I know-,”
“No, Grant, you don’t know. You think I don’t know Mariana isn’t my daughter? Because I held her on the way to the hospital and tried, in vain, to answer the intake questions about her health history. That made it pretty clear who I am to her, just a friend. But that didn’t change how scared I was for her as if she were my kid. You were too busy to pick up your phone and I was happy to step in and help you, and that’s how you repay me, by hurting my feelings.”
“That wasn’t my intention, Brenna, you have to know that.”
“Maybe not but that’s what happened.”
“What does that mean for us?”
“It means your actions showed me exactly how important I am to you, Grant.”
“Obviously not because you are important to me, Brenna. So damn important.”
“No Grant, you like having sex with me and that’s fine, because I liked having sex with you too. But this thing we’re doing has reached its inevitable conclusion.” To punctuate my point, I pulled into his driveway and waited for him to get the hell out of my car.
He did but not without one final parting shot. “This isn’t over, Brenna.”
I didn’t bother responding because it was over, Grant just hadn’t realized it yet. With tears in my eyes, I made my way to my empty house where I didn’t even have a pet to greet me, and found a very pregnant Shannon waiting on my porch with cupcakes and bourbon. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Nope, because there’s nothing to talk about. But I am hungry for cupcakes and thirsty for bourbon. I might even have sweet tea for you and the baby.” Because at the end of the day, all a girl needed was her friends.
Grant
“So you struck out, huh?” The sympathy in Liam’s words took the sting out of his question.
