Page 115 of The False Flat

“I’m going to get you some dry clothes,” Celia said, and she left the room before I could tell her that I didn’t need dry clothes.

“Where’s the guest room? I need to talk to him.”

A door opened in the hallway fifteen feet away from me.

That face.

That was what I’d driven two hundred miles in the rain to see. That face. Home.

My chest rose and fell, but that was all the time I let pass. I didn’t wait for him to move.

I ran.

I threw my wet arms around him, and he lifted me off my feet. Then I pulled back and kissed his mouth, a deep kiss that served as the preamble to the next thing I planned to do.

When he set me back down, I didn’t let go. I was never letting go. I grabbed that face between my hands. “Are you listening?”

He tipped his head forward.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.” My voice trailed off in a whisper. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

CHAPTER 46

LIFE REALIZATION #20: MAKEUP IS NOT WHAT MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL

For three seconds, after his smile had faded and we’d finally pulled apart, when his eyes searched my face, I regretted not taking the time to change and make myself presentable. Not in the usual way I’d needed to maintain a flawless face, but when he looked back at this moment, I didn’t want him to remember dark smears under my eyes and hair so big it could knock someone over.

Grant, in his black T-shirt and flannel pj pants, ushered me into a bathroom that looked like a spa you’d find in the wilderness. The candle-like lamps flickered, casting a golden glow across the rough-hewn stones that lined the walls. The sink was a metal bucket and sat atop a whiskey barrel. In the back left of the room, a distressed copper claw-foot tub beckoned guests to shut themselves away behind the burlap shower curtain. Stepping into the detached shower, which had the same natural rock as on the walls, would be like tucking into a cave, another world, protection from everything outside this bathroom. I wanted to pull Grant inside and never come out.

He grabbed a fluffy white towel hanging from an antler sticking out of one of the rocks and wrapped it around my shoulders.

Our silence mingled with the heavy drops beating down on Chuck’s metal roof, a peaceful melody for our reunion as he gently patted me dry.

Then his fingers intertwined with mine, and he lifted my hand to his lips, kissing each finger on my right hand. “I can’t believe you drove here in weather like this. It was too dangerous. I could’ve lost you.”

I wondered if he’d thought he’d already lost me. “Grant, I am so sorry.” Words were inadequate, so I pushed everything I didn’t know how to say into my eyes, hoping they would somehow convey the depth of my regret.

His finger moved to my lips. “Shhh. We’re together right now, and that’s what matters.”

Of course that’s what he would say. That’s who he is. He wasn’t about to let the past stand in the way of his future. And I’d work to make sure he’d never regret his decision to let me back in.

He was the type of man many didn’t understand, but he kept being Grant no matter what.

“And you’re sure you want this?” I gestured to the mess in the round hanging mirror as I held my rapidly frizzing hair in a ponytail with my hand. But what I really meant was the whole mess: me, my life, my hang-ups, my emotional basketcase-ness.

“Yes, Penelope, I am quite sure you are exactly what I want.”

I pointed back toward the mirror. Probably because it kept me from asking if he was sure, really sure, because I still didn’t understand it. “Well, maybe not just like this,” I offered.

“Maybe not just like this.” He moved around me.

For a few seconds I thought he might find me so repulsive that he’d need to leave and let me get myself together, but he grabbed a whiter-than-white washcloth on one of the carved shelves on either side of the whisky barrel. He turned the hot tap on at the sink in front of me and let it run as he moved the cloth back and forth under the water.

I was mesmerized by his hands as they wrung out the cloth and then moved to my face.

“You are beautiful.” He ran the fabric across my forehead with a gentle sweep of his hand. “But you try to hide, behind this.” The cloth swept under my eyes. “You don’t need it.”

He was taking off my makeup, what was left of it at least. I closed my eyes, and he moved over my eyelids, hardly pressing at all. The tenderness of his hand, as it skimmed across every inch of my face, soaked into the pores of my skin all the way to my core.