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“GRACIE, I SWEAR TO GOD,” Lou screeched at full pterodactyl strength.
“Sorry.” Grace jerked her head up and tried to reach for the phone, but only succeeded in almost knocking herself unconscious by slamming face-first into the fridge door. “Fuck!”
“What the hell is going on over there?” Lou asked, voice fading in and out as Grace swayed.
“Just trying to—give me a sec, okay?” Grace braced her hands on the counter and shook her head. Being a girlfriend was hard. She would be lucky if she survived the weekend.
She rubbed her head and sighed, grabbing a bag of trail mix which was only mostly chocolate and grabbed her phone.
“I’m going away with Anton.”
“That doesn’t explain all that banging and cursing?” Lou said, but a second later she said, “Or does it…”
“Listen, the noise was me trying to girlfriend while talking to you on the phone.”
“It sounded like you almost died.”
“Very nearly,” Grace muttered, throwing the trail mix in her bag with a grimace. “I wasn’t sure if I should feed him. I mean, I’m bringing coffee and that’s normal, right?”
There was a beat of silence before Lou giggled. “Oh, Gracie.”
“Don’toh Gracieme. I’m serious about this. No one ever tells you what to do when you get a boyfriend or what to do when you go away together, alright? This is all new. I’d rather be staring at one of your ridiculous theorems than doing this. At least there are rules there. I have no clue what the hell I’m doing right now.”
Lou blew out a heavy sigh. “Relationships aren’t about rules, Gracie. You don’t have to check off things nice and neat, okay? Relax and enjoy Anton. It’s all about getting to know one another, not keeping order. Just be you. You don’t have to be perfect. He isn’t going to hold it against you that you don’t know what you’re doing. This isn’t like home.”
Grace went still, her fingers tightening around the coffee mug she had been about to pour coffee into, her eyes dropping to the countertop at Lou’s last words.
This isn’t like home.
She didn’t have to be perfect, though that need to pretzel-twist herself into whatever best suited the comfort of those around her still weighed on her shoulders. She’d always been a chameleon: at home in Arizona, in the classrooms of her university and now in the meetings with other directors of research or at the dressy galas she and Lou had to attend. It would have been a lot for her, even without the added hurt from her family life, which had been less like a home and more like a tomb.
Grace cleared her throat and went back to the task of pouring Anton coffee. She’d much rather prepare for the trip than remember exactly whatbeforemeant. Before hurt too much.
“When did you become the relationship whisperer, huh? I’m supposed to be the one who reminds you that you’re not a robot bent on science domination.”
Lou scoffed. “Look, I can people. Just because I don’tlikedoing it with very many people doesn’t mean that Ican’tdo it. And for you? I would people so hard.”
Grace blinked back against the tears that welled up in her eyes. “Thank you for peopling for me,” she choked out. “You’re the best friend a woman could ask for.”
“Don’t I know it,” Lou said and then added, “but so are you, Gracie.”
“Love you,” Grace sniffled, wiping her tears away before they could do much damage to the natural, but hopefully sexy, eye makeup she had painstakingly applied for the first leg of her weekend away with Anton. If her makeup was flawless then he wouldn’t notice what a nervous wreck of a woman she was. She couldn't ruin hours of experimenting with YouTube makeup tutorials with tears. Not when Anton was due to pick her up any minute.
“Stop crying, damn you. You’re going away on a romantic weekend, not a death sentence to the gallows. He’s going to think you’re nuts if you walk out crying,” Lou chastised her.
Grace rolled her eyes and dabbed at them. “Thanks for the tip, mom.”
“Anytime, darling. Now go get yourself together and enjoy this weekend.”
“Are you sure you’re okay without me?” Grace asked. Things had been tense since the data had been stolen, and she was still leery of running away for a weekend without Lou. “I don’t have to go, you know? We can stake out the labs and catch the asshole who stole the data.”
Lou made a snorting sound. “Don’t worry about a thing back here. I’m going to be fine. You’ll see.”
“But y-”
“No. I mean it, Gracie. I want you to go and enjoy this weekend. I’m a big girl. I can handle this. The data is still going to be stolen when you get back, and I promise that you can go absolutely wild trying to find the thief when your little romantic getaway is over.”
“Do you promise?”
