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“Thank you,” I reply, and then hurriedly and stupidly, I add, “Me, too.”
I exit his car, and that’s when I see we have a problem. Tyler is standing at the bottom of my stairs. He’s watching me, and when our eyes meet, he comes jogging across the street.
“What are you doing?” I seethe.
He slings his arm around my neck. “Looking for you,” he tells me. I smell the pot on his breath.
I tell him I’m tired, which I am. Trouble is, I can’t very well walk to my apartment with Grant watching. So, I stand there making small talk until eventually Grant drives away.
Exactly three minutes later my phone chimes. Friend of yours?
Something like that. I text back.
Just making sure, he writes and then radio silence.
I don’t hear from Grant Dunn again for six days.
I shouldn’t have been so stupid. I contemplate all possible scenarios where I went wrong. He probably realized I stalk his wife online. He isn’t stupid. He makes a living fixing people’s flaws. I shouldn’t have said ‘me too.’ I should have told him how I really feel. I should have been more imaginative. It didn’t even make sense in the context of things. Now he thinks not only am I illiterate but I have a thing for losers, as well.
For six days I scan Josie’s page. Thankfully, this time she posts updates. He buys her a new book, and flowers, lots of flowers. He brings her breakfast in bed. She posts about spin class and book club and brunch with her friends. That’s the kind of woman who deserves a man like Grant Dunn. Not a girl who can’t speak, not someone who has sex with men she doesn’t even like. Not someone like me. I want to change this, but where do I begin? And then it hits me. I’ve taken my eye off what really matters. Her.
Chapter Seventeen
Josie
I’m in the bath when Grant comes storming in. “I found these in your purse,” he says, holding up the bottle of pills. His expression is pained.
“Beth thinks I need them.”
“I know,” he tells me. “But they’re all accounted for. You haven’t touched them.”
“I’m not depressed, Grant.” I sink lower into the water. “We’ve discussed this.”
“I thought you said you’d try, though. I thought you were going to give this,” he says rattling the bottle, “a shot.”
“That was before,” I say, and he knows which before I’m referring to. Before the dining room incident. “I changed my mind.”
He doesn’t say anything in return. He doesn’t like to be reminded of his bad deeds. Not after he’s worked so hard to make them right. I’m still angry with him, and he knows it.
“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” he asks as he climbs in with me. I scoot to make room, and it’s so comfortable, this dance we do. Even though I want to be angry, and I am, I also want things to be normal again. There’s relief in normalcy. I don’t want to forgive him for what he’s done. But I also don’t want to walk on eggshells around him, either. I want a peaceful home for our children.
“It’s healing nicely,” he says, touching the torn skin on my back he has glued together.
“Yes,” I agree. “Thankfully, it’s only a surface wound.”
“Superficial,” he murmurs scratching the skin around it. It feels nice to have him touch me. Also, it itches like crazy as it heals.
“I don’t want to fight,” I tell him, peering up, my head on his chest. “The kids already sense something is wrong, and they have so much going on, us not speaking to one another, or worse, is the last thing they need.”
He frowns. “I don’t either.”
I sigh heavily. “I also don’t want to take antidepressants. I’m not depressed.”
He pats my back. “I know. You just need a break.”
“We both need a break.”
“Speaking of which,” he grins widely, “I’ve booked us a trip.”
