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Grant exhaled. “Will you call or text if you change your mind? Your number is set to break through my Do Not Disturb setting. I can be there any hour. Promise me.”
I nodded, though he couldn’t see. “I promise.”
“Okay, good. Good. Okay.” Grant snorted. “Christ, I sound like an idiot. You know… I became a doctor so I could fix things,” he said quietly. “Make people better. I hate that I can’t do that for you right now.”
“You have.” Just talking to him for a few moments made me feel settled in a way I hadn’t all day. “Really, Grant.”
He paused for a long moment, during which neither of us spoke, and the air around me buzzed with the things I wanted to say but couldn’t bring myself to yet.
Like,I love you.
Like,I want this to be real so badly.
Like,I want to fight for you. For my family.
“I’ll let you sleep,” Grant said finally. “But call me if you… Oh. Uh. Guess I already said that, huh?” He laughed softly. “Good night, sweetheart.”
He ended the call before I could say anything, but I could tell I was wearing a goofy smile on my face as I put the phone down. Anything I would have said in return would have sounded as goofy and giddy as I felt.
Maybe Fen was right. Maybe I had overreacted to Liza’s sudden appearance.
Grant cared about me. That much was obvious. And it was nice to hear he was also a little mixed up about things like I was. Tomorrow, we’d talk about it, clear the air. And maybe, just maybe, we could find a way to make it work.
I fell into an exhausted but peaceful sleep, imagining that I’d be back in Grant’s arms the following day.
But I should have known it wouldn’t be quite that easy.
11
GRANT
“And since when do we listen to Liza?” my sister, Gwen, demanded in a low voice so the parents around us couldn’t hear. We were standing on the edge of a wide, grassy robotics practice field—a thing I’d swear could only be found at Mountbatten—surrounded by groups of excited kids from several other schools and a collection of robots that were about to do battle… or something like that.
“Since she made a good point. Brody deserves to know he has an out,” I said determinedly. What I did not say was that I was equally determined to make sure he didn’t take it. I wanted Brody towantour marriage to be real, to make that choice of his own free will, but I was prepared to be very convincing.
At least… I hoped I was prepared. I’d tossed and turned all night, organizing my thoughts, and when I’d finally woken from a fitful sleep around dawn, I’d resorted to arranging my thoughts on flash cards, just like I had in med school, to be sure I didn’t miss any salient points.
First, though, I needed Brody to show up. I needed to see him with my own eyes and reassure myself that he was alright. I searched the parking lot again for a sign of his arrival, but he wasn’t there.
Thankfully, I was distracted from my thoughts by the man next to me muttering under his breath. “What are parents supposed to do at a robotics competition? Cheer? Scream at our team’s robots to kick those other kids’ robots’ asses? What?”
The man he was with said, “Blue, baby, simmer down and just watch, okay?”
“I’m here to support our child, Tristan, and you already took away my poster board sign and my pom-pom, and my emergency pom-pom, too—”
“Mmhmm. We talked about this in the car. Ella specifically asked you to chill after last time.”
I was desperate to avoid my sister’s interrogation, so I feigned interest in the men’s conversation. “I have to ask… what happened last time?”
The man closest to me—Blue—had strawberry blond hair, a mischievous grin, and an abundance of freckles. “I had T-shirts made.”
“Don’t ask,” Tristan said with a sigh. “My husband thinks he’s hilarious.”
My ears perked up when I realized the two of them were another same-sex parent couple. “No, I need to know. What did the shirts say?”
“Uh.” Blue shot a quick glance at his husband and flushed. “I Like Big Bots and I Cannot Lie?”
I burst out laughing.
