“Well, at first, I thought …” my voice trembled. “I thought a man like him wouldn’t want someone like me.”
A heavy silence enveloped the car, their unspoken responses speaking volumes. “I thought it was flirtation, an unrequited crush. When he left, I thought I’d never see him again.”
Kate’s curious eyes gleamed. “But something happened yesterday?”
“He took a cab straight from New York to my place, showed up at 3am. I told him I had to talk to you because your friendship —”
Mallory’s forehead dropped against the dashboard, hard enough to bruise.
Ignoring Mallory’s drama, Kate propped her elbows on the headrests and leaned so far forward that she might as well have climbed into the bench seat.
“Did he kiss you, Grace? Really kiss you?” Kate’s eager voice brimmed with delight. Mallory’s head tilted, caught between curiosity and dismay.
My cheeks flushed, heart pounding. Kate nudged my shoulder. “Come on, she’ll survive. How many of her hookup stories have we endured? Tell me the truth. He kissed you, didn’t he? How was it?”
“It felt like ...” my fingertips brushed over my bottom lip, “he somehow studied how I always dreamed of being kissed and wanted to ace the exam.”
A low, pained moan reverberated from the passenger seat.
Satisfied, Kate ignored Mallory’s reaction and leaned forward to grab the Tupperware. She scraped up the last remnants of caramel before posing the crucial question to her best friend. “Are you going to greenlight this?”
“Shit, do I have to?”
“Nope, because she’s a grown-ass adult and doesn’t need your permission, but she’s courteous enough to ask for it. Plus you’ll look like a real bitch if you don’t, especially when you’re always telling her to date more.”
“I found her a hot doctor!”
“The heart wants who it wants.”
“But does the heart have to want Alex?” She jiggled my shoulder, trying to shake sense into me. “Grace, if you want to hook up with a Clarke so badly, we can be platonic life partners. I’ll marry you and have your babies, as long as you promise to do all the child-rearing and let me have some D on the side.”
I laughed. Kate pretended to be offended. “I thought that offer was only for me.”
“You rejected me to marry Paul, I have to move on.”
“Even if you don’t approve, she should do it anyway. She somehow makes Alex … well, not exactly likable, but tolerable.”
“But you’ve never liked Alex. Why the sudden defense?” Mallory asked.
I bristled, “You don’t like Alex?”
“He’s always rubbed me the wrong way. The day we met, he promised to buy some of my artwork ‘when he made his first million’ like a pretentious snob and kept calling me Kayla.”
“He called me Lacey on our first phone call,” I confessed to her delight.
“But I’m not going to bat for Alex, I’m doing it for Grace,” Kate leaned forward to squeeze my shoulder. “Did you see how he looks at her? Grace deserves that. Even if it comes from Alex.”
Mallory unwound her leg as she pulled her thoughts together. “I’ve never seen him as emotional as he was last night. Ever. He’s been wrestling with a lot of shit this past month. We all have. Seeing Dad …” she swallowed at the weight of what they’d been through. “But I’m not sure … he doesn’t live here, Grace. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Mallory was right. He lived across the country. He was a workaholic and a terrible communicator. The obstacles loomed large.
But I still wanted him. “Don't worry, we pinky promised not to fall in love.”
“Now I know you’re shitting me,” she muttered.
I held my pinky across the center console and she wrapped hers around in disbelief. We both kissed our thumbs, then I dropped my voice low and husky to quote him, “I’m not your lawyer and this pinky agreement is in no way legally binding.”
She burst out laughing. I mustered the courage to ask the question running laps around my heart. “So if I were to give him a chance, would things change between us?”
“You mean, would I eventually overcome the nonstop nausea? Of course. Kate’s living proof of that.”
My head swiveled towards the back seat, where Kate’s mouth hung open at the casual declaration of a long-buried secret. “That was in the vault.”
“Wait, you and Alex?” I blurted out.
“No! Oh God, no, not Alex, never Alex,” Kate said in horror before leaning between the seats with a mischievous grin. “Nick and I kissed at this cabin when I was seventeen,” she leaned on every syllable, as if decisions from before your prefrontal cortex developed shouldn’t be held against you.
“We’re still friends, aren’t we?” Mallory said.
“Yeah,” Kate said, gripping Mal’s shoulder, a mixture of fondness and exasperation. “Sisters before misters.”
“Chicks before dicks. Or, uh, shit. Whatever the gender-inclusive variation of that is.” Mallory quipped, a playful glint in her eyes, then reached for my hand. “Take Nick’s bed tonight in the attic. I figured it would be me up there since Alex and I both snore, but I’ll gladly saw logs in Kate’s ear.”
Kate cursed as Mallory’s expression turned uncharacteristically serious. “Really, Gracie: I’d be a hypocrite if I tried to legislate who you kiss, or told you not to fuck whoever you want to fuck. Have fun, be safe … but guard your heart and don’t expect forever.”
Chapter 26Alex
