“Bioengineering,” Grant repeated. He reached into his bag and pulled out the book that had led them there. “So I’m guessing this book would be a bit rudimentary for you?”
“I have a collection,” Erin admitted. “It’s not hard to find; I could get it anywhere, purchase it online…”
“So you’re just cheap?” Grant scoffed.
“Frugal,” Erin corrected.
Grant learned a lot about Erin over lunch. She was an only child who had grown up serving patrons at her parents’ Irish pub. She was fluent in four languages. Dublin was her favorite place on Earth. She had completed an internship in New York where she conducted research in the areas of synthetic blood vessels and cardiac pacemakers. She was currently employed by a medical research institution in California with a special interest in the advancement of computer-assisted surgery. The bag strapped across her chest contained only four things: a wallet, an iPod, lip gloss and a book by the President’s Council on Bioethics titled Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness.
She was beautiful; she was brilliant, and she was rapidly becoming more intrigued by the well-spoken, quick-witted, handsome lawyer sitting across from her.
“Grant,” Erin said, sitting her napkin aside. “I have two tickets back in my room to the Tim McGraw concert tonight. Are you a fan?”
“Absolutely,” Grant nodded, recalling the greatest hits collection that Hailey currently had him hooked on.
“Fantastic!” Erin exclaimed. “You didn’t strike me as a country music fan. My roommate during undergrad was from Georgia, and I fell in love with the genre straight away.”
“I’ll admit, I’m a recent convert,” Grant nodded.
“It’s a date then?” Erin countered.
Grant walked beside Erin as he escorted her back to her hotel room after the concert. “I had a nice time tonight,” he said when they reached the door. “I guess I better be going.”
“Don’t you want to get your book you left in my bag?” Erin inquired.
“Nah,” Grant shrugged. “I told you…it was a gift.”
Erin smiled broadly.
“It’s the least I can do to say thank you for the concert,” he winked. “Merry Christmas, Erin.”
“Happy Christmas, Grant,” Erin smiled, realizing he had intended to give her the book all along.
Grant started to walk away.
“Grant,” Erin called after him. “I’m all alone, and it’s not terribly late; won’t you come in, and we’ll order tea?”
Sitting on the edge of the hotel room bed, Grant felt Erin’s hand on his thigh, her head resting against his shoulder as she giggled at the cartoon that was muted on the television.
She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and then a second. When Grant felt her lips against the nape of his neck, he cringed. He closed his eyes, trying to shake the image of walking in on his father and the woman who was not his father’s wife. For the first time, he let himself wonder how they had gotten to that point… how long, if at all, his father had resisted, and if he had felt like an absolute cad as he a swept her hair from her bare shoulder, just as Grant was doing to Erin now. The scene played like a movie in his head as Erin brought her lips to his. Grant backed away, shaking his head clear. “What am I doing?”
“Not a lot of anything,” Erin snapped.
Grant stared at Erin, a true vision of picturesque perfection. “I didn’t mention my girlfriend, did I?”
“No!” Erin exclaimed. “You haven’t mentioned any girlfriend all evening!”
“Yeah,” Grant gulped, “that’s what I was afraid of.”
“Is she in London?” Erin asked, shocked.
“No, she’s home in Tennessee,” Grant shook his head.
“There you go,” Erin shrugged. “I’m sure some cowboy is filling her nights while you’re gone.”
Grant shook his head as he buttoned his shirt. “No,” he chuckled, his disappointment in himself evident.
“She would never have to know,” Erin declared matter-of-factly.
“I guess she wouldn’t,” Grant agreed.
Erin smiled as she moved toward him, her delicate hands grazing his chest. “Now you’re talking, Gorgeous.”
Grant put his hands on Erin’s shoulders and held her at a distance. “She’d never know…but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t do this.”
“Why not?” Erin rolled her eyes, giving up on the idea, straightening her dress and tucking her hair behind her ears.
Grant smiled, Hailey’s voice so pronounced in his mind. “Because,” he nodded, “she trusts me.”
Hailey sat on the kitchen counter twirling the twisty cord of the phone around her finger. “Do you realize that in a couple of months, everything is going to change?”
On the other end of the line, Misty lay stretched across her bed. “Not that much is going to change for me,” Misty replied. “Paul and I have had matching University of Memphis bumper stickers on our trucks since we were sophomores. We’ll drive to town for class, and he’ll have bigger crowds at his basketball games. That’s about it.”
