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“We’ve met,” she says neatly. There’s a sharpness to her voice that suddenly calls to mind an image of dispassionate scissors, cleanly snipping away any thread of destiny that has the gall to show up right now. “Grant and I went to high school together.”
“If you’re anything like me—and I suspect you are,” she says, with a wagging finger, “you’ve got enough instant replay tape going on in your brain right now to last through the weekend.”
Helen nods. She seems far away, and he has the somewhat whimsical impression of a stray cat contemplating crossing the street. I’ll come to you, if it’s easier.
A feeling of hot, masculine pride surges in his chest at the thought that this woman—this prickly, particular woman, wants him. Or some parts of him, anyway.
He has the terrible feeling that he’s played almost every card he has, and she’s barely even started.
darkness so inviting, she wants to dive in. Then in a swift motion,
“I don’t want to talk about how it’s going to end. I’d rather not waste the time I have.”
he feels like he’s just started a new favorite book and he can’t put it down or he’ll lose his place.
he thinks sharply—I could love you. She eyes him warily. “You look like you’re about to say something stupid,” she says. “You’re a mind reader now?” He lifts a brow.
“I know what I want,” he says slowly. “I want you to throw a birthday party—a dinner party—at my house. Invite everyone from the room. Come early to help set up. Stay late to break it down. And I get to touch you whenever I want, until you walk out the door.”
“You trauma bonded your way into mutual attraction.” Nicole nods. “Healthy.”
“Sometimes I feel like I miss you when you’re right in front of me,”
“It was a slow fall but a pretty permanent crash, Helen,” he says, and he can’t help the acid note in his voice. “I’m in love with you.”
The kind of woman who deserves Grant would have known what she had when she had it,
No, I’m not in love with your future husband, she tells this feminine paragon who has the face of Natalie Portman and the charitable nature of Mother Teresa. If you invited me to your wedding, I would totally come.
Bring Grant Shepard back to the present tense, where he belongs.
He takes a step forward and her world seems to tilt on its axis. “I want all of it this time,” Grant says, his voice harsh and impossibly close. “I want the nights and the days and the weekends and the holidays and I want you at my side and in my bed and in my life. I want to meet your parents and I want to take you to a sheep farm in fucking Ireland and my dad’s place in Boston. I want to see what kind of person you are when you’re eighty. I want to do this for real, and I want to call you mine so badly it’s a fucking joke, but if you can’t sign up for the whole show this time, then don’t—”
She thinks of the infinitely different love stories they could have lived instead—and she decides she’ll write them all. She’ll fracture this feeling into a million shards of glass reflecting back the same, unbelievable love story so she can capture it for the days when she needs to read it back to herself and to him—when they’re sad, or tired, or annoyed, or hurting. Or happy, she reminds herself. Loving him is poetry, and she thinks she’ll try her hand at that too.
“This is my favorite part of the day I married you,” Helen says, smiling.
