It wasn’t until I got home some hours later—after stopping for a latte and people-watching at the cafe—that I realized I still had Brooklyn’s guitar pic. I’d slipped it into my back pocket earlier, fully intending to give it back to her along with the rest of her things, but now I was selfishly glad I’d forgotten about it. The apartment was quiet with no signs of Hannah, so I went to my room, lay down, and stared at that guitar pic like it would come alive and tell me whether or not I was making the right decision to leave for Paris.
A while later, my phone buzzed next to me on the bed and I reached for it, assuming it was Brooklyn telling me she’d arrived safely in Montana.
“Hello,” I answered, hating the way my voice cracked midway through the word. Brooklyn would know I was still crying.
“Heart?” Grayson’s deep voice spoke into the phone. “What’s wrong?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Grayson knocked on my door twenty minutes later.
I’d done everything I could to assure him that I was fine on the phone, but he insisted on stopping by. Hannah still wasn’t home and I figured if we just stayed in my room and I put some music on, she’d be none the wiser.
I pulled open my apartment door to see Grayson standing on my doorstep in jeans and an old MIT t-shirt. I knew from stalking him that he’d gone there for his master’s degree before starting up his own architecture firm. His arms were piled high with various items. Just on the surface I could see two bottles of wine, a bag of Snickers, and a DVD case with Will Farrell’s face on it.
“I’ve come with reinforcements,” he said, stepping into my apartment as I pulled the door open wide for him.
“10-4. Quick, take it all back to my room. I’ll grab some spoons and wine glasses.”
Five minutes later, we were sitting on the floor of my room with a Pandora playlist turned up to max volume. Grayson was opening the wine and I was shoveling ice cream into my mouth like there was no tomorrow.
“So Brooklyn left today, huh?” he asked, peering up at me as he worked the cork out of the wine bottle.
I smiled, despite my shitty day. “Yes, Brooklyn left today and that’s why my eyes are puffy.”
He frowned.
“But I’m glad you’re here now,” I added, leaning up onto my knees to give him a kiss.
“You could have called me earlier y’know, when you were sad about her leaving.”
“Grayson Cole, therapist?” I joked, because I was awkward during sentimental moments like this.
He shrugged, a red tinge dotting his tanned cheeks for the first time that I could ever recall. Grayson was being earnest and I was falling deeper into something that I wouldn’t for the life of me call love.
“I have a plan,” I said, trying to shake myself back into safe, neutral territory. “Let’s get drunk on wine, eat this tub of ice cream, and then make prank phone calls.”
His brow dropped in confusion. “Prank calls?”
I grinned. “Yes. Like we did in high school.”
He shook his head. “I never did that in high school.”
I feigned shock just as his cell phone started ringing in his back pocket.
“Were you too busy going to dweeb conventions?” I asked with a wink.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and shot me a smile. “Actually, yes. I was in math club and part of a robotics team. We went to state my senior year.”
“Oh my gosh, you were a nerd!” I laughed, playfully nudging his arm.
“Hold on, I need to take this really quickly,” he said, swiping his finger across his phone to answer the call.
I reached over to turn down the music and then listened by the door to see if Hannah had come home. All was quiet still.
“Yeah, I’ll look at it right now—ok—yeah, I’ll email you back in a second.”
I turned back to see Grayson glancing around my room until his eyes landed on my desk—which happened to be newly cleaned. If he’d come over a day earlier, the desk would have been piled high with designs for a competition I was hiding from him. Luckily, all of the information was tucked away in a manila envelope, ready to ship to the design committee’s address first thing on Monday morning.
“Do you mind if I check a design on your computer really quick? Mitch said he just shot over an Adobe file and I can’t look at it on my phone.”
I shrugged. “Go right ahead, but if it’s cool, then I get to look at it too.”
He laughed as I booted up my computer for him. Maybe other people would have minded that their boyfriends were working on the weekends, but I understood his love for his job. He had a hundred people counting on him and if he needed to check an email for a second, I’d manage just fine with ice cream and wine.