Page 42 of Paths
“Maybe she’s just used to the asshole, so Grady seems, you know … sweet … in a way,” Mary tries to justify Grady being sweet. “Or maybe Maya likes gruff, distant men who are full of themselves.”
Now it’s my turn to look confused. “Full of himself?”
“Poor choice of words.” Addy shoots Mary a look. “Grady’s not full of himself, not by a long shot. If anything, he doesn’t like attention. However, he can be a little distant, and maybe rough around the edges.”
“I guess I can see that if you don’t know him.” He was definitely that way to begin with, but not anymore. “He’s different than he was when I first met him.”
“I’ve always thought Grady was lovely,” Bev states, taking her last sip of wine.
Addy smiles at her older friend. Mary pats her shoulder, but Clara rolls her eyes.
“We still haven’t gotten to the good part,” Clara demands. “For the past week, he won’t order from anyone but you, he’s sat in the tasting room for hours watching you work, now he’s holding your hand, and tonight you two are running a race. Who even does that? So yeah, we want the behind the scenes VIP pass, Maya. Preferably before I pop this baby out—tell us something.”
I tip my head, not knowing where to begin. Do I start with me being a creeper or about me being fascinated with his injuries? Neither is probably a good idea, even I know it’s weird and I don’t know these women very well. I’m still in the making-a-good-impression stage.
I decide to go with the less embarrassing option. “I think maybe he warmed up to me when I started working on his shoulder.”
“I knew it!” Addy exclaimed before looking around to the other women, smiling big. “I did that. I set up the physical therapy date. I set them up just like I set you up,” she stresses, pointing to Mary, who smirks and shakes her head. “Just call me the matchmaker. My skills are honed to perfection. I can’t wait to tell Crew.”
Clara sighs and waves a hand at Addy before looking to me. “Tell us about it.”
“He stood me up the first time I came to work on his shoulder, although I think he was home but just wouldn’t answer the door. I stopped by the next day and surprised him, because he’d just gotten out of the shower. His hair was wet and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. And he smelled good.”
I sigh at the delicious memory of Grady in all his bare male beauty. I feel my face relax just thinking about touching Grady’s bare skin for the first time.
When I look to my audience, they’re listening with rapt attention, and something about the way they’re looking makes me comfortable. I could be wrong, but I think they like me. It could be because I’m good at waiting tables, or I’m mostly on time, or I’m a good listener even if I haven’t been a good sharer. Still, I’m one hundred percent sure they’re not merely nosy because I’m Maya Augustine, daughter of the owner of one of the largest privately-held brokerage corporations in this hemisphere.
No, I’m pretty sure they’re nosy simply because of the undiscovered female gene that makes everyone with a vagina nosy. They simply want the dirt about Grady holding my hand and why in the world we’re running a race tonight. Something about this makes me relax, sort of like a truth serum, and the results will surely be like crack for their nosy gene.
“Yeah, he was half-naked. He had on a pair of sweatpants, but his chest was right there for me to perv on. I shouldn’t have perved, I know this. I’m a healthcare provider, for the love of it all, I should’ve been professional. But it was hard and I think I failed because the whole moment was weird and tense. Very, very tense. It was honestly embarrassing.”
Clara and Mary’s expressions are absolutely greedy. Addy’s trying to hide a smirk, and sweet Bev is sending me supportive vibes, relaying to me that I should keep going, so I do.
“It wasn’t just his chest, but his arms are veined and honed to perfection. It was so hard to focus when measuring his range of motion, I fumbled and had to do it twice, which was even more embarrassing. I’m afraid he noticed, even though I tried to play it off as doing something important. When I was so flustered by his veins, I looked away only to see his iliac furrow.”
“What?” Addy interrupts.
“Yeah, hang on.” Mary leans forward in her seat. “You saw his what?”
“Please tell me the iliac whatever is some new slang for his dick and you got to measure it, too,” Clara pleads and Bev frowns at her.
“Of course not,” I shake my head. “It’s the muscle below his abs going from his hip bone to his pubis.”
“His pubis?” Mary echoes.
“Yeah.” I can’t help the smile that creeps over my face. “His pubis.”
Bev pats Mary’s arm. “She’s a healthcare provider, dear.”
“It’s the V?” Clara guesses. When I grin and nod, she goes on. “We all know what that points to. So, I take it you didn’t get to measure it?”
I shake my head and ignore her. “I felt him watching me the whole time, so I had to look away only to see his bare feet. There was something about his bare feet that was almost intimate, I couldn’t help from getting turned on, so I looked back up, but there was the iliac furrow, and the muscles and the veins … there was nowhere safe to look, so I started to blather on and lecture him about eating too much sugar.”
“Eating too much sugar?” Addy gives me a confused frown as she chews on her Laffy Taffy.
I sigh, leaning back into her office chair. “Yes. I didn’t know what else to talk about. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re a strange bird, Maya Augustine,” Clara shakes her head. “But I like you.”
