Chapter Ten
Harry
The argument with Grace chases me awake the following morning. Her voice mixes with the alarm clock in my dream, and for a second it’s like she’s screaming at me.
“I knew you were a using asshole,” she cries. “I knew you just wanted to string me along.”
I sit up, groaning as I reach across to hammer the whining clock.
I look around my bedroom from my double bed, my small workout section on one side and the mirror from my en suite catching the morning sunlight through the open door.
I haven’t overslept in months, I’ve been so busy getting everything ready for the camp, but when I look at the clock I realize it’s gone six.
Not a disastrous sin, as far as oversleeping goes, but the fact that I must’ve hit my snooze button bothers me. It’s a sign of weakness, that the unmitigated discipline I’ve kept concerning my own fitness since the dirt bike accident has lapsed, if only slightly.
I stand up and stretch out, jabbing the air a couple of times, my bare chest coated in a fine layer of sweat.
In the dream, I dimly remember Grace finding out about my trick and going full-on berserk at me, screaming and gesticulating like she was trying to cast a spell on me.
I shake my head, dislodging the hazy not-really-a-memory, and walk across my plush rug into the bathroom. I pull off my underwear and climb naked into the shower, letting the water cascade down my hard-worked body.
Getting to sleep last night was harder than it’s been in years.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Adam told me just before he left for lunch yesterday. “Can you believe it?” he said, beaming from ear to ear like he’d just won the lottery. “Grace has agreed to go on adatewith me.”
Adam is a good man, as far as I can tell, even if he seems a little immature. I would’ve been happy for him if it was anybody other than Grace.
But as I stood in the doorframe of my office and as he sat at his desk, that childish grin smeared across his face, anger gripped me like the hand of an invisible giant. It squeezed brutally, threatening to send me into a seething rage.
I was pissed off, damn pissed off, as pissed off as a man can get.
But I’m also a professional, so I wasn’t going to punish a decent worker for a personal matter.
Now I step from the shower and stand on the pale blue rug, letting droplets of water slide over my mounding muscles. I reach across to the towel rack and wipe my hand dry on the off-white towel, and then grab my phone from the sleek counter next to the sink and navigate to the horoscope site.
Life is a series of conflicts, but this is a fact we all too often ignore. It is time to bring these disagreements out into the light and talk matters through with your loved ones. Everybody will feel better once they let go of resentment.
I grind my teeth back and forth, my jaws throbbing so much I swear I can feel them butting through the skin on my face.
I could get myself out of this on a technicality. I could tell myself that Grace isn’t a loved one, and so I don’t really have to talk things through with her.
Hell, I could even say I don’t give a damn about these horoscopes. They were always Grace’s thing.
But that’s a lie. Grace’s return reignited my impulse to look at them. I can’t deny that.
As my grip on the cellphone tightens, I know I need to find out what’s going on with Grace and Adam. And I’ve never been the sneaking around type. ThatReal-Housewivesshit has never appealed to me.
Hell no, I need to go directly to Grace.
Who knows, maybe wewillfeel better once we let go of our resentment.
I laugh grimly under my breath as I walk naked into the bedroom, a few droplets of water marking my path like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs.
Big fucking chance.
***
I wait until evening to text Grace.
