Chapter Twelve
Harry
Istalk around my office like a hungry wolf as I wait for Gemma to arrive, the idea that she might run into Grace on her way in sending ricocheting nerves all around my body.
I’ve already destroyed another tennis ball, clenching my fist around it so hard it made apopnoise. I guess that’s the price a bloke pays when he strengthens his grip to one step below a vise.
I pace to the window and look over the fields, empty today since most of the camp-goers are in the gym, Nate and a few other instructors working them out like demons. I know that Grace is in there, and I feel an undeniable throbbing all throughout me at the thought.
My manhood pulses when I think about the way she teased me yesterday, after that weirdness with Adam.
I’ve got no clue what was going on between those two, but I’m guessing it had something to do with the ass-clown asking her out on another date. Maybe Grace didn’t want to tell me about it because she thought I’d be angry with her, as if I’d blame her for attracting attention.
With a body looking like God took extra special care crafting each intoxicating curve, how the hell could shenotattract attention?
She flew around the track, and each time she passed she shot me a look that made my mind roar to go over there and grab her, to drag her to my office for round two.
Last night, I dreamed about our sex in the office, reliving the way she opened for me, the pain-tinged pleasure of her fingernails coursing down my body.
Family is the most important thing, today’s horoscope tells me.Friends fade and lovers flee, but family is the one constant. There are exceptions, of course, but to keep the bridges of your familial bond strong and passable is always a good idea.
I laugh grimly as I stare past the fields to the parking lot, waiting for Nick and Gemma.
The last thing I need is Grace and Gemma running into each other.
After I had to stand Grace up to go and help Gemma with her pregnancy, and after Grace pulled her Houdini act and disappeared from my life, Gemma was basically my sounding-board for allI hate Gracetalk.
She got all the greatest hits, my resentment bubbling up like acid and spewing all over the damn place.
I walk to the desk and pick up my forearm-strengtheners, wrapping my hands around the red grips and crunching them into a tight squeeze. I hold them as firmly as I can as the minutes pass, feeling each thread in my muscles strain and pulse and riot.
I keep holding them as I return to the window, biting my lip like I’m doing an imitation of Grace.
After waking from a Grace-heavy dream last night, I went to her blog, partly to check if she’d written any more thinly-disguised posts about me.
But instead there was a post about the rope-climbing course, and it had way more reads than any other post this month.
It was her writing that did it, the goddamn hopefulness she imbued every word with. I also noticed how she always responded to comments, no matter how many there were … and on this one there were alot.
I remember once asking her what she wanted to do with her life.
We were sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite each other, the moonlight shining pale blue against the closed curtains, the only other light coming from a flashlight in the middle of us.
I guess that’s a pretty weird way to sit, but to us, it felt like the best way to play the Imagine game.
The only person I’ve ever felt comfortable designing my own private world with is Grace.
With other women – during my brief flings over the years – it’s always been a get-the-fuck-out-of-Dodge situation.
But with Grace, after we made love I was content to sink into our easy rapport.
“Imagine,” I said, leaning across the soft yellow glow and stroking my finger around her ear, the way she liked. “You write a blog and it gets thousand, notensof thousands – nah, fuck that –millionsof followers. You become an icon, a beacon, a call-to-arms for people everywhere.”
She giggled. “But what sort of blog?”
“Didn’t you mention you wanted to start a fitness blog one day?”
She turned her face toward my hand, nuzzling. “Um, yeah, but that’s not as easy as it sounds, you know.”
