I smilethrough telling Zen that I have to go because my mom says Jitter has diarrhea, which I know they know is a lie. Then I sneak out the back door without a word to Grandpa or Mimi, who are sitting at chairs at the desk in the kitchen, leaning in to each other and talking faster than I’ve heard Grandpa talk in ages.
It’s notfast—Grandpa doesn’t do anything fast, and I don’t think Mimi Cartwright does these days either—but it’sfaster.
I catch phrases likethree kidsandfavorite grandsonandso hard to lose my sister.
Like they don’t want to waste a minute and they’re jumbling up every bit of catching up after nearly seventy years apart in half an hour.
Pretty sure they don’t even notice that I’m leaving.
I slip and almost wipe out on the icy asphalt, but I finally reach my car at the very, very,veryback of the lot. Just as I’m sliding into the driver’s seat, though, the passenger’s side door opens, and Grey lets himself in.
My heart thumps in utter panic. My fight-or-flight instincts decide freeze is the way to go.
And then something even worse happens.
Two tears slide down my cheeks. “Go away.”
“You told me about your mom and your grandma so we’d be even when Mimi got here. So I could use it against you.”
“You’re very dumb for a mathematician.” He’s damn brilliant, and he doesn’t belong here.
Not because we don’t have smarty-pants residents, but because he’s not built to run a café or a kombucha bar. He’s built to solve puzzles and manage beehives and use that brain to fix the world’s problems.
Sometimes I feel like I barely know him, but other times I watch him staring down puzzles at one of the tables, or poring over blueprints, or just getting lost in thought, and I know—I knowthat he needs something bigger in life.
That he’s hurt right now. That the people who shouldn’t have let him down in his home life, in his work life, in his school life have all failed him.
He was in hismid-twentieswhen he invented a better cereal bag.
There issomuch more that this man can do with his life. So many more contributions to the greater good of the entire world.
If only people would stop hurting him.
I want to be that person.
I want to be that person who shows him that there are people who want the best for him.
And for the first time in my life, I understand why people fall in love. Why they take the chance. Why it’s worth the risk.
I’ve spent my life mastering gossip to make the world a better place.
What iflovingsomeone makes the world a better place?
“Sabrina.”
“Please go. I don’t want you to see me like this.”I don’t want you to be nice because that will be the final straw to make me believe in things that still terrify me.
He takes one of my hands in his, his long fingers wrapping around the back of my hand, his thumb brushing my skin, and I realize he’s not wearing a coat.
No coat. No gloves. No hat.
He didn’t stop to grab any of it before following me out here.
But his hand is warm, and his grip is firm in the best way, and just holding his hand is making my panic recede and my heart race for other reasons.
My nipples go erect.
My vagina finally pushes herself out of the steel box I’ve locked her in the past few weeks.
