“Nice?” He spits out a harsh laugh.
A line forms between my brows. “You have a problem with ‘nice’?”
We’re circling the living room now, like two cowboys waiting for the other to draw their pistol.
“I just didn’t realize your bar was so low,” he scoffs, one eyebrow raised.
I open my mouth to snap back some ill-thought-out retort but he continues, “You deserve more than ‘nice.’” He tilts his head and paces slowly toward me. A wild panther measuring the reaction of its prey. Before I get eaten, I jolt to the other side of the sofa and start frantically folding a strewn-out blanket.
Honestly, I’ve never considered anything more than “nice” as the criterion of what I’m looking for. I holdthe folded blanket in front of me like a fluffy shield, before asking, “What would you recommend instead?” One side of my mouth twitches as I try to underplay the minor revelation occurring in my head. Maybe after William the bar was so low I thought nice was the best I could ever dream of. Someone who didn’t try and control me, deciding my future as though it belonged to them.
“Someone who understands you.” He dips his head, rounding the corner of the sofa. “Who wants you for who you are, not what you could be.”
The air around us goes completely silent. With William, I had to fit within a rigid box. I had to be the sort of person who was worthy of all the love he gave me. He loved me so much, but he loved the version of me he had built. His own creation. But with Eric, I’ve only ever felt like myself. I can be my most outspoken, ambitious, confident self. I can be the best version of Grace. The Grace who sticks up for herself. The Grace who knows her worth and isn’t afraid of the consequences when showing it.
As if he’s reading my mind he says, “The best version of yourself.”
“You two bring out the best in each other.”
Even Mr. Catcher noticed it. But it can’t happen. The neon sign flashing “Presentations in ten days!” in the back of my head fills my vision. We will enter the ring together and only one of us will come out. And why is he saying these things now when he’s hadallthis time tosay them? When he could have told me at the Christmas party months ago; he rejected me instead. I shake my head, his words tumbling out onto the ground like rocks in an avalanche. The only reason for saying these things now is to throw me off my game. This is what we do. We compete. We play dirty until we win. We’re the same, and what was I just thinking about before he arrived? How could I throw him off before the presentations to give myself the edge? My head spins like a blade of grass in a hurricane. Who’s to say he isn’t doing the same thing? That he won’t take all of this back the moment I’m too love-drunk to care who wins or loses? Tell me he wants me forever then take it all away in an instant, just like William did.
I school my face into the stony expression he held at my door. “Why now?”
“What?” He places both hands on the back of the sofa, the veins in his forearms becoming distractingly pronounced.
I take a steadying breath. “Why come here and say this now? Why did you decide, just days before one of the most important moments of our careers, you wanted to come here and make me—” I stop myself, blinking furiously and start again. “When you had the entire night to say something. When you’ve had months to say something...” I take a step back, gripping the blanket tighter. “Why now?”
His jaw tenses. Eyes laser-focusing on me. “Because last night changed things.”
We both stand in silence, fingers dancing over our weapons.
I take the shot: “For you.” It hits him right in the gut, his brow knits as the words seep into him.Even if the lie hurts now, this is the best thing for both of us,I tell myself. “It changed things for you.” I clear the emotion from my throat. “When we find out what happens one of us will be happy and one of us will be crushed.”
He rolls his shoulders back. “Right.” It doesn’t seem as if he’s agreeing with me, just accepting my opinion.
He rounds the sofa toward me but I’m stuck to the ground. The withered romantic buried in my depths bursts a hand up through the dirt and tells me to stop what I’m doing. To tell him the truth. Stop going on the defensive, stop trying to protect myself from a version of events that might not even occur. We can get through anything together because we are and have always been Grace and Eric, pretending to be Hastings and Bancroft.
Moving closer until we’re toe-to-toe, his body shadows over mine and I bask in his presence. His jaw ticks as his intrusive gaze flicks from my lips to my neck to my burning eyes. Without saying a word he brushes past me. I listen as his footsteps bounce against the floorboards. The front door opens and clicks shut behind me.
A sobbing exhale I didn’t realize was waiting finally bursts free. My palms push against my eyes as every expletive I’ve ever heard runs on repeat like a siren. How is this possibly the best thing for both of us? If we were the same, wouldn’t he have come here to emotionally destroy me? To take a devastating blow at my self-confidence? Not to talk to me as though I can do anything I set my mind to. I’ve fucked everything up.
Before my brain can catch up, my legs are moving out of the door, down the staircase toward the building entrance. My arms fling open the door to catch up and throw themselves around him, but he’s already gone. Along with any shreds of hope remaining between us.
30
“I’m sensing tension between you two.”
Iris Fender flicks her sapphire gaze between Bancroft and me.
We’re crammed into a round two-person table at the food court of Fair Play, the brand new “adults-only funfair experience.” Behind us rows and rows of food trucks decorated with graffiti, glitter and multicolored festoon lights line the edges of the venue. In the next room there’s a roller rink, arcade and a dance floor playing exclusively nineties and noughties club music. “Where’s Your Head At?” by Basement Jaxx blares from the speaker system as neon flashing lights encase us in a Euphoria-themed snow globe of chaos.
Bancroft says nothing, waiting to see my reaction to Iris’s interrogation.
When both siblings arrived, instead of just him, I thought he had dragged her along as an emotional bodyguard. When she briefly left to use the bathroom, he explained that their mum was refusing to talk to her and he felt bad leaving her alone. Him caring so much about her softened my bristled exterior slightly. Herinfectious, glowing charisma helps too, so much so that I speak candidly.
“There were some issues recently, but time heals all wounds, I guess.” I tear a napkin between my fingers, leaving little pieces of red confetti on the table, in case I need to throw it in their faces and run away like a shitty magician.
Iris leans back in her fold-out chair. “Was this anything to do with that ex you were texting?”
