“Aspen,” I say again, my voice gentler. I stop at the sliding door, afraid she might do something rash if she thinks I’m too close. She ran on Saturday and refused to see me. I don’t know how drunk she is right now, and she might just tilt backward off the balustrade.
“Grant?” She turns her head in my direction, and her body sways again. My heart leaps to my throat.
“Come this way, please.” I slowly extend a hand.
She raises her bottle like a shield. “Why should I?” Her words are slightly slurred.
“We’re two stories up. It’s dangerous.”
“So? Why do you care? You aren’t my boss anymore.” The smile she gives me spikes my anxiety. It’s the hopeless smile of someone who has nothing left to lose.
“Yes, I am. Look, I’ll pay you overtime if you’ll just come this way,” I say, hating that money is all I can use to lure her off the balcony. If I hadn’t been such a moron, I could tell her I care about her…that I love her. But she wouldn’t believe me now.
“Nope. You can’t. I emailed my resignation this afternoon. Didn’t you see it?” She frowns. “Maybe I sent it to HR.” She brightens. “But hey, congrats! Now you can get an assistant you really want.”
Of course she did.She doesn’t need the job anymore. Despair descends on me over the realization that not even my money is of use to her. Still, I keep my voice mild and shake my head. My priority is ensuring her safety. “You’re the one I want.”
“No, no. I’m the one who cost you. But don’t worry. I’ll ship you back your dresses and shoes. Aw, shit.” The rain on her face makes it hard to tell, but her expression crumbles, and I swear tears are falling from her eyes. She puts her forearm over her face, pulling the urn closer with her other hand until it’s cradled against her lower belly. “Fuck. I’m not… This isn’t how my life was supposed to go.”
“I know. You’ve had a really rough time. So come on over here. We’ll figure out how to put your life back on the right track, okay?” I need to penetrate her drunken grief, but—
“What’s the point? I have nothing. I’m really alone. And it’s all your fault.” She points at me with the bottle and shifts a little bit more toward the wrong side of the balcony.
My gut feels like it’s been chopped into little pieces. “I know. It absolutely is. But please. Come inside and blame me.”
“If I hadn’t met you… Or at least hadn’tsleptwith you…” She shakes her head. “You’resucha dick. And you haven’t changed.”
She isn’t saying anything I don’t know already. But it cuts deep anyway. “So come here and kick my ass. I promise I’ll let you kick it as much as you want. Just come in from the rain.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere near you. You’re bad news, Grant. Every time you’re around, bad things happen.”
“I’m sorry about the bet in college,” I say hurriedly, praying she’ll accept my apology and come inside. “I was roped into it by circumstance, and I didn’t even remember it until I ran into Will at the airport and he brought it up. I thought I could hide it from you.”
“How could you hide something like that? They were naked! And running!” She waves the bottle around.
Every muscle in my legs quivers with the need to lunge and grab her. The problem is that I might not make it in time, and she might just fall over. “I asked them not to do it. I didn’t care about the bet. You were what was important to me. You still are.” I run a hand over my mouth. “I should’ve come clean before anything happened. I was scared that telling you might make you hate me or think the worst of me. I was so afraid of destroying your trust. But I swear to you, I never spread the story about the bet or told anybody about our time in Malibu. It was too special for that.” I tilt my head, pointing at my cheek. “Please, come here. Slap the shit out of me. Fourteen years is a long time to hold something inside. I wish you’d done it back then.”
“I couldn’t.” Her voice is awful. “Grandma died.”
I squeeze my eyes shut at the pain cracking through her words. I failed as a boyfriend in so many ways back then. I should’ve been there for her. I should’ve done everything in my power to reach her, talk to her, figure out why she left the way she did, instead of jumping to conclusions.
Her gaze drops to the urn in front of her. “She didn’t make it. So confronting you wasn’t a priority.” Her fingers slowly stroke the urn. “You want to know what I did with the money I got from selling the things you gave me? I used it to pay off the hospital bills and her funeral expenses. My grandparents didn’t have health insurance, so…once I did that, there wasn’t much left. But at least she got the best casket money could buy.”
I’m an idiot. A dumbass. I wish I could go back in time—when I made comments about her being materialistic and what she must’ve done with the two hundred thousand—and strangle myself.
“I’m glad,” I say.
My throat feels like it’s full of sand. Now I finally understand why she didn’t add up. I was trying to fit her into the wrong mold. I treated her like she was one of the numerous women who used me for my money, my body or my connection to Ted Lasker or Athena Grant.
Aspen tilts the bottle into her mouth again. “Grandpa’s not going to get one. I had to cremate him. They were pretty quick about it. I think they felt sorry for me.” She takes another swig.
“We’ll do whatever’s right for your grandfather.” I wish I could take away some of her pain. She already cremated Kenny, but we might be able to do something—a burial or wake or whatever she needs for closure.
“I also know about your bet with Emmett,” she says flatly, her eyes still on the urn.
Jesus. That too?Dread slices down my spine. “How?”
“I heard you and Emmett talking in the office. Can you imagine? If my grandfather had died even a day earlier, you could’ve won.”
