You’re brave enough to love things out loud, he told himself.You can be brave enough to do it with people.
He reached for his phone.
Chapter Seventeen
The Sun Will Be Shining
After threedays of Grace’s meals, Grace’s workouts, and Grace’s style of therapy, River needed to get out of the house.
Having Grace around wasn’t all bad. He’d gotten used to the sound and feel of the house with another person in it. Obviously Grace wasn’t Jem—not as fun to look at, and she touched him less, and her cooking was half as good. But it helped, not being alone.
“You know,” Grace said the third afternoon, as she chopped fruit to make River eat later, “I haven’t seen Jem around lately….”
Sosubtle, River thought. He arched an eyebrow at her.
“What?” Grace said. “A woman gets curious. Especially when all her hard work starts going to waste.”
“I think it was Jem’s hard work, actually.”
River clamped his mouth shut—too late. He hadn’t meant to give her an opening.
She raised her eyebrows right back, expression mild. “My mistake.” And then she went back to hulling strawberries.
But if River thought that meant she was done grilling him, he was disappointed. “Did something happen? Things were going pretty well, I thought. You seemed….”
River swallowed. “Happy?”
She lifted her gaze from the cutting board. “In love,” she said gently.
It wasn’t the first time someone else had said the words, but it was the first time River acknowledged the truth of them. After several seconds in which his chest felt too tight to breathe, he managed to admit, “I was.”I am.
“Then what happened, sweetie? What was so bad that you couldn’t fix it?”
“He, ah.” A lifetime of exercising extreme vocal control failed him. “He didn’t love me back.”
Grace put down the knife. “Did he tell you that?” She tilted her head. “He sure seemed pretty fond of you. He was here all the time, always looking after you. The way he looked at you….”
River clenched his teeth. “I was paying him.”
He waited for her judgment, or pity. Something.
Grace said, “Well, so what? That means he can’t love you?”
Somehow that hurt worse. River really thought he could. Never for a second, while they’d been together, had he ever thought Jem was faking anything. Jem didn’t have enough of a filter to fake things; whatever petty shit he was thinking came right out his mouth.
“I don’t know.”
“Hmm.” Grace went to the fridge and pulled out a tub of ice cream. She scooped it into two bowls and dumped the strawberries on top. “Well, I don’t know if I can fix that. But I’m here to eat ice cream about it with you if that’ll help.”
River didn’t turn her down.
But he did get restless, later that night, to the point where he knew he wouldn’t sleep if he didn’t get out of the house and dosomething, and he didn’t want to fuck up tomorrow’s performance at the Steamy Bean. If exercise hadn’t helped, maybe retail therapy would. He called Norm and took a ride down to his favorite little pawn shop.
Gary didn’t look up from behind the counter when he walked in. “Shop’s closing in ten minutes.”
Okay, so it would have to be quick retail therapy. “Don’t worry, I won’t keep you past curfew.”
Gary’s magazine hit the glass countertop, and he stood up. “River! I haven’t seen you in a hot minute.” He gave River a thorough once-over, eyes narrowed enough that River could tell he’d been following the tabloids. “How you holding up, kid?”
