TWELVE
Grant wasin and out of the office over the next couple of days, and the lack of keyboard clacking made his absence more conspicuous. I was curious what he did when he was gone, but he wasn’t my employee, so I didn’t ask. And of course, he never told me.
He never missed our daily question, though.
I had wondered if, after his innocuous flower question, he’d go for something deeper just to surprise me, but his next three questions were: what movie I’d seen the most times in my life, what I wish I had more time for, and whether I had any siblings.
As a result, I tempered my own questions forhimand found out he could name every country on earth, but only if he sang them via a continent-based song. I learned that the only acceptable form of eggs for him was benedict, and that he’d believed in Santa until he was ten.
Was that what he’d meant when he’d said his biggest fear in life was believing a lie again? If so, that was quite the grudge to hold onto—and a lot of Christmas trauma. It would make him a prime specimen for a Hallmark Christmas movie.
I had so many other questions for him, and the more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know, like it was some addiction where he was both dealer and drug.
When Saturday rolled around, I came into the office for a few hours to work on pitch decks—funding from Vantive was far from an assured thing at this point, and Grant’s article was a variable I couldn’t control for. I needed to hedge my bets and keep courting other investors. Vantive was the only firm who wasinterested in putting up the full amount we were looking for, though. They were our ideal.
A couple of people on the client support team had been around when I’d arrived, but by two, it was just me in the office.
I took off my heelsandmy glasses as I went through my newest pitch deck, slide by slide. Every single number, letter, and graphic on each page had to be 100% necessary. Matchify had data coming out of its ears, but for a pitch deck, I had to find a way to select the most meaningful statistics and package them in a way that made investors push and shove each other for a piece of our pie.
“Afternoon.”
I jumped so hard, my pen holder tipped over and spilled its contents onto the desk.
“Sorry,” Grant said.
I blew out a puff of mixed relief and aggravation. “What are youdoinghere?”
He set down the Affection Puff he was holding. “I’m here for my daily question.”
“You came all the way here on a Saturday for that?” I grabbed my glasses and put them on, followed by my shoes.
He looked amused as he watched me. “It’s a ten-minute walk, and it’s a nice day. Plus, we agreed on daily questions.”
“Yeah, but it’s the weekend.” I didn’t know why I was arguing the point. My brain had already latched onto the fact that I’d been given two bonus questions if we were counting Saturdays and Sundays.
Grant had been on the verge of sitting in the Affection Puff, but he paused and looked at me for a second, then grabbed it with a shrug. “All right. We can wait until Monday.”
“Wait!”
He glanced at me with a cocked brow.
I took a breath. I wasn’t the type to have outbursts, and I hated that it had happened in front of Grant, of all people. “It’sfine. You’re already here. May as well make the walk here worth your time.”
He smiled, then set down the beanbag again and settled into it. “You’re up first today.”
I considered a few questions I’d thought of, but there was one that I’d been stewing over for days, like it was raising its hand and jumping up and down. I could only ignore it for so long without going crazy. On some level, I felt like this question would unlock Grant for me.
My heart thumped uncomfortably, but this man was literally observing me on dates. He owed me something more substantial than his go-to fast food place. “What made you so afraid of believing a lie again?”
He’d been looking at the Affection Puff tag, but his eyes swept to me and locked there. “Aiming for center mass today, are we?”
I shrugged like it was simply a random question I’d come up with on the spur of the moment.
He considered me a little longer. “Pass.”
My eyes widened. I’d forgotten about the wholepassthing, and the reminder was a rude awakening. I’d asked the one question I wanted an answer to, and he waspassing? That little “pass” clause had been formyprotection, not his.
Beneath the annoyance was a dull stinging. Passing meant he didn’t trust me enough with the answer. It also made me more certain that I’d been right in my assumption: whatever lie he’d believed was more recent—and more potent—than Santa Claus.
