I needed the opposite—a Blew-Your-Socks-Off Date Recovery Kit.
Grant and I weren’t even “together,” but to my heart, that fact was just the fine print. It belonged to him as much as it belonged to me.
I shut the drawer and my eyes. I had no idea what was going to happen between Grant and me. It was entirely possible that this hiccup with work could sour him on the idea of us. Even if it didn’t, statistically speaking, any relationship was a ticking time bomb.
I wanted so badly to throw caution to the wind and just enjoy whatever time I might have with him. But the smarter move—the one that would protect me most—was to try to reduce the boiling emotions I had for him to a simmer. That way I could see whether his feelings for me persisted.
He’d said he could be patient, but saying that and actually waiting while I eventually drove him crazy with my overanalyzing and intensity? They were very different things.
Chase had said a lot of sweet things when we’d started dating too.
I grabbed my phone from the counter and tapped the messages app.
Don’t do it, my heart said.
I scrolled down and opened Chase’s text, my heart thumping like I was reading someone’s secret correspondence instead of a message meant for me.
“Whatisthat?”
My head snapped up, and I lowered my phone to my side like I’d been found with my hand in the cookie jar.
Grant watched me from the doorway, looking like a tall glass of water in the Sahara.
“What’s what?” My cheeks betrayed me with a fiery color only a ginger could achieve.
“Vivian,” Grant said, stepping into the break room. “Don’t pretend. Not with me.”
I swallowed but said nothing.
“I don’t knowwhatit is you’re looking at on there, but I do know you get the same expression on your face every time you do.”
I was quiet, my heart still pounding blood straight to my cheeks. How did he see through me so easily?
He came over and stopped in front of me.
We stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.
“Tell me,” he pleaded softly.
I didn’t want to. It was too humiliating—not just the messageof the text. It was the fact that I’d kept it all these years and that I looked at it so often. It was messed up on multiple levels. Grant would look at me differently if he knew I wasn’t the composed businesswoman I pretended to be. I wasn’t elegant and simple like the tray he’d made, all gold flecks and soft swirls. I was deeply and thoroughly screwed up. What person created a matchmaking app when she was so terrified of love that she looked at a disaffirmation daily to keep her safe from it?
Maybe that was why Ishouldshow the text to Grant, though. It would prove the point I needed him to understand, like Chase had come to understand before him: he didn’t know me well enough yet to know he didn’t want me.
My rough spots hadn’t had time to wear him down, to shape-shift from endearing quirks to things that made you want to tear your hair out. Men were often intrigued by successful women like me, but when push came to shove, they didn’t actually love the personality traits that had gotten us where we were.
Grant used his finger to brush the stray lock of hair behind my ear. “Show me,” he whispered.
After another moment of hesitation, I lifted my phone from my side and turned on the screen. My stomach swam, but my mind was determined as I navigated back to the messaging app and scrolled all the way to the bottom—a well-worn road. I tapped on Chase’s name and swallowed as the stark words glared at me.
You’re so intense.
I’d never shown anyone the text, and the impulse to shut off the screen and keep it that way flooded me.
But another part of me needed someone—anyone—to know this twisted mind game I played with myself.
I handed the phone to Grant.
His gaze stayed on mine as he took it, then his focus shifted to the screen.
