We walk in silence for a while, then she slows. “We should go back.”
“If you want.”
“This hasn’t been the business talk walk I advertised it to be.”
“That’s fine.” I clear my throat. “Sam realized I’m not working at the office anymore.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I’m going through some things. General mental health stuff. Probably a coward’s way out of the conversation, but I wasn’t…” It was too soon.
“It’s okay. He hasn’t said anything to me.” She makes a face. “I guess I’ll tell you if he does. It’s probably better to wait until after the show, anyway. The last thing we want is a scene.”
“Right.” Although that’s not really a Grace thing to say. That’s a Preston concern, and she’s only ever worried about those on my behalf.
“We should go back.”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
She rolls her head. “I’m just—this isn’t what I thought—”
“What do you want from me, Grace?” I hope to tell my voice sounds pleading. I’ll do anything she wants, I just need to know what that is. “Let me in. At least as a friend.”
"No."
“I’ll be gentle."
She laughs bitterly. “I don’t want gentle. I want safe."
Fuck me, I don't even know what my wife wants. “What do you mean, you don’t want gentle? Is this about kink?”
She gives me a strange look, then shrugs. “Sure. Okay. I don’t know how to answer that. I think it’s just about life. And maybe my life, maybe I am kinky, in a bone-deep way you will never understand, because when it’s this intrinsic to someone, you get scared. But it’s okay if it’s play acting. I don’t know, Luke. But you scare me. Not in a threatening way, but in a dangerous way. I don’t want a gentle conversation from you. I don’t want friendship from you. I wanted a desperate, needy, possessive fuck from you, and that was never on the table. Not for me. But it was for someone else. I’ve had enough of gentle from you for a lifetime and it was all deeply dangerous to my psyche in the end. Do you want to know something highly embarrassing?”
How am I supposed to answer that?
She glares at me with challenge in her eyes. “No?”
“Yes,” I shout back. Now I’m the one attracting attention. “I want to know everything about you, Grace.”
“Well, that’s new.”
Shame roars inside me, loud and wounded. It’s my old standard, the driving force that built a firm to rival my father’s in just a few years—and then let my brother destroy it. But then I fucking rebuilt it.
I can rebuild my marriage, too. “Yeah. It is new. And desperate, and needy, and possessive. So if you want to see that inside me, let me assure you it’s there. Maybe I’m the one who should start sharing embarrassing shit with you, right? How about that?” I stalk over to a garbage can and get rid of my coffee. Then I spread my arms wide. “I’m a stupid fucking man, Grace, but I love you. If you don’t want gentle, I’ll give you something else. Just give me a chance.”
“You don’t get it, do you? We were done a long time ago. That’s why you had an affair. I even made a sculpture about it. I guess you’ll see it on Friday night. There, that’s something I haven’t told you yet. Surprise.”
My chest heaves. “What?”
“There’s a…” She gasps. “It’s kind of pathetic, really. I mean, the whole show is a love letter to a man who never deserved any of it, but it’s a tragic kind of love letter, and the final piece is called Death of a Marriage.”
“When did you…”
“Months ago. I told myself it was just art, inspired by the world around me, and I was telling a story. But I wasn’t. Okay? Every piece I have ever made has been about us in some way, and that part of me knew we were over before…this.”
“Or…” My chest hurts, but I fucking plow on. I have to. “Maybe that wasn’t the end of us. Maybe that was the death of a marriage but not us. That was the crisis point, and now we’re on the other side of that, and we’re going to be okay. That’s possible, too.”
“We aren't going to be okay.”
“We are going to be better than okay. We are going to be amazing. With a fractured past but a dazzling future.”
“That sounds like something you read in a book.”
“It is.” I look right at her, and hold her gaze. “I’ve been doing my research about repairing from an affair.”
“That also sounds like someone else’s words.”
“Then here are mine. My wife is an incredible artist. The toast of the town. You said that you think I’m bored around you? I felt dull and boring next to you. Not bored. Boring. I don’t know what to say about your art, because it’s beyond me. But knowing that it’s based on us? I can’t wait to see it, Grace. I want to see Death of a Marriage. I’m not scared of that. I’m scared of losing you, but I’m not scared to look at my mistakes.”
“Why?” She laughs, but it’s the edge of hysteria, the edge of tears, and I feel the same. “Why now? Why not sooner?”
“I don’t know.” My cheeks are wet.
She turns around again and looks back at downtown. “We should go back.”
And that’s how the conversation ends. We walk all the back in silence.
When we get back to the building, I ride to the eighth floor with her, and she doesn’t tell me not to.
Baby steps.
At her door—our door, our loft, our home, that I lost—I reach for her. She freezes. At first I don't think she's going to let me touch her.
“You need a hug,” I say quietly.
“Not from you.”
“Maybe not. But I’m here. I’m offering.”
“I don’t need a hug,” she says stiffly.
“Look, you said you don’t want gentle from me, not anymore, and…I hear that. But you’re a hugger, Grace. I get that I didn’t give you enough in the past. I promise I hear that. I’d really like to make up for that at some point. But right now, I see my best friend tightly wound, and I’m thinking she hasn’t had a hug in weeks.”
“Alex hugged me yesterday.”
“I stand corrected.”
But her gaze lingers on my face. Wary, uncertain.
Wanting.
“Was it a bone crusher, though?”
She bursts into tears. “Luke…”
I step closer. Not touching, but close. And I reach for her hand again. This time she doesn’t tense up. I brush my knuckles against hers, then slide my hand up the sleeve of her coat. The contact, even through layers of fabric, instantly warms me inside.
For a second, I hover my hand over her hip, the shape of her familiar and wonderful and entirely off-limits. Then I wrap my arm around her and pull her in against my chest. As I press my face to the top of her head, I feel tears slip out again, and the fucking therapist was right.
It’s cathartic this time.
She shakes inside my arms, and I squeeze her tighter. “Tell me when to let go.”