How to End a Love Story(29)

Helen pauses. “Three.”

Grant shakes his head as they walk up the steps. “Helen.”

“I was focused on my SATs!” Helen protests.

The door swings open.

“Oh look,” Eve says, wearing a bright red knit dress and cherry earrings. “Grant and Helen are here. Tom! Grant and Helen are here together. And they brought—”

Grant holds up a sugar-crusted pie. “Blackberry pie.”

Helen flushes. “I forgot to bring something.”

“Oh, that’s fine, we have way too much stuff anyway,” Eve says as she pulls them into the house. She deposits the blackberry pie onto a table as Tom brings over two mugs. “They brought blackberry pie.”

“Grant did. I’m just a terrible houseguest,” Helen says.

“Yeah, jeez, Helen, stop trying to take credit for my pie,” Grant says.

Tom hands them each a mug. “Mulled cider for you. It’s barely alcoholic.”

About an hour later, Helen is pleasantly warm from the cider and caught in a conversation with Nicole and her date, Ben (“this guy I’m dumping as soon as the weather gets warmer”). He’s surprisingly normal for Nicole, and Helen can see in the way he looks at her that he’s smitten and completely wrong for her.

“You guys went all the way to Forest Falls and didn’t go to Big Bear?” he’s saying. “Oh, we should do a trip together sometime. Maybe February.”

“Can you get me another one of these?” Nicole presses an empty mulled cider cup into his hand and he dutifully walks off. She shakes her head at Helen. “We are not going to Big Bear with Ben.”

She shudders.

Helen smiles. “He seems . . . fine.”

“Yes, exactly,” Nicole says. “He’s someone my mom would love me to date. I swear he seemed more . . . tortured when we met. You can have him if you want.”

Helen laughs. “I think I’m good.”

“Did you bring anyone?” Nicole asks, casting an eye around.

“No,” Helen says. “I’m taking a break from . . . meeting people.”

“Good for you,” Nicole says. “If you need recommendations for a good vibrator, I’ve got you.”

“Thanks,” Helen says, glancing around for Tom and Eve’s kids.

“Do you think you’ll stay in LA, after the room finishes?”

“Well, I’ll be around for filming,” she says. “And then . . . I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Grant says, approaching with a slice of pie and two forks. Ben returns and hands Nicole another mug of cider.

“She’s debating whether or not to flee back to the East Coast once the show wraps,” Nicole says. “Because she hates LA and sunshine and everything us Hollywood elites stand for.”

“I like LA,” Helen says. “More than I thought I would, actually. It’s just that I’ve always seen myself as an East Coast person. I grew up in New Jersey, I went to school in New Hampshire, I moved to New York as soon as I could. Ninety percent of my wardrobe only works ten percent of the year out here.”

She takes a fork from Grant and takes a bite of blackberry pie.

“Buy new clothes,” Grant says with a shrug.

“Plus I think I’d miss the weather.”

“That is my great cross to bear,” Nicole says. “I’m a winter person—I belong where it’s winter. I swear, one of these days, I still might fuck off and move to Canada.”

“You can drive to weather, though,” Ben says. “And if you’re from the East Coast, you can always go back.”

“You’re going back this year, right?” Grant says.

“Mm,” Helen nods. “I wasn’t going to because it’s only been a couple months, but my mom called, and . . . the holidays are hard for my parents.”

Grant’s expression flickers and she resists a strange urge to reassure him of something.

He clears his throat. “Which airport are you flying out of?”

“LAX?”

“Rookie move,” he says. “I always book out of Burbank if I can for domestic flights. Half the wait time—it’s my favorite airport in the world.”

Helen laughs.

He lifts a brow.

“It’s just, in high school . . . I never thought I’d know Grant Shepard’s favorite airport in the world.”

“They went to high school together,” Nicole jabs her mug in their direction as she explains to Ben. “Supposedly they never even fucked, though I still find that hard to believe.”

Helen chokes on the blackberry pie. Grant slaps her back.

“Stop embarrassing her, Nicole,” he says. “Or we’ll never tell you about spring break sophomore year.”

“Haha,” Helen says weakly.

“Remember what I said about vibrators,” Nicole says. “I’ve got recs for multiplayer games too.”

Two hours later, Helen attempts to slip away without saying goodbye to anyone. Her flight’s the day after tomorrow, and she still hasn’t packed at all. As she heads down the hallway, the front door swings open—Grant appears, with a bag of ice.

“They were out, so I made a run,” he explains. His eyes flit over her, taking in her coat and purse. “You heading out?”