How to End a Love Story(35)

“It’s just such an awful reminder that this is where it all ends up,” she says, looking around the damp basement. “Where we all end up. And then your family ends up going through your boxes, deciding what to keep and what to throw away.”

It’s not even his mom’s brother. Fred was Grant’s dad’s brother—but Lisa grew up next door to both of them, and as Fred never married, they folded him into their family as a bonus member on family vacations, birthdays, and celebrations. “He needs to socialize more,” Grant always heard his parents whispering to each other.

Grant is pretty sure Uncle Fred had resented their concern and he’s wondered more than once if there were an alternate universe where Lisa had married Fred instead of his brother. If it would have worked out better that way for everyone involved, instead of in a marriage that fell apart (or maybe just stopped keeping up appearances) as soon as Grant went off to college.

Would have been nice to find out you were in town sooner.

The truth is, Grant hasn’t wanted to see Lauren during this trip home. It’s been over a year since he last saw her (she was on vacation in Aruba when he was here in the summer), and part of him thinks—aren’t we getting too old for this?

He never intended for this to keep going for as long as it did. It started as a way to pass the hours back home when he was in college, and somehow, over a decade later, it occurs to Grant that this might qualify as his longest relationship.

He always assumed one of them would find a reason to break it off—he’d start dating someone seriously or she would get engaged and he’d see it on Facebook. Instead, she’s become as familiar a landmark in Dunollie to him as Washington Rock, the viewpoint at the top of the mountain where George Washington supposedly observed the British troops once. Possibly.

His sense of decency won’t let the text—slightly accusatory in tone—go unanswered, and a few hours later, he’s leaving the house to meet Lauren at the one bar in Dunollie that’s open after ten p.m.

“You look different,” she says, her eyes raking from his hair to his chest, as they sit across from each other in a booth.

She looks the same, her dark hair pulled back in a clean ponytail. She’s wearing leggings and a warm, oversized sweater.

“You look good,” he says, searching for something to say. “I saw you ran a marathon in April.”

She smiles. “All the girls in the office signed up,” she says. She works in a dentist’s office in the nicer part of Dunollie and she’s been there since graduation, he’s pretty sure. “I got the best time, though.”

He nods and a waiter comes by for their drink orders.

Hers is the same as always—an amaretto sour with two cherries, something so sweet and sugary the taste would linger when he kissed her. He doesn’t really want to drink now—he thinks about ordering a beer so she doesn’t feel self-conscious about her own drink, but finally orders a decaf coffee instead.

Lauren raises a brow. “You’re not drinking?”

“I have to get up early tomorrow,” he says. “There’s guys from the storage facility coming for Uncle Fred’s stuff.”

Lauren nods. She tilts her head as she looks at him. “Are you seeing anyone these days?”

Grant shakes his head and makes a small sound of dissent. “You?”

Lauren shrugs. “No one permanent,” she says.

He’s comfortable around Lauren, he realizes. His body is relaxed in a way it hasn’t been in weeks. He wonders if this feeling is love, then randomly thinks of the way Ian Rhymer had shown him pictures of his family when he stopped by the pizzeria earlier this afternoon.

He gets an itchy feeling as he remembers seeing Helen in the parking lot, and their conversation about Lauren at the wine bar in LAX.

“Do you ever wish . . .” he starts, then thinks better of it, then decides to ask anyway. “Do you ever wish you could find someone more permanent?”

Lauren laughs. “Why, are you trying to set me up?”

Grant shrugs. “What are you looking for? Maybe I know someone.”

She quirks a knowing brow at him, and it would be easy—so easy—to take this conversation down a familiar, flirtatious path.

“My mom’s selling her house,” he says instead, changing the subject. “It goes on the market in January.”

“I’m not in a position to buy,” Lauren says, frowning.

“Yeah, no, I was just . . . sharing,” he says. “She wants to move to Ireland once it’s done.”

“Ireland,” Lauren says, brows lifting.

“Apparently she always wanted to live there at some point in her life, but it was never the right time.”

“Oh.” Lauren studies him for a moment. Then, “Why do you think we never fell in love?”

Grant finds he isn’t surprised by the question. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t . . . I don’t want you to think I don’t care about you. I do.”

She smiles at him a little sadly.

“I know you do,” she says. “I don’t mean with each other. We were never meant to last past high school. I mean, why do you think we never fell in love with other people?”

Grant wants to conduct a thorough investigation of this question—he wants to tape it off and walk its perimeter while he examines it from every angle. But he knows, before he can even untangle the thought, there’s probably something wrong with me.