How to End a Love Story(64)
And that’s the second problem. He is quite, quite certain that she won’t, not in the long run. There are a million Grant Shepards in this city alone and it’s a matter of time before she meets one she likes just as much, who doesn’t come with his particular brand of personal baggage.
He isn’t sure how long he has, or how easily she’ll cut him out of her life when the time comes. Grant feels a pressure building in his chest at the thought.
As he gets the coatrack into his house, he hears a faint ringing in his ears and his vision grows spotty. He knows he’s on the verge of having a panic attack.
You should find someone you can talk to.
He thinks about what Karina told him on the phone a couple months ago. He had assumed she meant a therapist (and he does have one; he had one even back then), but maybe she meant someone more like a friend. Does Helen count as a friend? The word seems pathetically incomplete, applied to her.
He hasn’t told his therapist about Helen yet. Or rather, Helen post-Christmas. It had felt too new, too complicated, to get into during their monthly checkin.
He walks on unsteady legs to the couch and grips the back of it. He shuts his eyes and exhales. He remembers sitting on this couch last night—waiting, watching, wanting—trying not to move a muscle as Helen came toward him. Willing her closer—close enough for him to make a compelling argument for her to stay. And she did.
The ringing in his ears subsides slowly and he stands, frowning against the afternoon light.
What was he doing?
Oh right, the coatrack.
He frowns at the thing, not entirely sure why he bought it. He walks over to the closet and opens it, and he remembers. There were no hangers available last night, when Helen came over. He woke up this morning feeling like he should make some space in his life for people with long winter coats.
He frowns, staring at all the jackets and old hoodies hanging in the dim light.
Maybe, he thinks, I should just get rid of things I don’t need anymore.
Twenty
Helen hosts a single-girls-only sleepover at her condo the following Friday.
“I was gonna make fun of you for moving to the west side like every other East Coast transplant, but this . . .” Nicole throws open the windows to gaze adoringly at the perfectly framed Santa Monica Pier, lit up like a carnival at night in the distance. “This is worth it.”
“Where’s your wine opener?” Saskia asks, opening and closing drawers in the kitchen.
Helen isn’t enough of a wine drinker to own one in a temporary apartment, and they have to watch a YouTube tutorial on how to uncork a bottle using car keys and a pen.
They put on Cruel Intentions because Saskia’s never seen it, and halfway through explaining just how truly iconic the cast is, including platinum-blond Joshua Jackson (“You mean Jodie Turner-Smith’s husband?”), Nicole pauses the movie.
“Okay, we aren’t watching another second of this movie until Helen agrees to tell us about her date.”
Monday had been an embarrassment of attention from everyone in the room. They were all too invested in her survey-form date. Grant had been there when it came up—he’d popped in to join them for lunch, taking his usual seat across from Helen, and he’d loudly pulled the tab of a Coke Zero as Nicole demanded date details.
“It was fun,” Helen told them. “We bowled.”
Owen called her a story tease and Saskia wanted to know if he gave her butterflies and Grant asked her to pass him a mint.
Ultimately, Helen told them she wasn’t going to see Greg the casting director again, to the great disappointment of Eve and Saskia.
“But why?” Nicole had demanded.
Then Suraya had started looking at the glass dry-erase board in the way Suraya did when she felt like lunchtime conversations were going on too long, and Helen cut off the chatter with a promise to tell them later. Grant left for his office and she had slipped out to use the restroom before they started their afternoon session of breaking episode four.
She made it two steps before Grant’s hand reached out, and suddenly she found herself pinned against the wall behind the writers room and thoroughly, extremely kissed.
“Come over tonight,” he’d said, his voice low and vibrating in a way that made her want to press against him harder and again and more.
“No,” she’d told him. “I don’t have clothes.”
“I’ll buy you new clothes,” he’d said, nipping at her lower lip.
“Go write a good script,” she’d answered, “and maybe then I’ll come over.”
She slipped away from him then, willing herself not to turn around when she heard his low chuckle behind her.
She’s proud of herself for sticking to it—for the most part, a few daily detours to his office purely to check in on the status of his writing notwithstanding.
On Thursday afternoon, her inbox chimed with an email from Grant.
(No subject)
Come over.
Attachment: The Ivy Papers—Episode 102—Grant Shepard—Draft 1.pdf
She had flushed so noticeably, Nicole asked her what was happening on her phone. She had been too flustered to think of a better lie and said, “I think I have a date this weekend.”
They had been treated to a heavy this doesn’t sound relevant to breaking the story sigh from Suraya, and Nicole had extracted a promise from Helen to make good on her earlier promise to share all date-related gossip. They settled on a Friday-night sleepover, which Helen figured would buy her some time to figure out what, exactly, coming over would entail.