Touching Down

  I’d let the city take care of my mother’s body, excusing my actions as it being more concern than she’d ever shown me. Then I’d sealed the door on all my memories of that woman, and tried to cope with the news of my own loss.

  The news I was still struggling to cope with.

  Just as I was twisting around on the lawn so I wouldn’t be tempted to glance back at the Towers, I heard the back door whine open, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps moving across the porch. As well-loved as Aunt May’s house had been, it was old. Everything whined and creaked and moaned, from the doors to the floorboards to the windows, but I’d only ever known one person large enough to make the back porch sound as though it were about to collapse.

  Instead of making the most of this golden opportunity to get him alone, I pressed my body harder into the grass, almost like I was trying to become one with it.

  Not once in the two hours since I’d arrived had Grant’s attention turned my way again, and as desperate as I was to clear the air with him, I was just as petrified. Not because I was scared of what he’d say or how loud or animated he’d get—because, hell, a person couldn’t be as close to Grant Turner as I had and be someone who scared off easily—but because I was terrified of how he’d respond. Not in words, but in action. Would he be receptive to what I had to tell him, or would he shut down the way he’d been shutting me out all night?

  Either way, I couldn’t find out until I approached him.

  As I worked to conjure up my courage, I heard the back door open again. It was almost immediately followed by a sigh. It was a familiar one, leading me to believe that whoever had just joined him on the back porch wasn’t exactly a welcome addition.

  “What’s a big, important guy like you doing back here all alone?” The woman’s voice was so cloying that it made my stomach turn.

  “I needed to be alone.” Grant’s voice spilled out into the dark yard, making the skin on my arms prickle.

  It had been years since I’d heard his voice, but it sounded exactly the way I remembered it. The tenor was different, but the voice remained unchanged.

  “Grant Turner never needs to be alone. You ought to know that by now.” The woman’s voice dropped a few notes, insinuation coating every word. She must have been wearing heels with the way her footsteps echoed across the porch as she moved.

  I withheld an eye roll and bit back the jealousy rising in my throat. Grant had never been short for applicants when it came to sharing his bed, even as a young teen. I was sure with the notoriety of his name and the dollar signs attached to it, that line of women had gone from impressive to staggering.

  “I wanted to be alone.” Grant’s tone took on a sharp edge.

  “And why in the world would you want to be alone when you could have any woman you want?” A few more heel strikes struck across the porch. “Even the one in front of you. Right here. Right now.”

  “Bridget . . .” There was a warning in his voice. “No.”

  Bridget Plummer. I remembered having to chase her away back then, when she’d come sniffing around Grant with her big tits, tight ass, and loose reputation. On the surface, I had nothing on Bridget Plummer. I had curves, if you counted the angles of my knees and elbows, and I had a makeup routine, if you considered chap-stick a “routine.” Not to mention, I wasn’t the girl who apparently gave such good head, her name and reputation spanned the entire state.

  Bridget Plummer was on one end of the female spectrum, and Ryan Hale had been on the opposite end. I guessed that still proved true, years later.

  “Why not?” Bridget asked. “You’ll never know what you’re missing out on unless you have a little taste.”

  My stomach roiled at the thought of Grant taking her up on her offer. There was no way I could just lay there, quiet and still, as he fucked her over the damn banister or wherever it was she had in mind. But how awkward would it be to pop up and excuse myself, the former flame of the guy whose hands were at his fly while some other woman crawled all over him?

  “My answer was no the first time you offered. My answer was no seven years ago when you offered again. My answer’s no right now. How many more times are you going to ask before you figure out that I’m not interested in a relationship with you?”

  It was childish and immature, but I grinned up at the night sky.

  “Who said we need to be in some kind of committed relationship to fuck?” she said, laughing a few soft notes.

  “Clearly, you don’t know anything about the man you’re propositioning.” Grant’s footsteps creaked across the porch again, but I couldn’t tell if he was moving away from her or toward her. It almost made me want to sit up to find out, but I stayed where I was. “Please, don’t ask me again, Bridget.”

  “This isn’t about her still, is it? The little bitch who left you without so much as a ‘so long’?”

  Grant’s footsteps stopped suddenly. “This has nothing to do with her. This has to do with you. And this is my answer. Again.” He paused just long enough to make the silence uncomfortable. “No.”

  A moment later, the back door screamed open, followed by the sound of Grant disappearing inside before slamming the door. Bridget hung out on the back porch for a good while after that, managing to polish off half a pack of smokes, before going back inside.

  It was getting colder, so I drifted inside a couple of minutes later, not sure what to think of the conversation I’d just overheard. I wondered why he’d turned her down, if it was because he had someone else in his life now, or if he truly wasn’t into the idea of boning Bridget Plummer. Even though I might have wanted to claw the woman’s eyes out a few times in my life, I could get why a guy would want to bone her. A lot. Especially no-commitment-required boning.

  After that, I had a full-circle moment of realizing how ridiculous I was being for giving this topic so much thought. Whoever Grant chose to be with didn’t concern me anymore.

  At least that was the story I was attempting to sell myself as I wove through the house. For some reason, it felt like the crowd had only grown since I’d shown up. Seeing how many people had turned out for Aunt May’s funeral was great, although the skeptic in me wondered how many were here because word had spread that the New York Storm’s Grant Turner was here.

  The music was still pumping through the house, and it looked like someone had called in a huge order of pizza because people were staggered around pizza boxes, drinks in hand, as the vibe of the party turned more joyful than mournful. I stopped in front of the fireplace, where a picture of Aunt May sitting on her front porch with her front door wide open had been set beside the urn containing her remains. As I examined her picture, I saw that she’d aged in the years after I left, but her eyes were still young and full of life.

  “I’m sorry I left the way I did,” I said to her picture, swallowing as I stared at the first friendly face I’d known in life. “But now you know why I did it. Why I had to leave. Now you know.” My hand molded around the base of the urn. “If you have any suggestions for how I can explain it to him, I’m all ears. You always had good advice for me, and I could really, really use some now.” My fingers brushed down the urn. “I hope you’re enjoying your funeral. I hope you know how much you meant to me. How much you gave to me.” My voice caught in my throat, so I had to clear it to get out the last bit. ‘This is all for you, Aunt May.” After waving at the packed room, where smiling faces shared memories of the special lady we were remembering tonight, I slipped down the hall in search of a quieter spot.

  Cruz was back in the kitchen, talking with some people I remembered from The Towers. He waved me over, but I shook my head and kept going. I needed to be alone. Again. Not even five minutes after being alone for an hour on the back lawn. This whole night had been more daunting than I’d guessed. And I hadn’t even confronted Grant yet.

  Thankfully people had stopped staring at me like I was leading the race for the top spot on their shit lists, but I could still feel the heaviness of accusation foll
owing me around the house. Pushing on the handle of the first door I reached down the hall, I slipped inside the room and had the door shut and locked a second later.

  Leaning into the door, I closed my eyes and attempted to regain my breath. I hated feeling weak. Especially here, where I’d never felt weaker, and the same place I’d learned to be strong.

  Maybe this wasn’t the right place to do this. Maybe I just had to figure out another way to confront Grant. Maybe . . .

  When I opened my eyes, I let out a little yelp, surprised to find I wasn’t the only person who’d barricaded themselves in Aunt May’s bedroom.

  My yelp was cut short when I realized who it was in here with me.

  “Oh, god. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in here. I’ll leave.” My hand was fumbling for the handle when Grant’s head tipped back over his shoulder. Not enough to look at me, but enough that I could see the rigid angle of his jaw.

  “At least this time you’re letting me know you’re leaving.”

  His words hit me the way I guess he’d intended, making me feel both guilty and angry. Grant had been hot-headed, but he hadn’t been the only one. The few arguments we’d had during the span of our relationship had been talked about for weeks by those who overheard them. However, I’d done some growing up in the years since and learned that shouting was rarely the way to get a person to see your point of view.

  “Since I’m here and you’re here, this is as good a chance as any for you to say whatever it is you’ve been wanting to say to me. I’m not going anywhere, so just let me have it.” I held my arms out at my sides and shoved off the door, knowing Aunt May had had a hand in this. Next time I asked for her help, I’d better be prepared to accept whatever form of help she sent my way two seconds later.

  “You left. You made your choice. I don’t have anything to say to you.” He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his back to me, holding something. He was in a light dress shirt that stretched across his wide back. The stitches looked like they were about to give out from the way his body was tensed.

  “I’d like the chance to explain why I did what I did.” I fought the tug to move closer, the familiar ache of separation that was alleviated the moment some part of me was touching some part of him.

  “You don’t need to explain anything, Ryan. That was forever ago. I’ve moved on from it all.” When he shoved off of the bed, the mattress coils squeaked. Being locked inside a room with Grant made him that much more imposing.

  “But I’d like to—”

  “Ryan, please. Enough.” That was when he finally looked at me straight on. The intensity in his eyes made me step back. “You left me. Now please, just let it go. I’m good.” Moving toward the dresser, he set something down beside a collection of photos in an array of frames. Then he headed toward the door. “Please just do me a favor and forget about me again the way you’ve forgotten about me for the past seven years.”

  As he moved by me, his eyes slid to mine for a short moment before they flitted away.

  “I never forgot about you, Grant. Not once.”

  “Actions speak louder than words. That’s what Aunt May always said.” The moment the door opened, he moved out of the room. “And your actions were pretty damn deafening.”

  AFTER GRANT LEFT, I didn’t know what to do. So I just stood there in the middle of Aunt May’s bedroom, staring at the sunny yellow walls like I was waiting for a message to suddenly appear. One never came.

  It was close to midnight by the time the sounds of the party dimmed to a near silence. As I turned to leave the bedroom, something caught my eye on the dresser—whatever it was that Grant had laid down earlier before storming out.

  Moving closer, I could tell it was another picture frame, now lying facedown. The photos on the dresser were as eclectic as the frames they were in. Everything from a photo of young May on her graduation day to photos of us Clink kids standing around her Christmas trees with stockings clutched in our little hands.

  When I flipped up the one Grant had been holding, I froze. It was a picture of the two of us, taken the night of his senior prom. May had stationed us on the front steps of her house to snap the photo, right after surprising me with a formal dress she’d managed to find at a consignment shop.

  It was the nicest piece of clothing I’d ever owned, and I remembered breaking down into tears when she gave it to me. I remembered everything about that night. From the look on Grant’s face when I’d come out of Aunt May’s room in that dress, to the way he’d held me to him as we danced, to the words he’d whispered into my ear. I remembered everything.

  Including the gossip I’d overheard inside the girls’ bathroom later that night as some seniors chatted about the only reason a guy like Grant Turner was with a girl like me—because I was a whore just like my mother.

  When I stepped out of that bathroom stall, giving them each a big smile as I slowly washed my hands, the looks on their faces were priceless. When I emerged from the bathroom a minute later, Grant was waiting for me with that same anxious look he had whenever I disappeared behind a door he couldn’t follow me through. Grant hadn’t liked me going into rooms he couldn’t get into ever since he found me that summer I was nine. He’d been thirteen at the time, and after that day, Grant Turner had been my hero. The real kind. His role in my life might have changed as he got older, but his status of hero never had.

  Shoving him up against the wall, I’d kissed him until neither one of us could breathe. I kissed him like I didn’t care what people thought anymore, because right then, I didn’t. When those senior girls stumbled out of the bathroom a few minutes later, they huffed like I was confirming their conclusions.

  The ironic thing about that night was that it was the first time Grant told me he loved me. It was the first time I said it back. If that made me a whore, then by god, I was good with being a whore.

  My hand started trembling, so I set the picture back down before it fell and shattered. If Grant had moved on as much as he’d have me believe, why was he sitting in a room by himself, clutching an old picture of us?

  My thumb brushed the picture. I longed for the past at the same time I never wanted anything to do with it. There were happy memories, but there were more unhappy ones. The bad ones outnumbered the goods ones by a hundred to one.

  When I left the room, I kept the door open, just the way May had left all of the doors in her house. As I wandered through the rooms, I found them empty. Mostly. A few stragglers had fallen asleep on the couches, and a few more were still outside, chatting on the porch.

  For as many people as had been here earlier, the house was in a fairly tidy state. A few empty pizzas containers and empty bottles were scattered around the tables, but no one had gone full-on party all over the place. It was almost like they knew better, even though May wasn’t around to remind us all to clean up after ourselves.

  “Hey, you. I thought you’d disappeared on us all over again.” Cruz hip-checked me in the kitchen, his bowtie undone and his sleeves shoved up past his elbows.

  I shook my head as I started to collect a pile of pizza boxes to throw away. “Just needed a few minutes.”

  “Eh, try a few hours.” Cruz checked his flashy watch and tapped it. “You had me worried. Don’t disappear on us like that again, Ryan. For real. That would be a shit thing to do after coming back into our lives.”

  The boxes I’d been piling up tumbled out of my arms. Before I could crouch to pick them up, Cruz was already there, sliding them into a big black garbage bag.

  “I got this. I’m spending the night anyway, so get your beautiful butt out of here. But not before you give me your phone number and address and I have a chance to microchip you so that if you do disappear, I can track your ass down.” Cruz gave me a look as he continued to shuffle boxes into the bag.

  “Yes, Mom,” I replied, pitching a few bottles into the garbage can. “I’ll leave it all on the notepad on the fridge. But if you microchip me, it will be your ass you need to wor
ry about.”

  Cruz’s chuckle echoed through the house as I scribbled down my information. I frowned when I examined what I’d written. My handwriting would barely pass third-grade penmanship.

  The shuffling of garbage came to a standstill. “Did you and Grant get to talk?”

  “Well, we saw each other, but I’m not sure what passed between us could be classified as talking.” My face pulled up as I relived the scene in the bedroom. “At least not constructive communication.”

  “He’s hurt. Give him time, mama. He’ll come around.” Cruz said it like it was so simple, so obvious.

  To me, there was nothing obvious about it. Was Grant still hurt? Or had he moved past it like he’d told me? Would he come around? After tonight’s ordeal, I didn’t think so.

  “Are you sure you don’t need any help? I can stay a while longer,” I said, checking the time on my phone. No missed calls or texts from one of my old friends who’d done me a serious favor tonight—no missed anything from anyone. I’d keep checking it every few minutes though, just in case.

  “I’m sure. Besides, Raoul’s getting off work soon and promised to stop by and help clean up, so I have to save something for him to make sure he means it.”

  Poking my head out of the kitchen, I lifted my brows at him. “New boy-toy?”

  Cruz grinned. He actually grinned. “New boyfriend.”

  “Serious?” I asked.

  “Most serious I’ve ever gotten.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day that Cruz Sandoval got serious,” I said, shaking my head. The last I remembered of Cruz was him either getting into too many relationships or avoiding them altogether.

  “Hey, that’s what happens when you disappear for almost a decade. Things change. People change.”

  I stopped when I reached the front door. “Yes. They do change.” An image of the young Grant I remembered flashed to mind. He’d changed. But I guessed I’d changed even more. It was inevitable given my situation. “Want me to lock the door behind me?”