I really felt sick. I tried to close the laptop, but I couldn’t make my hands move. They were clenched too tightly into fists.
Ask him. Don’t flip out. Ask him.
Oh, hell yes, I was gonna ask him.
I stared at the pictures, really looking at the two of them together. I examined his face: smiling, ball cap pulled securely down over curly hair. I forced myself to look at her, really look at her. She was smiling too, her face inclined toward his as they left some club in L.A. together.
She was pretty.
She was really pretty.
Not good…
I heard Jack coming down the hallway, and although part of me wanted to clear the screen, pull up Mr. Movie Phone, and shove this whole Marcia thing in my famous mental drawer—The Drawer where everything unpleasant goes to be avoided—but we were past that. We were way past that. And if I’d been honest with myself, not such a chickenshit, we would’ve dealt with this months ago when I saw her text that night in the dark.
Of course, true to form, I’d refused to deal, letting this build to the point of full meltdown before acknowledging it. Why? A battle raged constantly between the cool, tough Grace exterior and the sad, frightened, still-sees-herself-as-the-fat-girl Grace on the inside. Jack had taken a tiny peek or two at Inside Grace, but he had yet to experience the mess that was actually in there. Come on, why deal with things expediently when they can fester and become an emotional storm of epic proportions? I never claimed to be the mature one in this relationship, that’s for sure.
I second that.
“Hey, Gracie, I think we should skip the movie and just stay in and have a shag, what do you say?” he deadpanned, stopping in the archway to the living room. His hands were pressed to either side of the archway, his hair raked back and crazy, his lower lip sucked in between his teeth, and his eyes blazing deep green. He smirked at me, taking my lack of speech as proof that his seduction was working.
He sauntered closer, coming up behind me on the couch and leaning over my shoulder. “What do you say we close this thing and talk more about this while I take these pesky clothes off of you…” he started. Then he saw the pictures on the computer.
He froze.
“Explain this, please,” I said in a low voice. When I was mad, I was dangerously quiet.
“Shit, Grace, I was going to tell you about this. I know how bad it looks, but really, it’s nothing,” he said.
“Explain this now, please,” I asked again, my voice even quieter. I was beginning to shake I was so angry, but beneath the anger was a profound sadness. This is what I’d been afraid of since the beginning.
“Grace, really, just listen. Marcia—she’s just a friend. I swear. You can even ask Holly,” he said, walking around to the front of the couch and moving the laptop away. He sat on the coffee table in front of me, watching my eyes. I think my expression told him to tread lightly.
Holly knows?
“Holly knows about this?” I asked, closing my eyes and feeling prickling behind my eyelids.
“Well, yes, she does. We talked about it earlier this week when these pictures first came out. I know this looks bad, Grace, but truly, she is just a friend. And Holly actually thinks we can make this work in our favor, since the pictures are already out there,” he started to explain.
This was just sounding worse.
“I know you used to date her, Jack. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t. I know better. What are you doing going out with your ex-girlfriend? I know I must sound like some crazy bitch, but right now I’m feeling all kinds of crazy, so start talking,” I said, my voice finally getting a little louder.
“Okay, yes, we used to date. But we’re just friends now. I promise you there’s nothing going on! She knows all about you. I talk about you all the time. That’s actually one of the reasons we’ve been hanging out so much lately. Her boyfriend travels a lot, and she never sees him. So we hang out sometimes. It’s harmless. I swear, Grace.”
“Ya know, it’s not so much that you’re hanging out with her, which I can overlook. Hey, man, we have no claims on each other. You can hang out with whoever you want. But the fact that no one bothered to tell me, and that you and Holly even discussed this? I feel sick. I really feel sick,” I said, my voice getting louder still.
Jack was quiet, looking at the floor.
I went on, the twists and turns of my stomach somehow giving me the push I needed to keep going. “Do you have any idea how this makes me feel? I feel like an old fool. Maybe this is the kind of person you should be with—someone who fits with you better than I ever could. And I’m sorry, Jack, but a girl does not text you in the middle of the night if all she wants is friendship,” I finished, the tears beginning to creep down my face. I wiped them angrily away.
Jack’s face had grown angry as well, but it flashed confusion when I mentioned the text. “What text? What are you talking about?” he asked.
“She texted you in the middle of the night weeks and weeks ago, before I even left L.A. You were asleep, and I picked it up to shut it off. Yes, I read it. I shouldn’t have, but I fucking did. I would say I’m sorry, but you know what? I’m not really even sorry. I wanted to see who was texting the man asleep in my bed, with his hands all over my body, at three in the morning. And looky what we have here! The same girl you’ve been photographed with all over town. Shocking, really,” I said sarcastically, getting up from the couch and pushing past him to stand in the kitchen.
I was still crying, but these were angry tears, pissed-off tears. All that shit I’d been pushing away for so long was coming home to roost now, and all I could do was hang on and let it come out.
Jack was quiet, still sitting on the coffee table. He finally rose and stood in front of me, face stormy.
“Gracie, I am going to say this once. Was I wrong not to tell you I was hanging out with my ex-girlfriend? Yes, probably. Was I wrong to not tell you sooner about the conversation I had with Holly? Yes, definitely. I’ve never done this before—had a relationship with someone who lives across the country while I’m going through the biggest thing professionally I’ve ever, or probably will ever, go through. And you know what? There will probably be more pictures of Marcia and me together. In fact, I can guarantee it. She has a movie she’s promoting, and our managers are milking this thing for all it’s worth. Even if you don’t trust me, which you clearly don’t, you know Holly would never do anything to hurt you. She was bloody well pissed when she saw these, as she should be. I really have my head up my ass sometimes, and I didn’t think about what these pictures would look like, or how they might make you feel,” he said, breathing heavily.
“Well, I think—” I started, and he put his finger over my lips.
“I’m not finished. You seem to think I’m going to fuck around on you. I admit that these pictures look terrible if you’re thinking about it in that way. You’re here, I’m there, and it sucks. But there has to be some trust between us. Would you agree?” he asked, removing his finger.
I glared at him. “Yes, I agree, but—”
“Grace, you either agree or you don’t. Yes or no?”
“Yes, I agree, and I do trust you,” I said, a fresh wave of tears starting.
“I trust you too. Otherwise I’d be asking you why there are a pair of men’s trainers by the front door. A less-trusting boyfriend would wonder about that…” He trailed off, arching an eyebrow at me and looking over my shoulder.
I turned and followed his gaze, and I saw Michael’s sneakers. He’d left them here the other night, changing into boots when it started raining.