Page 124 of Cuffed (Everyday Heroes 1)
“And there’s a problem with that why?”
“Because you’re supposed to be helping me shop for food, not getting me kicked out of the grocery store for offending the customers.”
“Sorry. Not sorry.” She shrugs unapologetically. “Grab that beef consommé there. We’ll use that with the roast.”
I follow her pointing finger and put the can into the cart. “You sure I’ll be able to cook this by myself?
She stares at me like a mother does a child. “Is that your way of asking me to come over and make it for you and then leave so you can pass it off as your own?”
“I’m not saying the idea hasn’t crossed my mind, but no. I want to do this for Grant on my own.”
“Okay. Now we need vegetables.” I scrunch my nose up in disgust. “It adds flavor. And while you may hate them, he may like them. He can’t have all those rippling muscles eating crappy food all the time.”
She grabs a plastic bag and begins putting some potatoes in it.
“So are you going to tell me why the sudden about face? I mean you went from running away from him, to struggling for control, to being a wreck last week, to being a giddy female when you’re not a giddy female. I’m getting whiplash here, Em . . . but hell, I’ll take it.”
I want to argue with her and tell her there hasn’t been a huge about face but realize she’s right. I’ve been all of the above.
“This isn’t like me, is it?” I ask but know I wouldn’t change it for the world because it feels liberating.
“No, it’s not.” She holds up a rather large cucumber and giggles like a schoolgirl when she wraps her fingers around it and strokes it.
“Put that down!” I glance around, mortified that someone might be watching her.
“Can’t blame a girl for liking a little girth.” She sets it down. “I like this new you, though. I like the smile that’s plastered on your face. I like the laugh on your lips. I love the confidence that’s back with a vengeance but is still different. Care to explain?”
“I just feel like things are falling into place,” I say over a mountain of apples.
“Okay.” She draws the word out to let me know I’m making zero sense.
“I’m feeling confident about getting approved for the loan. I went and spent some time with my mom when I was a wreck, and it kind of cleared my head and helped me focus. I let Grant break every single one of my rules and—”
“Every single one?” she asks, voice incredulous, eyes wide.
“Yep.” I flash her a huge grin.
“What prompted this?”
I contemplate how to answer her. While she knows I had a screwed-up past, she has no clue just how screwed up. I’ve let her assume what she wants to assume to avoid her putting a label on me like anyone else who has ever found out has. So, without giving her the correct context, there’s only one explanation I can give her that she’ll buy.
“You were right.”
She accidentally drops the onion in her hands onto the floor. “Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly?”
I nod and let her have her moment of glory. “I let him in, Des. Instead of pushing him away, I let him in.”
“You trust him,” she whispers as if she’s just unearthed the damn Rosetta Stone. She understands how huge this is for me.
“Yeah, I do.” It feels so good to say it. It feels even better to think back over the past two weeks and remember all of the laughter Grant and I have shared. Whether it be taking his nephew, Luke, to an extra innings baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and the Austin Aces, or strolling hand in hand at the mall while eating ice cream, or snuggling up next to him while he prepares for his oral interview while I try to make sense of the Blue Skies financials to see where I can cut and expand once it’s mine. Dare I say, we’ve felt normal?
And with the normal has come the cessation of more memories breaking through. It’s almost as if the more I fought them, the harder they tried to make themselves known, and then when I decided to own whatever ones came my way, they stopped.
“Earth to Emerson,” she says breaking through my own self-realization. “You were saying before you drifted off to thoughts of Grant and what he’s packing . . .”
I scramble to remember exactly what I was saying so I ad-hoc. “I’ve been so busy trying to hide who I was and Grant wouldn’t allow it. Instead he stepped in and told me that it didn’t matter who I was—what had made me who I was—because I was who mattered. The moment was what mattered. Not the past.” I groan and roll my eyes. “That’s not right . . . it’s hard to explain.”
“I think I get it.” She shrugs and laughs. “Basically, Grant is me, but with balls.”
