Chapter 46

Present

Another week past in much the same way as the last. I tried to keep my texts to a minimum so that I didn't come off as need, desperate or overbearing. I interspersed run of the mill 'good morning' and 'this made me think of you' texts with the 'I'm here if you need to talk' and 'Please tell me if there's anything I can do to help' messages. I wanted to show that I could respect her need for space, but I also couldn't ignore my desperate need to have her in my life, or the nagging feeling that this might very well be the end of the best relationship I'd ever had. And I had no idea why.

Grace ghosted every single text and phone call. Even the ones I timed for when I knew she was usually free.

At Daddy-Daughter Dos, she barely spared us a glance, devoting her attention to the other Dads and their little girls. It would have been fine if it weren't the second week in a row, and it weren't such a stark difference to every other class before that. I understood the need to spread the attention, but this was extreme. And when Kenzie bounded over at the end of class to show Grace the drawing she'd done of Boris and her teddies having a disco, she'd smiled tightly and praised the work, but I could tell her heart wasn't in it.

Apparently, so could Kenzie, because as I was tucking her in to bed, her little arms wrapped around my neck, preventing me from leaving as she buried her face in my shoulder. "Did I do something wrong?" she asked, her voice trembling.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened our hug. "Of course not, Muffin-head. Why would you think that?"

"Miss Grace didn't like out picnic," she sobbed. "And now she's mad at me."

Fuck, I thought. It was one thing for me to be Grace's bad books for whatever reason. I was an adult and could recognise that that sometimes there wasn't a specific reason for a person's mood, and despite how it looked and felt, I wasn't necessarily at fault. Not that I thought I wasn't at the centre of whatever was going on here, it seemed pretty obvious that I was getting the silent treatment. I'd spent enough nights in the dog house during my disaster marriage to Phoebe to not recognise the symptoms. But taking her grievances with me out on my daughter was not going to fly. She'd done nothing wrong.

"I'm sure she's not mad at you, Chicken-Pop," I soothed, rubbing my hand over her back as she continued to cry. "She's just having a hard time at the moment." We all are.

"I want Miss Grace to be happy again," Kenzie said with so much conviction I thought it was possible she could have willed it into happening. "I thought my drawing would help." So she'd noticed the change last week as well.

My heart was breaking for her. I knew exactly how she felt. I wanted Grace to be happy again, too. I wanted to go back to the easy dynamic we had before the picnic. If I'd known everything would change so dramatically, I would never have suggested the stupid family date.

No. That wasn't right. It had been a good day. Kenzie had enjoyed herself, I'd gotten to see a side of Grace that I'd only seen hints off before, and I thought she'd had a good time too until she suddenly had to leave. Maybe it was talking about her Mom that had brought the change on? Had it been too painful for her to imagine a life with me, helping to raise Kenzie when she'd already had so much of her life stolen away from her by raising her own sister? That was the only explanation that made sense to me. She was pulling back from me to avoid a future she'd glimpsed and didn't want live through.

But why not just tell me outright and leave Kenzie out of it?

As I rocked my crying daughter to sleep, I decided that this had gone on long enough. The time for answers was now. I tucked Teddy under her arm, kissed her on the forehead and padded out of the room, pulling the door shut behind me. I'd had vague plans of relaxing with some mindless television this evening, but now that my mind was made up, I needed action, or I'd never be able to sleep. I checked the doors and windows were locked, set the alarm, turned off the lights and retreated to my room, snatching my phone off the bedside table where I'd left earlier.

I dialled Grace's number, and predictably it went to voice mail. I didn't both leaving another message. I hung up and tried again. And again. I sent a text to prompt her to pick up the phone, and called again. It took a total of six tries before she finally picked up.

"What?" she demanded, clearly annoyed with my sudden persistence.

"Don't 'what' me like I'm the one with explaining to do," I snapped. Careful, Lester, I mentally warned myself. Mistreating her will only make things worse. If being a parent had taught me anything it was Steph had always been right about her whole 'you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar' theory. I took a second to suck in some oxygen and find a sense of calm. "What's going on with you?" I asked in a much gentler tone.

She was silent for so long that I thought she'd hung up on me, but just as I was about to pull the phone away from my ear to check, she said four words that cut me right to the bone: "We need to talk." Nothing good ever followed those words, but I agreed to meet her the next day in the food court of the mall for lunch and to clear the air. At least, I hoped we'd be clearing the air and not coming to some kind of ultimate decision about our relationship. I'd grown attached to her in a way I hadn't thought possible before meeting her.

*o*

She was tired. I knew because she was wearing her glasses instead of contacts, and she'd confessed that she tried to avoid wearing her glasses in public because she didn't like the way they looked. Personally, I thought they made her look sexy as hell, but I didn't think now was the time to tell her that. Not when her spine was ramrod straight and she had her hands clasped tightly together on the table in front of her, following my progress through the surrounding tables towards her.

She was dressed all in black, and there were tiny hair slivers on her sleeve, so I knew she was on lunch break from the salon. Whatever she needed to tell me, she was going to fit in to the next twenty-five minutes. That knowledge was not a comfort, when combined with her posture and neutral expression. This may very well be the last twenty-five minutes of our relationship.

I sat down opposite her and mirrored her position unconsciously, hands folded on the table, eyes caught on hers.

"Have you had a good morning?" I asked, hoping that by starting on a pleasantry I could delay the inevitable.

Rather than reply, she dropped her hand to the empty chair beside her and revealed an A4 envelope that had been sitting there. She slid it onto the table between us, her gaze locked on mine the entire time. I wanted to examine the new object, but I felt like if I looked away I'd miss some important message she was trying to broadcast to me. "I need you to explain this," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear and nudging the envelope closer to me.

I took that as my cue to tear my eyes away from her face and stared down at the off-white paper packet she'd presented. What had started as curiosity quickly morphed into confusion as I stared at Grace's named printed on the front in a familiar script. "What's this?" I asked, glancing up only to catch fire from the heat in her glare.

"You tell me," she retorted.

With dread pooling in my gut, I took the envelope in hand and slipped the stack of papers from within, turning them over to see what they were. The second I caught sight of the formatting of the page I knew exactly what I was looking at. My confusion deepened for only a moment before it all fell into place. The handwriting, her name, the search printouts. This was the background check Bobby had done on Grace when I'd been agonising over whether I should ask her out. The one he'd given to me for if I finally decided to read it. The one I'd decided I didn't need to read because Bobby would have flagged anything he'd found concerning. The very same packet of information that I'd carelessly thrown on the kitchen bench and forgotten about. She'd obviously discovered it when she was looking for the pencil sharpener.

Everything made sense now. I was an absolute idiot.

"I can explain," I told her beseechingly, lowering the pages to the table and catching the daggers she was throwing my way.

"Good," she clipped. "That's exactly what I said you needed to do."

She wasn't wrong.

I took a deep breath, knowing that whatever argument I came out with would be weak. I had no proof that I'd never looked inside it. And the fact that I had it at all was a major breech of trust. "Grace, the second I laid eyes on you, I was hooked, and then I got to know you a little more with the hair classes, and I had this intense yearning for you that I couldn't ignore. I knew you were different. Special. But I haven't really dated seriously since Kenzie's mom died, and we hadn't exactly had a happy relationship. I was hesitant. I really wanted to ask you out, but I didn't want to get burned again, and I certainly didn't want to put Kenzie in a position to be harmed." I paused, giving that a second to sink in, knowing it was possible that all I was doing was digging myself a deeper hole to die in.

"You know I have access to these databases through work. The temptation to run a background search on you, to know what kind of woman you were and save myself the heartache if you turned out to be something… nefarious."

She frowned. "Nefarious?"

"Like I said, Phoebe and I had a problematic story," I shrugged. I hadn't made a secret of the fact that Phoebe and I had not been in love, that we'd stayed together only for Kenzie. But I hadn't given her details. "I was trying to decide if I could just ask you out, or if I should run a background check, knowing that it'd put a dent in our trust if you ever found out. I was literally beating myself up over it when my friend revealed that he'd already done the background."

"So, you think that just because you didn't do the dirty work yourself that makes it okay to look into my past and no tell me?" she questioned, crossing her arms over her chest.

I shook my head emphatically. "No," I said. "I didn't read. I was torn at first, but then I realised that if Bobby had found anything concerning he would have just told me to steer clear of you."

"Knowing that your friend has examined my life doesn't make me feel any better," she pointed out. "And how do I even know that you're telling the truth?"

This was exactly the reaction I'd expected. I wish I'd never let Bobby give me the envelope. This was a complication I should have foreseen when I accepted it. I should have realised that if we got serious she'd eventually come over to the house. I was smarter than this. My feelings for Grace had made me stupid. "I know that it's just my word, and it doesn't amount to much at this point," I said quietly. "But I promise you, the first time I even glanced at these papers was just now, right in front of you."

Grace just continued to glare. Challenging.

"I can't prove it," I said solemnly. "I'm sorry. I wish I could. I wish I'd done thing differently. I really like you, Grace. I feel this sense of comfort with you that I haven't had with anyone. Ever. And I was just trying to make sure my daughter was safe."

She looked away, down at her watch, then at the pages sitting on top of the envelope. Her sigh was heavy, but final. Slowly, she gathered up the pages and shoved them back into the envelope as I braced myself for the end. "I don't think I can do this," she whispered to the table, unable to meet my gaze all of a sudden. "I think it would be best if you didn't come to Daddy-Daughter Dos anymore."

I nodded calmly. It was logical. She needed to not see me and be reminded of my sins – real or presumed. I understood. It didn't make it hurt any less, though. I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest and chucked on the tracks in front of a runaway train. I got up to leave, unsure if even saying goodbye in this situation was the right thing to do. I didn't want it to be goodbye. I couldn't bring myself to be that final. So I just walked away, hoping that it wasn't actually the end.