by L. D. Davis
After that day, I purposely stayed out later after work so that by the time I got home, Grant was either gone or already in bed. I had a thousand excuses for why I couldn’t hang out with him, and I stayed out of his reach so that he wouldn’t touch me. He wasn’t stupid. He understood that I was pushing him away, and he had the grace to back off until we were merely cordial in passing each other.
Around that time, Randy made a reappearance. Feeling the need to get away from Grant, I spent more time with Randy. My drug usage kicked up a few notches, and soon, I started missing work and ditching classes. Sharice and Grant’s mom wasn’t having any of it. It was one thing for her to put up with Shari’s drug use because she was her daughter, but I wasn’t anything to her. She didn’t have to let me stay in her house, and I was soon homeless again. I had no choice but to go stay with Randy.
Things became very bad. He was still a cruel bastard. One night, almost in the same spot I met Shari at years before, on the side of a convenience store, Randy slapped me so hard that I stumbled into the side of the building. I had no idea that Grant just happened to be pulling into the parking lot at that time. There was a screech of tires as a car came to a sudden halt in front of us, blinding us with its headlights. A car door slammed, and a second later, Grant appeared in the light like some kind of avenging angel. He had asked no questions before his fist knocked out a couple of Randy’s teeth. He said no words before punching the man in the gut so hard that he dropped to his knees before curling up on the sidewalk, sobbing and groaning.
Without any words at all, he guided me to the passenger side of his car and helped me get in. He was so furious that he didn’t speak until we pulled into an empty store parking lot miles down the road. Then he turned to me within the confines of the car and gingerly put his fingers on my cheek where Randy had hit me.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. It’s a little sore, but it’s not bad. It’s not the worst he’s ever done.”
Even in the dimly lit space, I could see Grant’s face darken with anger.
“Why do you keep going back to him? You’re stronger than that. I don’t understand.”
I pulled away from his hand.
“He’s all I have,” I snapped.
“That’s not true!” he snapped back. “You have me!”
I stared at him, surprised and hopeful, but only for a few short seconds. There was no use getting lost in ridiculous fantasies of romanticism.
I slumped in my seat, crossed my arms, and said, “You’re Shari’s brother. You’re not my brother. You’re not my anything.”
He was quiet for a moment. I stared straight ahead, but I still felt his eyes on me.
“I can be more,” he finally said in a soft voice.
I laughed humorlessly. “You must have forgotten that I am a junkie and a complete failure at life.”
“You are a junkie,” he conceded. “But you are so much more.”
“That’s right.” I held up a hand. “I totally forgot to mention a thief and a whore.”
“That’s how you see yourself. That’s not how I see you.”
“I see myself that way because I am that way, Grant, and if you don’t see those things, too, then you are blind and stupid.”
“When I look at you, I see beauty and strength. I see more than the girl you are now, but I see the girl you can be.” His fingers grazed my cheek and down the side of my neck. “You’re a beautiful butterfly in the making, Mayson. One day, you’re going to get through this ugly caterpillar stage. You will wrap yourself in a healing cocoon and emerge more beautiful and stronger than ever.”
I stared at him. My heart thrummed heavily as his fingers traced over my mouth. He leaned across the center console and cupped my face in his hand. He held my gaze as his lips moved closer to mine, but just before he kissed me, I found my breath and spoke.
“Butterflies die quickly,” I whispered. “They don’t live that long. One day they’re fluttering about and the next day they are falling from the sky. That is if they don’t become food for a hungry bird first.”
To my surprise, he smiled.
“You’re such a smartass,” he said, caressing my bottom lip with his thumb. “You’re not pushing me away again, Baby Girl. I’m not going anywhere.”
I swallowed hard and whispered, “Why?”
It wasn’t just a question as to why he wasn’t going anywhere. I wanted to know why. Why me? Why did he love a girl who couldn’t love herself? Why did he see me as something I could never be? Why, why, why…
“Because I’m in love with you,” he whispered back.
As he kissed me for the first time, his love for me was my biggest Why of them all.
Standing in the shower, I blinked away my memories of Randy and Grant. They were two different people who had changed my life in two distinct ways. Randy had flipped my life on its head and shook me down for everything I had, but Grant had righted me and given me some of my dignity back. He had shown me what it meant to love and be loved, but I’d lost him once, and then I gave him up.
When I got out of the shower, I checked my phone for the fiftieth time since I woke up. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. I had sent him away, and away he had gone. So, why did I keep checking my phone to see if he sent me a message or tried to call me? I couldn’t have it both ways. I couldn’t dump Grant and then hope he’d call. The idea was just juvenile.
To take my mind away from Grant Alexander, I quickly got dressed and then followed my nose to the kitchen.
It is awkward enough to sleep in another person’s home. It is many times more awkward to stumble upon a tender moment between the inhabitants.
I heard Kyle and Lily’s kids as I reached the first floor. I wouldn’t have expected to find the couple tonguing each other in the middle of the kitchen while their children sat at the breakfast table.
Kyle had Lily pressed up against the kitchen counter with one hand tangled in her wild red hair and his other hand rested on her slightly round belly. By the way he reverently rubbed her baby bulge as he kissed her, I became more and more convinced that her pregnancy turned him on. I didn’t understand that, nor could I understand why they were even having another child when the last one wasn’t even two years old yet. Furthermore, Lily had gone into premature labor during all of her pregnancies. In fact, that is how she had lost her first child many years ago. That would scare the hell out of me and I would never want to get knocked up again, but apparently, she wasn’t so scared.
I didn’t think that I would ever understand procreators.
“Kyle saw me in my underwear,” I said in greeting as I stepped into the kitchen.
The couple pulled apart reluctantly.
“I hope they were cute underwear,” Lily said. “I hope you at least made it worth the peek.”
“They were an exciting periwinkle with a martini glass print.”
I used my hip to bump Kyle out of my way so that I could access the state-of-the-art coffee maker.
“I’ll never drink a martini again,” Kyle grumbled. His expression softened as he ruffled his son’s dark hair. Kayden grinned up at his father as he stuffed some gelatinous substance into his little mouth.
Lily put a hand on her hip. “When did you ever drink martinis, Kyle Sterling?” She didn’t wait for him to respond before turning to me. “Do you want any pancakes, Mayson?”
I accepted the offer for pancakes and sat down at the table a couple minutes later after making my cup of coffee.
It was my second morning at the Sterling home. After successfully convincing my boss that I was too sick to call out that first day, I took off the rest of the week. My vacation was supposed to start the following Monday, so overall, I was going to have three weeks off work.
Kyle took a couple days off, too. He said that he had things to take care of at home and wanted to spend some time with his family, but I think he also wanted to keep a close eye on me. I don’t think he was fully convinced that I didn’t shoot up.
I nodded my acknowledgment as I watched his daughter across the table playing with her baby doll. Its dark hair kept falling into her pancakes, but she didn’t seem to mind. She and Nat were different in many obvious ways, but they were both four and about the same size. I couldn’t help but to think of Natalie while I was around Amara. I had to admit to myself that I missed the little girl and Alex, too.
Thinking of the kids made me think of Grant. Thinking of Grant made a lump form in my throat. I missed all three of them, and I missed my dog.
Kyle had left Dusky with Mr. Gibbons, but Mr. Gibbons called Grant to go pick Dusky up Tuesday morning because he was going to Long Beach Island to visit his granddaughter and her family. I had no idea how I’d get my boy back without a fight.
We left a couple hours later. It was time for me to go home. I didn’t like imposing on the Sterlings, and stubbornly, I didn’t want to need to be there, either.
“Are you looking forward to your vacation?” Kyle asked in the car.
“Yes and no. You know I don’t like people, even the ones I’m related to, and I have to share a bed with a bunch of toddlers.”
“Yeah, but they’re not your toddlers. During the day, you’ll be able to go your own way and just relax. I think you’ll feel better when you come back.”
I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “Whether I feel better or not, I’m going to have to suck it up. This is exhausting.”
“You are exhausting. I don’t know how you made it this far.”
“I almost didn’t.”
It was quiet for a couple of minutes before he cleared his throat and feigned casualness.
“So, how long are your cousins staying in New Jersey?”
I rolled my eyes. “You mean how long is Emmy staying in New Jersey. It’s been four years since you last saw her, and six years since you two have been together.”
His jaw tightened. “Yes. So?”
“You have a gorgeous wife who—for reasons I’ll never be able to fathom—not only loves and adores you, but she has allowed you to penetrate and impregnate her at least three times.”
“Are you attempting to make a point, or are you just insulting me?”
“Both. My point is that you still love Emmy.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. I was willing to bet money in the bank that he regretted ever asking about her, even in his roundabout way.
“I can hear it in your voice when you say her name. Em. You say those two letters, that one syllable, with every breath in your body. It’s like a benediction. It makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.”
He didn’t look at me, but I could see that I hit the nail right on the head. He couldn’t deny it because it was true.
“I love Lily,” he said after a quiet moment. “I love her in ways that I’d never been able to love Emmy.”
“I get it. When you love someone as hard as you loved her, they’re hard to forget—even if you have no intentions of ever being with her again.”
I felt like I was talking about Grant and me as much as I was talking about Kyle and Emmy.
“She’s a good woman,” Kyle murmured. “It’s important to me to know that she has a good life, especially after what I did to her. I know she’s forgiven me, and I have managed to forgive myself as well. I had to so I could move on to be with Lily, but I’ll never forget the emotional and physical pain I’ve caused her. Sometimes I need to be reassured that she really did get through it.”
I folded my hands in my lap so I wouldn’t touch his arm, but I hoped that my voice was reassuring enough.
“I promise you that she got through it. I promise you that she has a very nice life.”
After many silent seconds, he seemed to relax. He nodded his head and appeared to be relieved. “I’m glad.”
“That’s great,” I said sarcastically. “I’m excellent at fixing other people’s problems.”
“Well, you’re about to start fixing yours,” he said mysteriously.
I narrowed my eyes as we pulled into the parking lot of a large recreational park, not too far away from Kyle’s house.
I started to become very suspicious. “What are we doing here?”
He pulled into a spot and put the car in park before turning to me.
“I think you’re an idiot,” he said point blank. “It is an unavoidable truth that you are a very damaged person. Our past is our past; we can’t get rid of it. It doesn’t go away, but you rediscovered the one man who not only loves you for who you are now—which is really difficult to do since you are an epic pain in the ass—but loves you despite who you were before. Perfectly normal, mentally sound women would give up a lot to have what you have with Grant, and you don’t have to give up anything.”
As I sat there dismayed and speechless, Kyle pointed across the green grass to a picnic table situated close to the lake. There stood a man, with a black lab lying in the grass beside him.
“If you want your dog back, you have to go get him yourself.”
I finally found my words and sputtered out, “You bastard! You set this up with Grant? You’ve only met him once!”
I had introduced the men outside the Sterling Corp building one morning. They had shaken hands firmly as they sized each other up. It was a total testosterone party as both men puffed out their chests and stood erect. Grant was dressed like Rambo that day since he was about to head out to catch a villain, but even though Kyle was in a suit, they both emanated bad boy vibes. Women had literally stopped in their tracks to sample the two different flavors of man candy.
I’ll never, ever admit this out loud, but I became strangely turned on by the display myself. I would die before ever telling Kyle Sterling that he’d inadvertently and indirectly turned me on.
“How many times do I have to meet the guy?” Kyle asked, reaching across me to push open my door. “Get out of my car.”
I began to object, but he unbuckled my seatbelt and gave me a light shove.
“I hate you,” I said vehemently, putting one leg out of the car.
“Thank you! This loving friend shit is disgusting. Get out.”
I got out of the car. I barely slammed the door before Kyle put the car in reverse. In seconds, he had peeled out of the lot, leaving me standing alone on the blacktop.
I turned around and looked at Grant. He waited patiently for me fifty yards or so away. I sucked in a breath and let it out explosively before making myself move.
I cursed Kyle as I walked. He would rue the day. I’d rip his balls off and put them in a blender. It wasn’t like he needed them anymore. He already had two and a half spawn.
When I was about halfway across the clearing, Dusky noticed me and got excited. He began to bark and whine and leap about, but Grant’s grip on his leash didn’t let him go too far. When I was close enough to risk it, he let go of the leash and Dusky bounded after me. He nearly knocked me over when he jumped on me and tried to greet me with licks to the face.
I dropped to my knees to kiss his furry face and rub him behind the ears. A knot formed in my throat. It had only been a couple days since I last saw him, but I still felt bad for neglecting him because of my own pain.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured to him as I hugged him to me.
I ignored Grant’s heavy gaze as I reunited with my dog. After a minute, Dusky happily ran back to Grant and then back to me again. It made me think about how kids must act when their divorced parents are in the same space for the first time after a split.
Grant grabbed Dusky’s leash again.
“Lay down,” he quietly commanded.
Dusky lay down in the grass, panting happily as Grant loosely tied his leash to a table leg. He straightened up and looked me over as I took a few cautionary steps forward.
“Hello, Mayson.”
My eyes traced every element of his handsome face and quickly took in his strong, powerful body bef
ore meeting his eyes again. Though his eyes still carried sorrow, they were bright and lively.
“Hello,” I responded.
“I’m glad you came.”
“I didn’t really have a choice. Kyle physically removed me from his car and abandoned me in the parking lot.”
A small smile formed at one corner of his mouth.
“However you ended up here, I’m glad you’re here. I have something for you.” He stepped aside and gestured to the table.
A large gift box, elegantly wrapped in shiny, white paper and topped with a big, blue bow sat at the center of the table. I eyed it warily for a moment before dragging my gaze to his face.
“I don’t want any gifts.”
“You have to accept it. It’s perishable.”
One of my eyebrows arched as I studied the box again.
“Open it,” he quietly insisted. “Please.”
Only my growing curiosity and not the slight note of pleading in his voice made up my mind.
I sighed and moved to the table. “There better be a big fat piece of chocolate cake in here,” I muttered.
I touched the lid with my fingers and glanced back at him. He nodded once in a silent command. I took a breath and lifted.
My breath caught in shock at first, and then it caught again with wonder as bright and vibrantly colored winged creatures escaped the confines of the box and fluttered into the air around me. One, two, three, four, seven, ten, fourteen and more butterflies floated skyward. They hovered above my head like a halo, strong wings beating in tune with my heart. I reached for them and two landed on my hand, tickling my skin. I laughed and sobbed at the same time—completely unaware until that moment that I had begun to cry.
Dusky barked as the butterflies swarmed. One landed on the tip of his nose. He tried to eat it, but it bobbed away in haste.
Grant’s voice was deep and strong behind me as his hands found my waist.
“This is how I see you, Mayson. You are majestic and perfect. Authentic and strong. I know your past is dark and frightening, but you are beautiful and brave. I see you and see the prettiest wings…” His lips touched my neck. “Soft. Bright. Brilliant, and full of life.”