“The past is past,” she said.
“Agreed.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Want some popcorn?”
And just like that, Grayson mused, they fell back in step. It had been surprisingly easy. Take the girl to a museum.
He laughed to himself. Not just any girl.
Claire.
Claire was the only girl he knew who would find going to the museum to be an entertaining afternoon. He knew girls that liked the casino. That liked to go shopping. He even knew a girl once who like to target practice.
But Claire was one of a kind.
In more ways than one.
She was the girl who always had his heart.
He got them popcorn from the concession stand and they walked outside through the gardens snacking on popcorn.
“Tell me about the Air Force,” she said.
“That’s something you don’t want to know about.”
“Why not?”
“Okay. I spent a lot of time jumping out of airplanes.”
“Not just for the sake of jumping.”
“At first it was. While we were training. Then after we were deployed, it was for rescue purposes.”
“So, you also learned a lot about treating injuries, too.”
“Yeah, that was a big part of it. And learning to treat injuries in less than ideal conditions.”
“You liked it?”
“There’s nothing else like it. The adrenalin is addictive.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“No. It’s for the younger guys. I’m too old now. I stopped after ten years and went back to school. Then I had to do another three years as an officer. But my days of jumping into danger ended a long time ago.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I don’t like thinking about you being injured.”
“The young guys don’t even think about that part. We thought we were indestructible.”
“I guess there are a few good things about getting older,” she said.
They stopped and sat on a bench. Watched a butterfly flit about. Claire held out a hand and it landed on her fingertip.
“They say butterflies are a reminder to focus on the here and now,” Grayson said.
Claire glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Then the butterfly is my mascot.”
They sat quietly while the butterfly sat on Claire’s fingertip. She shifted slightly, but it stayed. “I’ve never had this happen,” she said. “Have you?”
“Never.”
He leaned over and pressed his lips against hers.
She closed her eyes for the briefest of seconds. When she opened her eyes, the butterfly was gone.
“Here and now,” she said, feeling the sadness in her eyes.
“Don’t be sad,” he said. “Our here and now is full of promise and happiness.”
She smiled into his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is.”
They went back inside the museum, but decided they’d had enough for one day.
“Would you like to have dinner?” he asked. “I know a good little Italian place nearby.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That would be nice.”
When he said little Italian place, he meant little. The place had red and white checkered table cloths, but the wait staff wore black tuxedos. It was an interesting combination of quaint and fancy.
After they ordered pasta, Claire brought up the obvious. “Do you have a place to live in Pittsburgh yet?”
“I have a couple of possibilities,” he said.
“You went there for an interview?”
“I did. One of the professors is taking a year to go live and work in Japan, so he was the one who showed me around the city.”
“I’ve never been there. Is it nice?”
“Surprisingly, yes. It’s very pretty. After we left the university area, he took me downtown. We drove a long tunnel. When we came out on the other side, the city was there, right in front of us. With the river right there below us.”
“Don’t they have more than one river?”
“There are three right there that come together.”
“I never paid any attention to it. But it sounds intriguing.”
“I thought so, too,” he said.
“You must be excited.”
“I was,” he admitted. “But not so much now.”
Their entrees arrived and they sat quietly enjoying their food for a few minutes.
“This is really good,” she said.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Claire,” he said. “If we can make it work for just one year, not even a year, just until next May, I can try to come back here. I can find something else.”
She nodded, but kept her eyes down.
He kept talking. “I wouldn’t go, but I don’t have anything else here now and they’re counting on me. The guy who’s going to Japan said they hadn’t had all that many applicants. Granted, that was March, but still, it sounds like they really need me to cover for him. He said if he can’t find someone to cover for him, he can’t go.”
“Do you know why he wants to go?”
“I think he has a girlfriend there. He wants to bring her back here, but she can’t leave yet. I didn’t ask too many personal questions.”
“I admire you for wanting to help him out,” Claire said.
“I’m a sucker for a sad story, I guess.”
She looked back up at him. “I guess so.”
“We can do it, right? Am I missing something?”
“No. We can do it.”
“You’re hesitant.”
“It just feels like déjà vu,” she said.
“It does. Doesn’t it? I’m so sorry for that. I’ll so make it up to you.”
“Okay,” she said.
After dinner, he drove them back to her house and walked her to the door. They stood at the door for a moment.
“I’m going to just go inside,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, confusion on his face.
She tiptoed up to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you for a lovely day,” she said, then he turned and kissed her lightly on the lips. She went inside, leaving him standing there looking befuddled.
Claire closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her lips.
It had been so easy to fall back into being a couple with Grayson. Too easy.
So easy it frightened her.
Then came the reminder. He was leaving. Again. Soon.
She locked the door and pushed away from it. She went into the living room and flopped down on the sofa.
People did long-distance relationships all the time. All. The. Time.
It wasn’t like she didn’t have the money to visit him. It wasn’t about the money.
It was about all the evenings she would spend alone.
All the mornings she would wake up alone.
She’d spent nearly twenty years of her life in that kind of relationship.
It was not how she wanted to spend the next ten, twenty, or thirty years.
He said he could try to come back after a year. Try.
Once he was away, it became easier to stay away. He’d be lured by the next opportunity.
She knew. She’d been through it before.
It was different with Noah being a pilot, but there were too many similarities to what Grayson was proposing.
She couldn’t ignore it.
Perhaps she should lay low for a bit. Play it cool. Stay away.
She scoffed.
She could no more stay away from Grayson Moore than a moth could stay away from a flame.
She could, however, disappear for a bit.
Pushing herself off the sofa, she went into her home office, turned on her computer, and sent the necessary emails and made the reservation
Chapter Ten
When they had gotten back to Claire’s house, Grayson hadn’t been
sure how to proceed. He’d opened the car door for her and walked her to the door.
She’d meant to kiss him on the cheek, but he turned and caught the kiss on his lips. Their lips barely brushed against each other, but it was enough to leave him wanting more.
Then he waited while she went inside. After he heard the door lock click, he turned and went back down the sidewalk to his car.
He sat in his car, gripping the steering wheel and watched her door. She’d been quiet since they’d talked about his moving.
She’d brought it up. Something he hadn’t been going to. He was going to focus on the moment.
He’d enjoyed spending the day with her. It had been easy to forget about their real world problems and just be together.
But now he was at a loss as to how to proceed.
Should he give her some space? Or should he go up and knock on her door?
It was gut-wrenching to think that they had less than two months to spend together before he went away for a year. And here they were spending it apart.
Shoring up his resolve, he got out of the car and started up the sidewalk. A dog barked in the neighbor’s yard and he jumped. Stopped.
Claire’s downstair’s light went off. He watched until the light upstairs come on. He couldn’t see inside because she had closed the curtains, but the upstairs light was muted compared to the bright light downstairs.
He couldn’t knock on the door now. It would be in poor taste to do so when she was getting ready for bed.
He sighed and turned around.
He would call her tomorrow.
The next morning, he sent her a text message. It was a simple good morning with a smiley face.
No response.
He dragged himself to his coffeepot and poured his second cup.
He had PowerPoint presentations to prepare.
He went back to his desk and sat down.
Maybe she was still asleep.
Danielle would be at orientation all day, so maybe Claire had turned her phone off.
He opened the textbook and began a new file on personality disorders.
Maybe she went out to work in her yard. Did Claire work in her yard?
Or did she hire her yard work done?
There were so many things he didn’t know about her.
He googled images for borderline disorder. Copied a couple into the file.
Maybe she went for a jog.
Did she jog?
He checked his phone again. It showed her message was delivered.
He turned his phone over and went back to work. He managed to get through two personality disorders before he checked his phone again.
By the time he got through all ten, he’d talked himself into calling her. It was almost noon. Maybe she wanted to have lunch.
He dialed her number, but it went straight to voicemail.
He hung up.
Today was not going to be a good day.
If she was avoiding him, he needed to let her be.
Even with the possibility that something had happened to her, he couldn’t very well just show up at her house. He’d promised he wouldn’t do that. He could see already that was a promise he was going to have to break.
Too antsy to sit still, he gathered up his dirty clothes and turned on the washing machine. Then he changed his sheets.
And took out the garbage.
It had been all of twenty minutes.
Today was definitely not a good day.
He went to the kitchen to make a sandwich, but too late, realized he had nothing edible. Nothing but stale bread.
He pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, picked up his keys and drove to the supermarket.
It didn’t take long to fill up his cart. He made sure he had plenty of food. Just in case someone stopped by.
After he checked out and loaded his car, he decided maybe he should drive by her house just make sure she was okay. He wouldn’t stop. He’d respect her privacy.
He pulled up to the curb on the street in view of her house, but he had no way to tell if she was home or not. As always, her garage door was closed. Since it was daylight, he had no way of knowing if her lights were on.
Feeling a bit like a stalker, he drove away.
He drove home, put his groceries away, and decided he needed to clear his head.
He left his phone charging on his nightstand and, grabbing his keys, went out the door. The apartment complex was adjacent to a little woodsy park.
He walked among the trees a bit before finding a bench and sitting. No one else was out and about this afternoon. He supposed it was too warm for them, but after living in Texas, he enjoyed the weather.
Grayson needed to give Claire some space. She’d made that apparent. In his experience, a woman would ignore him for only one of two reasons. Either she wasn’t into him or she hadn’t decided yet. And really, he’d never experienced that second option, so he was tacking it onto his list to give Claire the benefit of the doubt.
He took a deep breath. He needed to be cool.
The ink was barely dry on her divorce papers. She’d been married and divorced. She’d had a child. And that child had been troubled recently. Those things would shift a person’s perspective on life.
He’d been in the Air Force. He’d experienced traumatic experiences including watching people die. A lot of people. Good people. Men fighting for their country.
They weren’t the same people as they had been in high school.
Besides, Claire ran in different social circles. She’d been married to a successful pilot and she’d established herself as a successful entrepreneur of not only an art gallery, but also a charity foundation.
He was a social worker teaching college kids.
Claire was a woman who made decisions with her head, not her heart. Grayson wasn’t a logical choice for her. The hormones that had connected them in high school may no long be there or even more likely weren’t strong enough for them as adults.
Especially since he was going away. Again.
Either way, he had to resign himself that she may not be invested in him this time around.
Some people couldn’t, for whatever reason, reengage in a previous romance.
His resolve strengthened with a determination to let her contact him, he walked home.
He took his phone off the nightstand.
There was a message from Claire.
His heart skipped a beat.
I had to go out of town for a few days. I’ll let you know when I get home.
He sent back a quick response. Is everything okay?
She responded immediately. Yes. Don’t worry.
Don’t worry. What was that supposed to mean?
He had about a thousand questions. Where was she? Was she alone? What was she doing? Why hadn’t she mentioned that was planning to be out of town?
Remembering his resolve to play it cool, he stuck his phone in his back pocket. He went to his little home office desk and opened his computer. He heart sank when he saw that he had twenty-three emails from students.
He sat his phone on the desk and sat down to get to work. Before opening the first email, he sent a simple text to Claire. Okay.
Whatever it was she had to do, he had to leave her to it.
He had a presentation to prepare and emails to answer.
Claire took a taxi to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She’d gotten caught in the early morning traffic of Manhattan. She didn’t mind.
New York had such a different feel from L.A. New York had so much energy in such a small space.
She loved it.
She’d sometimes thought about renting a small apartment here, but the hotel was the more logical choice and had all the comforts without the headaches.
She paid the driver and stepped out in front of the museum. There was something about a museum that she found inexplicably heady.
Today was no different. It had been almost three years since she’d made the trip over to New Y
ork. She’d been trying to find the time to come back for quite some time.
After talking with Grayson and getting tangled up in her thoughts, she knew it was the perfect time for her to get away.
Danielle was stable and busy with school and a new boyfriend. The divorce was behind her. She could take a few days and immerse herself into art.
She had no meetings set up and no one in the art community knew she was here. She was dressed as a tourist and planned to spend the day merely meandering through the museum, going wherever her eyes led her.
After wandering for a couple of hours, she stopped and had lunch in the little café, then wandered some more. Before she even realized it, several more hours had passed and she needed to head back to the hotel.
Her mind was racing with ideas for her next show, so she barely noticed the traffic. She made a few notes on her phone.
She went back to her room and ordered a salad. Like L.A., there were plenty of vegan choices in New York.
While she waited for her dinner to arrive, she went to the balcony and stepped outside. The sun had set and Times Square was lit up in all its glory. She was high enough that the sounds were slightly muted, but still distinctive.
This was something she would love to share with Grayson. The thought came out of nowhere and caught her off guard.
A sudden wave of loneliness swept over her. She’d been so engrossed in the museum all day, that she hadn’t thought about him. At least not consciously.
But now that she was here, at the end the day, she missed him.
Room service brought her salad and panini along with a complimentary bottle of champagne. She almost refused the champagne, but instead set it next her on the little table while she ate. “Why not?” she said aloud. If Grayson was there, they probably would have gone out to dinner. But even if they’d decided to stay in, it would have been so much better to have him here.
She opened the champagne and poured the bubbly liquid into a glass watching the play of bubbles.
She checked her phone. Pulled up the text messages from Grayson. Other than to say okay, he hadn’t texted since she’d told him not to worry.
Maybe jetting off to New York like that without telling him hadn’t been the best idea. She’d just needed to get away. To think.
Her phone buzzed in her hand. It was Martie.
“Hello?”
“Sorry to bother you,” Martie gushed. “But two new paintings just came in from a new artist.”
Love Again: Love's Second Chance Series Page 10