He wasn’t sure if being disappointed was selfish, and he didn’t have anyone to take that feeling to. Clare was with her family, probably three or four drinks in and having a great time. Sunny didn’t want to disturb her with his own broken heart.
No. Not broken. Not broken yet. But bruised.
He hadn’t really expected to get to have Grant, not the way he wanted him, but he’d let himself be optimistic about it. There’d been a few moments where he thought that optimism was justified.
Now, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe the kindest thing would be to step back into his job, keep Grant at arm’s length, and help him get through what was obviously going to be an eventful year.
That was the kindest thing he could do for him.
“Hey,” Grant said softly as he entered the room, apparently awake from his nap.
Sunny had expected him to be out longer, since everyone else still was. He appreciated the company all the same, even if he was sure that everything they’d had between them had shattered.
He couldn’t really be mad about that. Grant’s family were good people. They all deserved to be happy.
It was just a shame that he didn’t quite fit with the rest of it.
“Hey,” Sunny responded without turning around to look at him. The snow outside was calming, still pristine white out here where it would already have been muddy and melting in the suburbs.
He wondered for a moment if his parents had gotten any snow. If he was lucky, they would have.
“You want me to take you home now? To your parents’ place, I mean,” Grant asked, standing close to Sunny’s back.
They’d been in this position before, and Sunny still felt that he couldn’t just lean into Grant. This time, though, it made his heart ache even worse.
Had this been a holiday fling? It was starting to feel that way.
Not because either of them intended it, but because that was just how life was sometimes. Everything between them had changed, but somehow, nothing had.
They were back to where they’d been before all this started, and aside from wishing things were different, everything felt the same.
It was enough to make Sunny want to cry, but he wasn’t about to do that in front of Grant. Grant had enough things to worry about without feeling guilty for hurting his fragile, easily-wounded PA.
“Umm… yeah,” Sunny said. “Yeah, if you’ve got the time?”
“Everyone’s asleep,” Grant responded. “Besides, I promised, and I can’t keep you trapped here forever like some kinda weird dragon.”
Sunny raised an eyebrow at Grant’s barely-visible reflection in the window. “Are you calling me a princess?”
Behind him, Grant shrugged. “Metaphor got away from me, I guess.”
“I don’t mind being called a princess,” Sunny smiled wryly. That sounded about right. He was definitely in distress right now, damsel or not.
He just didn’t want Grant to know that. Grant deserved to have had something nice without feeling bad about it later. This wasn’t his fault.
“I’ll grab my stuff,” Sunny said before Grant had a chance to respond to that.
“I’ll meet you in the car. Once I’ve gotten all the snow off it.”
Sunny snorted. “Do you know how?”
Grant nodded. “Not my actual first rodeo. There’s just a little more than I’m used to.”
Sunny accepted that, turning his head to watch Grant go outside, then heading upstairs to get his things out of Grant’s room.
The worst of it was that he hadn’t managed to keep it a secret. Grant could have had this, and it could have been just between the two of them, but Sunny had to go and screw that up.
He was amazed Grant hadn’t fired him. Gently, of course. He didn’t expect Grant to be harsh about any of this, since it took two. But he also didn’t expect Grant to be so calm.
Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe, on the inside, Grant was doing exactly what Sunny was doing.
Once he’d shoved everything he brought with him back into his overnight bag, Sunny slung it over his shoulder and headed back downstairs, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders as he headed out into the cold.
He could leave it in the car, but he needed the warmth right now. It was the closest thing to a hug he could ask for.
Grant had been mostly successful in clearing the car off, which Sunny realized now was because the snow had started to melt. That felt like a metaphor for something, but he wasn’t in the mood to tease it out.
“Ready to go?” Grant asked, heading around to the driver’s side door.
Sunny nodded, climbing into the other side and stuffing his bag into the footwell. He wanted to be able to make a quick retreat once they got to his parents’ place.
“Thank you for doing this for me. I could have called a cab,” he said.
On the one hand, it hurt to be so close to what he could have had, but on the other hand, Sunny still wanted to be around Grant.
He’d always want to be around Grant, even if he couldn’t have him the way he wanted. The tight, happy feeling in his chest whenever Grant entered a room wasn’t going away anytime soon.
“This is the least I can do,” Grant said. “You deserve better.”
Sunny swallowed.
Was that an admission that it was all over? An apology? Both?
It was hard to tell, but he knew he had to accept all of it. There was nothing either of them could do to change the circumstances of their lives.
He wasn’t angry. He was just disappointed.
He’d been disappointed enough times in his life that he wasn’t going to let this one get to him.
No matter how much more it hurt.
23
After a mostly-silent drive to Sunny’s hometown, Grant’s stomach bottomed out as he pulled up in front of the house Sunny pointed out.
It looked more or less like the rest of the street, with a single light on in the window and a little red flag on the mailbox. It looked like a home, like any other.
It was weird to think of Sunny as a normal human being, with normal parents who lived in a normal house. He always seemed like he’d have to be more special than that. He was the kind of person who, in Grant’s mind, needed an origin story.
That was probably because he was hopelessly in love with him and had been since the day they met. Sunny had improved his life from minute one, and he’d never stopped.
And now…
Now, this was starting to feel like goodbye.
Grant’s chest hurt at the thought, but he knew he shouldn’t have expected to keep Sunny. Not really.
He wasn’t entirely sure what had changed, but he could feel it. Something was wrong. Different.
He’d screwed up. That wasn’t anything new. Even having Sunny to look out for him couldn’t change that.
“Hey, uh,” Grant said as Sunny unbuckled his seatbelt. “You take as much time off as you want, okay?”
He didn’t want to fire Sunny. He wanted Sunny to come back to work for him, even if it was going to be weird for a while, even if he was hurting from the loss.
But he also wanted Sunny to have a way out, if that was what he wanted. A few weeks to find something else.
He hoped it went without saying that he’d get a glowing reference, whatever he chose to do.
“Thank you,” Sunny said, finally turning to look at him. Grant had barely been aware of Sunny looking at him the whole trip. “And thank you for a wonderful Christmas. I’m honored to have met your family.”
Grant swallowed around a lump in his throat.
He’d wanted Sunny to be part of his family, the way he was part of his life. A big part. An important part.
A part he had no idea how he was going to live without.
“Thanks for making it happen.” Grant shrugged, forcing his voice to be as even as possible. “I couldn’t have done any of that without you.”
“Yeah, you could.” Sunny smiled a tiny, fond smile at him, but there was a hint o
f sadness to it. A hint of goodbye that made Grant’s heart pound in his chest. “You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit.”
That definitely sounded like goodbye. Like you’ll be fine without me.
A wave of nausea hit Grant hard, but he fought not to show it. He’d be okay. He just needed to get Sunny inside, and then get the car around the corner, and he could cry and scream and whatever else he needed to do.
Not in front of Sunny. Sunny deserved better than that.
He deserved better than Grant. It was stupid to think that he would have wanted what Grant wanted.
“Yeah, well… oh,” Grant said, reaching over to the glovebox in front of Sunny and extracting a small, wrapped box. “This is for you. I forgot to get it out of the car on the way in, and then there was snow, and I forgot entirely, but…”
He offered Sunny the package, his skin tingling as their fingertips brushed together when Sunny accepted it.
“Merry Christmas.” Grant forced himself to smile, even though there were tears stinging at his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry. Sunny didn’t deserve to have to deal with his tears.
“Can I open this?” Sunny asked, turning the box over in his hands.
Grant nodded. “It’s got your name on it,” he said, repeating Sunny’s response from before.
Sunny smiled a tiny, more genuine smile, and tore the paper off eagerly, making a soft, happy noise as he saw what it was. “This is beautiful,” he said.
Grant had picked out the nicest tie he could find in the happiest shade of yellow they made.
“I can see yellow just fine,” he explained. “And your name is Sunny, so…”
He remembered what he’d written on the tiny notecard inside the box. Thank you for being my Sunshine.
It had almost seemed like too much at the time, too earnest, but Grant had written it anyway, because he’d thought Sunny deserved to know how he felt.
Now, his feelings felt like a burden, and that inscription felt like a parting note.
“I get it,” Sunny said. “Thank you.”
He leaned over and kissed Grant’s cheek, his lips cold even though the heating had been on in the car.
Grant realized for the first time just how exhausted Sunny looked. He felt the same way himself, but Sunny hadn’t really benefitted from the refreshing properties of being around your loved ones. He’d spent the day in the company of total strangers, and Grant knew that would have been draining for him.
Sunny was a more social person, better with people than Grant could ever hope to be, but even so. It had to have been hard.
How could he ask any more of Sunny than what he’d already given? Because it wasn’t as though Grant magically became an easier person to deal with once he was in a romantic relationship. He tried, but he’d been trying with Sunny the entire time, and he’d still always asked too much of him.
And Sunny had given it willingly and without complaint.
And Grant had fallen in love with him.
He wanted to say so, but the words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t put that on Sunny. His feelings were his feelings, not Sunny’s problem.
It would have felt too much like a guilt trip now. Too much like begging him to stay, when Grant was pretty sure he wanted to go.
“I’d better…” Sunny nodded to the house, opening the car door a crack. Cold air blasted in, making Grant shiver.
He nodded, biting down on his lip to stop it from quivering. He was so close to breaking down into tears that he wasn’t sure he could afford to even look at Sunny, but he looked anyway.
This might have been the last he saw of him.
“Thank you. For everything,” Sunny said, climbing out of the car and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll see you in the new year,” he added.
That part felt like a lie. Grant wasn’t ever expecting to see Sunny again, and he could feel his heart tearing in two at the thought.
This was what people meant by their heart breaking. It wasn’t a clean crack across the middle, as though the whole thing was made of marble. It was like having half of it torn out of his chest.
Sunny waved back at Grant as he headed into the house, and Grant watched to make sure he got inside okay before driving off, his stomach in knots.
He wanted to be sick. He wanted to scream, and cry, and get out of the car and kick some mailboxes.
This felt like the biggest loss of his life, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t keep Sunny if Sunny didn’t want to stay. Begging and pleading would just have been humiliating for both of them.
The fact that their feelings didn’t quite line up wasn’t something either of them could change. No matter what Grant did.
Some things just weren’t meant to be.
24
Despite his exhaustion, two hours after he went to bed, Sunny found himself still staring at the ceiling, wide awake. His brain wouldn’t shut up long enough to let him get even a few precious minutes of sleep, and no amount of tossing and turning or finding a more comfortable position to sleep in seemed to change that.
The problem wasn’t the position he was lying in, or the number of blankets he had on, or whether or not his feet were sticking out of them.
The problem was that Grant had left.
Or rather, that Sunny had let him go.
He’d spent the evening telling his parents how great his new boss was, his stomach tied up in knots the entire time with fear that he’d seen the last of him.
Grant was easily one of the best things that had ever happened to Sunny, and knowing that he’d driven away without knowing how Sunny really felt was killing him.
He was in love with Grant. He’d never loved anyone before like he loved Grant.
And Grant…
Grant had been about to say that he loved Sunny, too. He wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was. He wasn’t subtle at all, not when it came to his feelings.
He’d known there was something up. Maybe he’d even known that Sunny was planning on slipping quietly out of his life, leaving him to get on with it and not getting in the way.
His job was to make Grant’s life easier, not more difficult.
His mom had always told him that sometimes, if you loved something, you had to let it go.
He’d let Grant go. He’d walked away without looking back, his heart in his throat the entire time, his mind still reeling over Grant’s Christmas gift to him, as well as the note inside.
Thank you for being my Sunshine.
Everything about it told him that Grant wanted him in his life, but that had been before. Before everything that had happened over the past forty-eight hours or so.
This was after. And Sunny wasn’t sure how things were in the after.
The only thing he was sure of, at this point, was that he’d never sleep until he found out.
He threw his blankets off, sitting up on the edge of his bed and grabbing his phone, opening up a new text to Grant.
The tiny phone keyboard mocked him, his eyes refusing to focus long enough to type anything. His thumb hovered over the call button in the corner, temptation making it twitch.
No.
He needed more than a phone call.
He needed to do this in person.
Sunny tapped on his phone to switch to a rideshare app, biting down on his lip as he wondered whether anyone would be working tonight out here in a sleepy little suburb.
Sunny put in the address of the cabin and waited, shivering in the cold of his room without his nice, warm blankets.
Or possibly, shivering with fear about how this would go. What if he went all that way and poured his heart out and Grant said thanks, but no thanks?
It would have shattered Sunny’s heart to pieces. And then he’d be all alone in the middle of nowhere.
His phone vibrated in his hand, surprising him out of his thoughts.
Someone was working.
Sunny swallowed.
Well, it was now or never. If he
wasn’t brave enough to do this tonight, he knew himself well enough to be sure that he’d let Grant slip away from him. Lose the best part of his life, the future he’d seen glimpses of, the ready-made family he could see himself as a part of.
He’d seen everything Grant came with yesterday, and it only made Sunny want him more. He was perfect, everything included.
He confirmed the pickup and forced himself to stand, looking around for clothes and spotting the blanket he’d accidentally forgotten to give back to Grant before he got out of the car.
He’d have to return that. At least that gave him the world’s flimsiest excuse to show up at one in the morning, on the verge of tears, about to rip his heart out of his chest and offer it to a man who wasn’t really in a position to accept it, even if he wanted to.
But if he didn’t try, he’d regret it for the rest of his life.
That was all Sunny really needed to know.
25
Grant couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep on his side, or his back, or with the heater turned up or down, or with more blankets, or less.
All he could do was think of the sight of Sunny’s retreating back, and the sick feeling in his stomach that he’d lost something important.
Grant had felt like a screw-up plenty of times in his life, but never more so than he did now. He’d had something wonderful, and he’d lost it.
He hadn’t even fought for it. And now he might never see Sunny again, and that was all his own stupid fault.
He rolled over to look out the window, seeing a few flakes of snow float past in the moonlight. Before, it’d felt cozy. He’d been excited about the idea of being stuck here, with Sunny, even if he knew that was a little odd.
Sunny made him happy. No one lit up a room like he did, no one had the power to lift a grey cloud from over Grant’s head like he could. Sunny never asked him for anything more than a signature on some important documents or a decision about what he wanted for lunch.
Sometimes, Sunny just surprised him with exactly what he wanted, because he was that good. Because he cared that much, because he’d taken the time to get to know Grant.
Grant knew him, too. He knew that Sunny loved peppermint lattes but wouldn’t drink them outside of November and December. He knew that Sunny had the world’s most extensive collection of scarves and had been banned from buying more by his roommate, but still occasionally sneaked another one into his wardrobe.
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