Page 106 of Grace on the Rocks

“That man didn’t feed you?”Wesmuttered. “Heseriously hadonejob.”ShedraggedGracearound the counter and pushed her onto a stool. “Drink.”Abottle of cold blue sports drink materialized out of nowhere, along with a bag of salty crisps.

The next few minutes were a hazy blur asWespaid for their purchases andBryan’smother fretted overGrace, bundling both of them intoElspeth’scar for the short trip back to the hotel.Inthe front seats, mother and daughter kept exchanging meaningful looks, soGracerested her head on her friend’s shoulder and shut her eyes.

“Gray,”Wesbegan, rubbing her arm tenderly just likeGrace’smother used to do when she was ill. “Iknow the book’s important,Iknow you have a deadline, but you have to take better care of yourself.Youcan’t expect to keep going on hopes and dreams alone.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”WhenGracedidn’t answer,Westook her hand and asked, “Howmuch of it did you actually lose?”

“It doesn’t matter.Itwas mostly garbage.”

“Maybe he did you a favor, then.”

“It wasn’t his fault,”Graceadmitted.

“Does he know that?”

Grace started to cry again.Shewas pretty sure she’d told him in her haste to get out of there, but whether he believed it was a whole other thing.

Back at the inn,Westucked her into bed with a promise to wake her at eight for dinner.Thenshe took herself off to who knew where.

The room was too quiet withoutBryan’sincessant hammering, and too empty without his essence, but eventuallyGracedrifted off to restless dreams.

When she awoke, she rolled over, right onto the brown paper sack from the general store.Inside, she found no less than three different bottles of lube—goodlord,Wesley—and a rather scary looking vibrator.Howwas it supposed to work?

She opened the box to examine it more closely.Itseemed aggressively large, but it already had some charge in the battery which was… thoughtful.

Glancing at the time, she notedWeswouldn’t be back for more than an hour.Shealmost put it all away rather than risk the inevitable disappointment, but curiosity got the best of her.

The first attempt was terrible: painful, uninspired.Gracecouldn’t help crying all over again.EvenScotland’shighest-rated sex toy was too much for her.Shewanted to throw it across the room, but she didn’t have the energy.Instead, she just laid there and cried.

Probably, she was trying too hard.Overthinkingalmost certainly made it impossible to relax in the slightest.Itwas way too much pressure.Whywas she doing this?Shedidn’t want to do this.

She put it all away and vowed to makeWestake it home with her.

But then her mind drifted back toBryan, to that soft beard and those biceps, and his bee-tattooed forearm.Henever had explained what it meant.Shewould remember to ask in the middle of kissing, and then his tongue would do something clever and her mind would go pleasantly blank.

Contemplating his kisses made her sad, but her body didn’t know to feel sad, so she was flushed all over too, and there was no point trying again, but at the same time… she hadn’t been accused of being stubborn her whole life to quit now.

* * *

By the timeWesreturned with takeaways from the pub,Gracewas flushed and somewhat satisfied.Ithadn’t exactly been life changing, but at least she finally understood the rising tension followed by a brief euphoric rush when, once again, her mind went too blank and still to overanalyze things.

And maybe she wasn’t quite so broken after all.

Wes took one look at her and said, “Fuckingfinally.Nowwhat are we going to do about yourStoicScot?”

That killed the glow a little bit, ifGracewas being honest. “He’snotmyScot.”

Wes gave her anoh pleaselook. “Prettysure he was yours the moment you climbed up on that roof with him.”

“What’s the point of starting something when we’re just going to leave in a few days?”

“Practice?”Wesasked. “Thevery best kind of no-strings-attached, remember-it-fondly practice?”

HowGracewished she could be a no-strings-attached kind of girl.Anyway, one afternoon with a new toy was not going to suddenly cure everything.

“It wouldn’t be fair to him,” she toldWesley.

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