Page 73 of The Boyfriend Boycott
“It was not too much for me. You are not too much for me. Everything you’ve done for me is beyond my wildest dreams. I never thought I deserved someone like you, Grady. I never thought that someone like you was ever a possibility for me. I grew up thinking that the most I could ever have was a man who would want me for my looks and tire of me quickly. Who wouldn’t go out of their way to make me feel special and loved. But you have. More than anything, I want to thank you for that.”
“You deserve someone who will go to the ends of the earth for you, Spencer.” He says it with complete sincerity, and inside, all of my emotions are at war with one another. Grady would, and he has, gone to the ends of the earth for me. And what am I doing? I barely even have faith that we’ll last through the summer. I don’t know what to say back, but Grady luckily fills the silence. “Dinner’s ready. It’s nothing fancy, just spaghetti.”
“I love spaghetti,” I say as he hands me a bowl of pasta and I take it over to the couch.
Grady sits on the other end of the couch facing me, and I pull a blanket over our legs, the way I like to sit with Ally when we catch up and spend time together. Grady has reached the place in my heart that, so far, only Ally has been able to. I’m comfortable with him. I feel like myself. This whole evening is perfect. A comfort meal, snuggled on the couch with the only person I want to be sharing my space with.
“What will you eat at home without me to cook for you?” Grady asks me, and it takes me a second to answer once I’ve slurped down my noodles.
“Well, the options are endless really, now that I know how to dice an onion.”
Grady’s smile reaches his eyes as he laughs and the way they crease at the corners makes memelt.
FaceTime. We have FaceTime. I’ll still get to see those creases around his eyes when he smiles because of something I’ve said. I’ll still get to see his stubbled jawline. But I won’t get to see the way he looks when he first wakes up in the morning, when he rolls over and his eyes are just a little bit puffy. I won’t get to see the way he looks when he holds Hazel.
I clear my throat and try to shake off the thoughts.Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,I remind myself.
“In all seriousness, I’ll probably just order in. I don’t want to have food in the fridge that will go bad while I’m in Costa Rica,” I answer.
“You leave when?” he asks, still refusing to make eye contact with me the way he’s avoided it every time he’s asked about my new job or my life in Vancouver. The one I’m going to live without him. With him on the sidelines.
“Next week, I think. I have to go into the Mile High office first and have a bit of an orientation to the company, and then I’ll leave shortly after that with the tour group.”
“The tour group that everyone thinks is a hook-up opportunity.” His tone is flat, he’s making a pointed effort not to insinuate anything, but I know what he’s thinking. I’m going to meet someone. I’m going to find someone new to hook-up with. I hooked up with him, didn't I? I broke so many of my own rules, Grady must think I have no self-control.
But it’s different now.
“If you’re thinking I’m going to indulge, then you don’t have to worry. I’m there to do my job, and only my job. Besides, it wouldn’t look very good if the person trying to turn around the scandalous reputation was also sleeping with customers.” By the look on Grady’s face, I can tell that my answer hasn’t exactlysatisfied him. “And I have you to come home to. I don’t need hook-ups anymore.”
Grady’s expression settles with my last explanation, his shoulders visibly drop. It’s the truth. I don’t plan on being with anyone else while we’re trying to make our relationship work. The question is, how long can something like this last when even the most well-intentioned, well-adjusted people swear up and down that long-distance never works?
After dinner, we move to the floor. Grady lights a fire in the hearth, warming us against the chill that still blankets us in the spring evenings. We share another bottle of wine. I fall asleep on Grady’s shoulder, and he carries me to bed, tucking himself around me to be close to me.
The night is perfect. One last, perfect, night.
CHAPTER 31
GRADY
Spencer isbeside me when I wake up next to her in bed, perhaps the last time she will be for a while. I roll over and pull her into me with one arm, spooning her, my hard length pushing into her back. She responds to it, pushing her hips back into me and grinding them on my hard cock. We make love in a sleepy, serene fog, and when we both come, it dawns on us that today is the day our relationship is going to change.
I gaze up at Spencer, still straddling me. Neither of us says a word so as not to break the spell we’re both in. Her scarlet hair falls down around my face like a velvet curtain, and I reach up to tuck one side behind her ear, before wrapping my hand around the back of her head and pulling her down into a long, delicious kiss. I don’t want to accept that this, what we have right here, right now, is coming to an end.
We’ll no longer be in this fantasy, living together, playing house.
“I should get ready,” Spencer whispers into my mouth and tries to pull her head back, but I don’t let her. I hold my hand firm on the back of her head and press my lips into hers once more.
“Don’t,” I say when I finally release her mouth. “Don’t go, Spencer.” I make one more desperate attempt to convince her, and she squeezes her eyes shut, shaking her head.
“I have to, Grady. I signed the contract. We agreed that this was best.”Sheagreed. I’m going along with it. She climbs off me and wanders into the ensuite, closing the door behind her with a softsnick, and I lie in bed in the silence, staring up at the ceiling.
The shower faucet turns on with a squeak and I throw the sheets off me. I pull on my grey sweats and wander out to the kitchen. When Spencer emerges, I have coffee waiting for her on the counter. I made it the way she likes it, but today I put it in a travel mug. She’ll want to get on the road early.
She leans up to kiss me on the cheek before she takes it and starts bringing her bags one by one out from the bedroom and dropping them by the front door.
I help her load her things into the van. Neither of us say much. There isn’t much to say, and we promised each other we wouldn’t dwell on the sadness of the day. It’s just any other day. But when she climbs into the driver’s seat and rolls down the window for one last kiss, she says the words “We’ll keep in touch” and my heart sinks. The promise sounds empty, like this is just any other relationship she’s had on the road. Just something casual.
I can’t help but wonder if this long-distance agreement was just a way of putting a dying relationship on life support. Not because we think it might survive, but just to give us enough time to say goodbye and have closure. I know how hard long distance is on a relationship. I’m not lying to myself about that. I know that our situation is only made harder by Spencer’s flightiness. I’m prepared to do what it takes to make this work, but I’m not sure I can say the same about her. She’s had one foot out the door since our first night together. At every turn, I feellike I’m caging Spencer in, making her feel suffocated, like I’m doing too much.
