The Kiss That Launched 1,000 Gifs (9 page)

She flipped through the photos, examining all the details until she found the one with the best shadows and angles. Then she popped it into the photo editor, prettied it up even more and posted it to Instagram with the caption
My man knows how to rock a suit.

A glance at the time showed that it was 11:12 p.m. She wasn’t going to get to bed before midnight, which meant tomorrow was going to be a long day. A more immediate problem, however, was that her feet were beginning to feel again. And
feeling
was a nice way of saying sharp, debilitating pain. At this point Grace wasn’t sure she could stand up.

She had just decided to rest her eyelids when she heard Phillip step up next to her. He pressed his lips into the top of her head to get her attention. “I’m so sorry, hon. I really wanted to talk him out of a few cases of those Charbonos.”

Grace opened her eyes and looked up at him. “And did you?”

He smiled. “Of course I did.”

“Nice. Want to celebrate by carrying me to the car?”

He glanced at her shoes. “Did your feet give up the ghost for the night?”

Grace nodded. “It was a mistake to sit down.”

“I could have told you that,” he said, stooping down and moving her arm to drape around his neck before cradling her in his arms and picking her up.

“My hero,” Grace said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I could fall asleep like this.”

“That can be arranged,” he chuckled, heading for the exit.

She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Babe
,
if that was on your bucket list for the night, we should have left at least two hours ago.”

Phillip said nothing, and while Grace wanted to pretend that the silence was companionable, she knew better. Phillip was annoyed, but if he wasn’t going to say anything, she wasn’t going to say anything. They’d been doing that dance a lot lately.

“We’re here,” Phillip said when they reached his car. “Prepare your feet for impact.”

He set her down lightly before opening the door for her to slide into the seat. Her feet didn’t even touch the floor mat before her shoes came off and Grace gave a sigh of relief.

“
Ay, mis piecitos,”
she muttered under her breath as she leaned against the headrest. If the awkward silence between her and Phillip continued there was every possibility she would doze off on the way home.

Phillip said nothing as he started the car, then stayed silent for several minutes as they made the journey. Grace rested until they were nearly to her place.

“So, I don’t see you again until next Tuesday?” he asked, pulling onto her street.

Grace opened her eyes and nodded. “That’s the next time our schedules line up, yes.”

“Yeah… that seems to be happening less and less often these past couple of months, hasn’t it?”

It was a question that wasn’t a question. It was a reference to the elephant in the room, and the very problem Esme had been harping on the night before.

Grace felt herself tense and she turned to look at him. “Are you saying that’s on me?”

“No,” he said. “It’s on both of us. I’m busy. You’re busy. We’re both busy. I’m not playing a blame game here. I’m just saying it would be less of an issue if I wasn’t taking you to your own place tonight. It would be easier if, at the end of the day, you and I came home to the same place.”

She looked back at the road. “You know how I feel about that.”

“I know, I know. We’ve had the conversation a thousand times. You don’t believe in living together before marriage, and I don’t feel comfortable proposing until I know we can live together.”

Grace laid her hand over his and gave it a light, playful squeeze. “As long as we have separate bathrooms, everything should be fine,
papi
.”

He shook his head. “There’s more to living together than separate bathrooms, Grace.”

“But that’s near the top of the list,” she said playfully. He didn’t bite.

“I just feel like the longer we’re together, the farther we drift apart and that’s backwards of how things should be.” He glanced away from the road to meet her eyes for a moment. “I want to be with you, babe. Every night.”

Grace let go of his hand. “So I should just move in and be the woman that’s handy?”

He let out a frustrated sigh. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying? I’m listening.”

Phillip put both hands on the steering wheel and out of her reach. “I’m saying meet me half way here, Grace. Move in with me. Let us be together at the end of the day.”

She folded her arms. “And how is that ‘meeting you half way’?”

“Because you’ve never lived with a boyfriend before, and I think you’ll like it.”

“Uh-huh,” Grace drawled. “But you’ve lived with women before.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And how many times have you been married?”

Phillip shook his head. “That’s not the point.”

“Isn’t it?” she shot back. “You’ve lived with three women, Phil, and married exactly none of them. How does that not prove my point that living with you brings us no closer to marriage? All it does is make me more sexually available to you.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Well, it’s not like you could be
less
available. We haven’t had sex in three weeks.”

“Again, not entirely my fault,” she pointed out. “You’re the one scheduling our nights so that business always comes first. That’s not on me.”

“The fact that we’re not living together is.”

Grace felt her blood start to heat with temper. “Do you hear yourself right now? It’s my fault that I’m not just lying in your bed waiting to be woken up when you get done at the restaurant? I have work, too, you know. You get home between 12:00 and 1:00 a.m., and I get up at 5:00. I think it’s completely reasonable that we sleep in separate beds.”

“We used to make it work,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but there are only so many weeks a person can go before four hours of sleep a night takes its toll. I was drinking so much coffee that I started getting an ulcer.”

“We needed to dial it back,” he agreed. “But we’ve dialed too far back. I need to see you more than once or twice a week, Grace. I want to see you at least twice that often, and I want you to stay over every time. I want you to tell me that you don’t want me to take you to your place right now—that you want to come home with me.”

Grace held back a sigh. “I have to be up in five hours, Phil.”

“And I want to be more important to you than one night of sleep,” he pressed. “Drink a little extra coffee tomorrow and be with me tonight.”

Grace bit down on her lip to stop herself from saying what she wanted to say. It wasn’t nice, and she wouldn’t be able to take it back. Phillip was frustrated, and with good cause. They had been drifting apart for some time now. Grace just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

They drove in silence until Phillip pulled into her driveway. He didn’t speak again until he turned off the engine.

“Grace?”

She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. “Yes?”

“Invite me inside.”

It wasn’t a totally unreasonable request. It had been three weeks and it was only one night. She could smooth everything over by inviting him in now and doubling down on coffee tomorrow, but the fact was she didn’t want to. She wanted him to go.

It was decision time.

“I’m not going to lie, Grace,” he said, turning to her. “I don’t hire ugly waitresses. They’re young, they’re hot, and they like me. It’s a temptation.”

Wait. Did he think telling her this was helping his case?

“I need to feel close to you to remember why they’re not worth it.”

Was he kidding? Phillip was the one who went into work every day to manage the managers. If he was spending time with hot, young servers, it was because he was exactly where he wanted to be. Throwing his own decisions in her face like this had her blood boiling dangerously below the surface.

“And are we worth it?” she asked. “You and me, with our mismatched schedules and my insistence on not living together? Let’s be honest as long as we’re talking about this. Is this what you really want?”

He looked straight ahead, mouth frowning, and didn’t answer for several beats. “We both know the answer to that.”

Grace let his words settle in, knowing they were heavier than she wanted to acknowledge this late at night.

At last, Phillip took a deep breath. “If you’re not going to invite me in, we might as well do this now.”

That caught her attention. “Do
what
now?”

For the first time that night, Phillip turned and looked at her—really looked at her. “This isn’t working anymore, Grace,” he said in a tone that told her he’d practiced the words. Maybe he’d been alone, or maybe he’d done a dry run on someone else, but the speech he was about to lay down was not impromptu. “It hasn’t been working for months now. The only reason we’ve stayed together was because staying together is easier than breaking up.”

Grace chose her next words carefully. “And to be clear, when you said ‘we might as well do this now,’ you were referencing the fact that you were planning on giving me this same speech either tonight or tomorrow morning?”

He sent her a flirty smile that usually got her heart to skip a beat. “I would have to be insane not to try for one last night.”

Her heart did not skip a beat. It raged.

Grace gripped on to the door handle—half to open the door and half to stop herself from lunging across the car and doing who knew what to the man she’d given the last three years of her life to.

Grace pushed the door open. “You need to leave. Immediately.”

“Gra—”

She held up her hand. “Don’t speak. Don’t touch me. Don’t do anything but drive away as fast as you can before I do something we’ll both regret.”

Phillip let out a frustrated sigh. “Grace, this is clearly coming out all wrong. I don’t want us to end on a note like this.”

She got out of the car, so angry that she didn’t even feel her aching feet. “And yet, it is what it is.” She bent over and looked at him. “Have fun with your cute, little waitresses,
Phil
.”

Grace hadn’t even made it a step when Phillip’s driver’s side door opened.

“That’s not what this is about, and you know it,” he called after her. “It was stupid for me to try that angle, okay? It’s late, and we can’t end things on a fight, Grace. We owe each other more than that.”

Grace walked as fast as her sore would carry her. “Really? You think I owe it to you to make this comfortable for you?”

He followed after her. “Grace, I’m serious. If this relationship is going to survive, I need you to move in. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

She spun on her heel and faced him. “And I’m saying that won’t fix a thing, Phillip. Not really. So if that’s a deal breaker for you at this point—”

“It is,” he said without hesitation. “We’re passing the three-year mark together. It’s time to move in or move apart.”

“While you keep your same hours and all our dates remain business trips?”

His chin came up. “What? Now you have a problem with fine meals with high-end clients?”

“When that’s all we do anymore?” Grace countered. “Yes, Phillip. I have a problem with that. If I moved in with you, the only time I would see you more often than I already do is when you climbed into bed each night. Tell me how that is a win.”

“Do I really have to?”

Grace stepped away. “Nuh-uh. That’s not moving things forward, Phillip.”

He took a slow breath, as if calming himself. “There’s really no compromise here, Grace. We’re at a breaking point. Either we’re in or we’re out, but once a week isn’t an option.”

Grace nodded, her heart feeling like it was pumping motor oil as she realized he was right. “If those are the terms, then we’re done, Phillip,” she said, voice calm and composed. “I deserve a man who doesn’t find every excuse to turn our dates into work functions and then expect me to act seduced at the end. I deserve a man who would rather be with me than stay at work micromanaging a fully competent staff. So have fun with your future of mixing business and pleasure with the waitresses at your restaurant. I hope one of them sues you for sexual harassment just so you know how disgusting you sound.”

She spun on her heel and started away.

“Yeah?” Phillip said from behind her. “Well, good luck finding a man that thinks once a month is good enough. Men have needs, Grace.”

She spun on her heel and faced him, face flaming hot. “And you’re going to look me in the eyes and tell me that I’m doing less than you in showing that I care?”

“Yes,” Phillip said. “I’m the one ready to take us to the next level, Grace.
You’re
the one who’s stalling and stepping back. You have been for months now.” He took another step forward. “A year ago, we found a way to see each other nearly every day. Now we text or call once a day and see each other maybe once or twice a week. Can you really not see how that’s a bad thing?”

“Our schedules are opposite, and we’re busy,” she said, sticking to her guns.

“Not that busy,” he said, taking yet another step. A few more of those, and he’d be kissing her. It was a dance they’d danced before. She and Phillip didn’t fight that often, but when they did, making up usually happened quickly.

Grace folded her arms and stared Phillip down. “You’re not getting invited in tonight, so don’t even try it.”

His chin came up. “And I’m telling you that if you don’t care enough to invite me in tonight, then I don’t see a point in putting any more effort into this relationship.”

Tears stung Grace’s eyes. She had no idea why. She wasn’t feeling sad at all at the moment. Yet there they were. “That is one twisted ultimatum, Phillip. Especially when you’ve already told me that you were planning on breaking up with me tomorrow morning anyway.”

For the first time, his mouth curved up. “There have been plenty of nights when I was planning on breaking up with you where you changed my mind by morning.” He took a couple steps forward. “C’mon, Grace. We’re good together.”

“Stop!” she said, her voice stone cold. “You want to do this right here and right now? Fine. Then let this be the end, Phillip. Right here. Right now. We’re done. Does that work for you?”