Page 5 of Really Truly Yours
When I left his house a half-hour ago, he was utterly depleted and had turned in for the night. The sun has yet to set.
I settle onto the single barstool in my postage-stamp kitchen and crunch into a cracker topped with a slice of cheddar cheese. Nothing else sounds good, and barely this.
A knock interrupts my first bite. I brush crumbs off my fingers and edge aside the curtain panel. Visitors are few, and in my neighborhood, it pays to be cautious.
As of this morning, I actually know somebody who drives a fancy car like the one sitting in my driveway.
My hand starts to shake, and I can’t hold it still since I have to answer the door.
I do have to, don’t I?
I turn the deadbolt Sam installed last year after the lady at the end of the block had a burglar during her nightshift at the nursing home.
Grayson Smith lurks at the edge of the porch, towering, blocking the setting sun from my west-facing eyes. He’s got the same rugged, rolled-out-of-bed look as this morning, except the cap is gone, and his tawny hair waves around his head, not too far from his shoulders. He scruffs his palm along the stubble on his jaw. “May I come in?”
Absolutely not. “Hold on.”
I leave the door ajar and go for my sweater. The calendar is a practical joker, reporting autumn has arrived while the mercury proves summer holds on. Regardless, I’m often cold these days.
As an added benefit, the sweater search gives me a moment to collect myself.
A shadow falls across me. Spinning, I find my surprise visitor filling the doorway, his head barely missing the underside of the frame. I fire off a scowl and flick my hand. Back off.
Apparently acquainted with my brand of sign language, he removes himself from my living room and takes up residence on my porch, leaning against one of the supports.
I join him and close the door behind me. “Um, there’s some rot there.” I indicate with my head.
He pops up and eyes the chipped post eaten up with water damage. Looking around as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, Grayson finally buries his hands in his pockets, this giant of a man somehow managing to look abandoned-puppy lost.
I can’t imagine how a man who so obviously has the world by the tail accomplishes this. Handsome, rich, famous. Even in uncertainty, his presence is commanding. My goodness, he’d barely fit in my matchbox house. We’re outdoors and he still overpowers the space. A whiff of cologne drifts on the open air, cementing the all-consuming nature of his presence.
He eyes the underside of the porch roof, with its unintended pitch and slant. More chipped paint, more rot. One day I’ll do something about the problem. Sam wants to help but swears the only thing he knows how to fix is cars. If I had more energy, I’d at least swat the cobwebs down. Sweep the shriveled leaves that August loosed from their moorings way too early.
The pot of vibrant lavender petunias on the rail are the only pretty thing in sight.
I can guess how he must see this place and what he thinks when he does. Surreptitiously, I search for cover.
Uh-uh. The dilapidated, not-even-thousand-square-foot house isn’t much, not by anyone’s standards, but it’s everything to me. After Mom left and Dad chose drugs and prison over us kids, Grammy did her best in this place, raising me and Sam and Max. Well, Max would have no part of her efforts. She did everything for him, and it wasn’t enough. Now, I pray for him daily.
I also pray he stays away.
Coupling the sweater’s lapels in my fist, I rest against the worn siding next to the inoperable doorbell.
“I owe you an apology.” Grayson’s focus stays on a rusty window screen as his deep voice slices the awkwardness. He grimaces, finally looking. “My mother would shoot me if she knew how rude I was.”
I make myself smile. “Well, then I guess it’s lucky she’ll never know, isn’t it?”
His fleeting smile carries a touch of thanks. “I am sorry. For all of it,” he adds, sheepish when he finally looks directly at me.
“No big deal.” He owes me nothing.
Lost in thought, he uses both of his big hands to rake back his untamed hair. A cricket tunes up. The giant of a man, sculpted, athletic, and well-known, drops into a corroded old chair I pray will hold him.
This day is plain weird.
“If you’d have asked me yesterday, I’d have said I wasn’t angry in the least about…him.”
Okay, I’ll listen, if that’s what the man needs. I’m no one in his world, but I suppose sometimes that’s exactly what a person does need. “It must have been a shock. I’m sorry I had to blindside you like that. Donny insisted I not tell you what the meeting was about in advance.”