Either way, I couldn’t find out until I approached him.
As I worked to conjure up my courage, I heard the back door open again. It was almost immediately followed by a sigh. It was a familiar one, leading me to believe that whoever had just joined him on the back porch wasn’t exactly a welcome addition.
“What’s a big, important guy like you doing back here all alone?” The woman’s voice was so cloying that it made my stomach turn.
“I needed to be alone.” Grant’s voice spilled out into the dark yard, making the skin on my arms prickle.
It had been years since I’d heard his voice, but it sounded exactly the way I remembered it. The tenor was different, but the voice remained unchanged.
“Grant Turner never needs to be alone. You ought to know that by now.” The woman’s voice dropped a few notes, insinuation coating every word. She must have been wearing heels with the way her footsteps echoed across the porch as she moved.
I withheld an eye roll and bit back the jealousy rising in my throat. Grant had never been short for applicants when it came to sharing his bed, even as a young teen. I was sure with the notoriety of his name and the dollar signs attached to it, that line of women had gone from impressive to staggering.
“I wanted to be alone.” Grant’s tone took on a sharp edge.
“And why in the world would you want to be alone when you could have any woman you want?” A few more heel strikes struck across the porch. “Even the one in front of you. Right here. Right now.”
“Bridget . . .” There was a warning in his voice. “No.”
Bridget Plummer. I remembered having to chase her away back then, when she’d come sniffing around Grant with her big tits, tight ass, and loose reputation. On the surface, I had nothing on Bridget Plummer. I had curves, if you counted the angles of my knees and elbows, and I had a makeup routine, if you considered chap-stick a “routine.” Not to mention, I wasn’t the girl who apparently gave such good head, her name and reputation spanned the entire state.
Bridget Plummer was on one end of the female spectrum, and Ryan Hale had been on the opposite end. I guessed that still proved true, years later.
“Why not?” Bridget asked. “You’ll never know what you’re missing out on unless you have a little taste.”
My stomach roiled at the thought of Grant taking her up on her offer. There was no way I could just lay there, quiet and still, as he fucked her over the damn banister or wherever it was she had in mind. But how awkward would it be to pop up and excuse myself, the former flame of the guy whose hands were at his fly while some other woman crawled all over him?
“My answer was no the first time you offered. My answer was no seven years ago when you offered again. My answer’s no right now. How many more times are you going to ask before you figure out that I’m not interested in a relationship with you?”
It was childish and immature, but I grinned up at the night sky.
“Who said we need to be in some kind of committed relationship to fuck?” she said, laughing a few soft notes.
“Clearly, you don’t know anything about the man you’re propositioning.” Grant’s footsteps creaked across the porch again, but I couldn’t tell if he was moving away from her or toward her. It almost made me want to sit up to find out, but I stayed where I was. “Please, don’t ask me again, Bridget.”
“This isn’t about her still, is it? The little bitch who left you without so much as a ‘so long’?”
Grant’s footsteps stopped suddenly. “This has nothing to do with her. This has to do with you. And this is my answer. Again.” He paused just long enough to make the silence uncomfortable. “No.”
A moment later, the back door screamed open, followed by the sound of Grant disappearing inside before slamming the door. Bridget hung out on the back porch for a good while after that, managing to polish off half a pack of smokes, before going back inside.
It was getting colder, so I drifted inside a couple of minutes later, not sure what to think of the conversation I’d just overheard. I wondered why he’d turned her down, if it was because he had someone else in his life now, or if he truly wasn’t into the idea of boning Bridget Plummer. Even though I might have wanted to claw the woman’s eyes out a few times in my life, I could get why a guy would want to bone her. A lot. Especially no-commitment-required boning.
After that, I had a full-circle moment of realizing how ridiculous I was being for giving this topic so much thought. Whoever Grant chose to be with didn’t concern me anymore.
At least that was the story I was attempting to sell myself as I wove through the house. For some reason, it felt like the crowd had only grown since I’d shown up. Seeing how many people had turned out for Aunt May’s funeral was great, although the skeptic in me wondered how many were here because word had spread that the New York Storm’s Grant Turner was here.
The music was still pumping through the house, and it looked like someone had called in a huge order of pizza because people were staggered around pizza boxes, drinks in hand, as the vibe of the party turned more joyful than mournful. I stopped in front of the fireplace, where a picture of Aunt May sitting on her front porch with her front door wide open had been set beside the urn containing her remains. As I examined her picture, I saw that she’d aged in the years after I left, but her eyes were still young and full of life.
“I’m sorry I left the way I did,” I said to her picture, swallowing as I stared at the first friendly face I’d known in life. “But now you know why I did it. Why I had to leave. Now you know.” My hand molded around the base of the urn. “If you have any suggestions for how I can explain it to him, I’m all ears. You always had good advice for me, and I could really, really use some now.” My fingers brushed down the urn. “I hope you’re enjoying your funeral. I hope you know how much you meant to me. How much you gave to me.” My voice caught in my throat, so I had to clear it to get out the last bit. ‘This is all for you, Aunt May.” After waving at the packed room, where smiling faces shared memories of the special lady we were remembering tonight, I slipped down the hall in search of a quieter spot.