Page 50 of Defended By Love

I briefly consider stealing a car (time loop, after all), but I literally have no idea where I would start with that. I’m fairly certain that hotwiring is more complicated than TV would indicate. Also, could you imagine if I did succeed in smashing open a car, just to find out it’s a manual? Driving a stick would be even harder than hotwiring. No, thank you.

Instead, I go for the sure thing, which is wait five seconds for Grant to come running up behind me. As much as I try to tell myself that logic would dictate that the man who professes to be my soulmate would come after me, there’s a small voice in my head that whispers that I know, know he’s coming.

Apparently, all his fate garbage is starting to get to me.

“Hey,” Grant says casually, even though he’s panting ever so slightly. “I was heading this way, uh, away from my house and—”

“More lying?” I ask, even though I know this barely counts.

Grant blushes. “Okay… the second you left my house I felt so empty that I figured I’d chase after you just to have one more memory of you looking at me. Better?”

“No.”

“Not even a little better?” he asks, teasing a slight smile.

I smother the smile that threatens my own lips.

“No. It just convinces me further that you’re downright delusional, which makes me worried that us being stuck in this time loop is eroding our sanity. Given the fact that each loop starts off with a near-death traumatic experience that we can never gain enough temporal space from, I worry that the cumulative stress will fracture the foundations of our minds, leading us to become snivelling shadows of our former selves.”

Grant runs his hand through his hair as an awkward silence builds between us. His messy, bedhead curls poke out at all angles and bounce immediately back to their rogue positions. It’s adorable. For a moment, I get a brief pang of regret that I didn’t see him while he was sleeping this morning.

“So… is it cool if I lie, then? I don’t want you to freak out on me just because I say some dumb shit like I want to set my alarm clock to the sound of you saying my name.”

“Please tell me you don’t actually want that.”

Grant shifts. “Can I lie now?”

I nod.

“Then no, of course not. I want my alarm clock to be that awful chime sound that makes me regret my life choices every time it goes off.” He coughs. “Anyways, I was just going for a random drive and not at all following you. Would you like a ride home since that’s where I was heading for no particular reason?”

Grant is, without a doubt, the worst liar I’ve ever encountered—and I once had a company tell me that they were zero emissions—at a meeting that they showed up to in their private jet.

Even still, his lie makes me feel better. It gives me hope that we can one day bang out our sexual tension without following it up with a conversation about whether or not we should share a toothbrush.

When we get into his car, Grant throws it into gear and then pauses.

“Oh, hey! Where do you live? I certainly don’t know because I haven’t been following you as I patrol the skies due to an unshakeable fear that something bad would happen to you.”

This time, a flash of a smile sneaks out. I blame it on the cute blush on his cheeks, the sleep in his eyes, and his utter lack of guile.

Too bad for him. Guile is practically my middle name (along with Productivity and Suspicion).

“I actually don’t give out my address to random men that I met for the first time today,” I say with mock innocence. “So, it’s a good thing that we’re not going to my place.”

Grant’s eyebrows shoot up. For a second, the resemblance between him and his mom is uncanny. Damn, I hate that I like her. Why did I have to go soft and start liking people now?

Must be the time loop.

“Then, where are we going?”

“To my office.”

He pauses. “Y-you do remember that it’s been destroyed? I know you’re dedicated, but there’s no way you can get any work done there. I doubt there’s any Wi-Fi.”

I fasten my seatbelt and nod for him to start driving. “Do you feel like being a little bad? You know, since we’re in a time loop and all.”

Grant mulls it over. “No. Not at all.”

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