Page 4 of The Boyfriend Boycott
I set my wine down and turn to pick up the tray Ally has prepared on the counter. My eyes rake over the bottles. Something is missing. She’s forgotten the ketchup. Ally has already disappeared around the side of the cabin with her plate of burgers, but it only takes me a second to locate the bottle on the door of the fridge. When I pick it up, the liquid inside is separated.I’ll just give it a good shake, we’ll be good to go.
Putting some necessary force into it, I lift the bottle and shake, but the lid must have been ajar, and it pops off almost instantly. Bright red ketchupbloopsout, right onto the centreof my camisole. It’s my favourite one, too. Jade green silk with cream-coloured lace trim around the bust.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter, turning to the sink to grab whatever kind of cloth or towel I can find to clean the front of my shirt. Whatever I do, the blob of red only gets bigger as it smears around and soaks into the smooth fabric. “Fuckity fuck!” It comes out as a shout, but I get cut off from the rest of the string of curse words I want to scream when I hear heavy footsteps on the porch.
I swivel around to see Grady on the steps up to the cabinand I would love to just disappear into thin air. He’s the type of attractive where I can’t picture him doing anything embarrassing, so I’m not ready to face him with half a bottle of ketchup on my shirt. Scrambling, I look for anywhere to hide. Bathroom? No, maybe he’s coming inside to use it.Jesus, why is this cabin so small?
With nowhere else to go in the tiny, open-concept cabin, I decide the pantry is my only option. It’s a fair size with enough room for one, if not two, people. I slink inside quickly and slide the door shut behind me.
The slats in the bifold doors are parted just enough that I can see Grady stalk into the kitchen and crouch at the open fridge to find a beer. His broad shoulders curve around as he reaches down to grab a bottle, the muscles in his back rippling under his shirt.
I am such a creep, I think.This is one secret that I will take with me to my grave.
The beer bottle lets out apffthsound as Grady pops the cap on the handle of one of the kitchen drawers. He takes a sip—okay, more than a sip—and rolls his shoulders. Something about him seems tense, and he cranes his neck to look around the corner. He’s scanning the cabin almost like he’s looking for someone.
As he turns around, I realize the gaps in the door might just be big enough for him to see me, or at least the outline of me. I slowly back away, into the shadow of the pantry, my breathing shallow and quick. My gut roils when I realize I’m going to have to explain my sudden appearance at the barbecue, and what the hell took me so long getting the condiments.
My elbow bumps something behind me that lets out a puff of dust on impact. I turn to find a bag of flour leaning precariously over the edge of the shelf.Shit.Moving as silently as I can, I push the bag back to a secure spot, but it’s too late. The cloud of powder has made its way to my nostrils, which are now flaring as I wrinkle my nose in a desperate attempt to stifle my sneeze. No luck.
I sneeze, and I sneezeloud.Like the kind of sneeze that I would imagine only your middle-aged father is physically capable of—one that rattles the house. I cover my face with my elbow, hoping the sound was muffled enough that Grady will assume it came from outside. The heavy footsteps I hear cross the kitchen tell me that it didn’t work, and I squint in the sudden bright light as Grady opens the closet door.
The way his hazel eyes rake over my body makes me very aware that I’m still covered in ketchup and now have a fine layer of flour adorning every inch of me. Grady’s jaw flicks as the corner of his mouth quirks up into a playful, lopsided grin. His expression is amused but not mocking.
“This isn’t—” I start, but he interrupts me.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Grady says with a casual nod, as if assessing the pantry the way he would if I was showing him around my home. “Ally said you had a … unique living situation, but this isn’t quite what I pictured.”
And then, as if I’ve casually invited Grady in for coffee after a date, he squeezes himself in next to me and slides the door closed behind him. His broad chest takes up the vast majority ofmy field of vision and I crane my neck to look up at him. There’s a playful smile on his lips as he waits for me to respond. He wants me to play along with the little scenario he’s made up to ease the sting of my embarrassment. Colour rises to my cheeks as I realize what he’s doing. I can’t tell if this is more humiliating, or if I’m grateful for him making light of me spying on him from the pantry. I decide on the latter as I consider a quippy response.
“Yeah, the rent is killing me though,” I answer.Lame.But Grady runs with it. He lifts his chin as he looks around the closet once more, exposing the column of his neck to me. I can just make out the outline of his Adam’s apple in the dark, bobbing as he swallows.
“What does a stunning zero bed, zero bath studio like this go for nowadays?”
“Ally is charging me my first-born child. Didn’t you know? She isn’t pregnant with Mason’s baby, it’s mine.”
“Wow, that’s steep. But I guess there’s a ton of storage in here.” Even in the dark, I can tell that Grady’s eyes are roaming over my face, and my mind stalls under the weight of his gaze. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about wanting to be this close to him, and my heart pounds as we stand here breathing each other’s air. Grady is tempting in a way that wars with my resolve to not get involved with anyone.
I chew my bottom lip, considering my next remark, but I’ve run out of witty comebacks. Grady must register that the role-play has come to an end because he says, “Should we join the rest of the crew out back? Or would you prefer it if I closed the blinds and you can just spy from the window?”
I give him a playful shove and the solidness of the muscle under his T-shirt catches me off guard. Fuck, he’s sobig.
Emerging from the pantry, the light reveals the stain on the front of my shirt once again.Grady’s warm, green-brown eyesflick down to my chest briefly in an obvious attempt to only take in the ketchup and nothing else.
“I look like I’ve been through theTexas Chainsaw Massacre. I don’t know if I can go outside,” I joke, but heat rises to my cheeks again, a flush spreading upward from my chest.
“It might be slightly alarming, especially for the medical professionals out there,” Grady says, referring to Ally and Mason, both with years of experience looking at real blood. “But no one here is judging you, Spencer.”
The way my name rolls off Grady’s tongue it doesn’t sound like a word that he’s said for the first time.
Goodnight, Spencer.It was the last time he said my name—when he lingered in the doorway to his guest bedroom the night I stayed over at his place. It had come out with a slight wobble then. But as he says it now, it sounds as though he’s practiced it. The word is familiar in his mouth. As familiar as saying the wordhello.
“That’s easy for you to say, this is your family,” I point out. “You forget that I’m meeting half of them for the first time.”
“Tell you what,” Grady says, crossing the kitchen and reaching for the bottle of ketchup on the counter. He picks it up, and before I can say anything, he flicks open the lid and squirts a blob down the front of his shirt, the crisp white cotton now marred with a streak of red.I clap my hand over my mouth, my eyes wide with shock at the mess he’s just made of his otherwise pristine white T-shirt. Grady looks up at me and grins. That crooked, boyish grin.“There. Now we both look likeThe Walking Dead.”His eyes sparkle behind thick dark lashes as they linger on me, making my skin prickle.
I wonder how long we would have stood there, staring at each other, if Ally hadn’t come back into the cabin at that exact moment.
“Spence, people are wondering where the condiments are,” she says, then she stops in her tracks as she comes through the front door. “Oh. All over the two of you, by the looks of it.”
