Page 118 of The Billionaire Is Back

I shake my head. “I just want him. I want him here. And I can’t trust that he will be. If he needs someone who’ll move to New York or wherever to be with him, I’ll never be that person. I can’t give him what he wants.” I shrug half-heartedly. I am positive I’m being practical and saving both me and Grady from a lifetime of pain, but the truth is I’m starting to question my own logic. Still, I add, “It’s that simple.”

“Ayuh…” He flicks at his white stubble. “It’s always that simple, ain’t it?” He stares down at the table in front of him. “You were too young to remember my Rosie before she passed…”

I lean forward to listen carefully because it’s rare for Crabby to talk about his wife.

He has to clear his throat before continuing. “Prettiest damn thing I ever saw. Nothin’ but trouble. You know the type.” He arches a gray, scraggly eyebrow at me. “I’m no romantic. Neither was she. We couldn’t care less about flowers and fancy words. I just wanted her.”

“That’s nice.”

“She just wanted me. And Paris. And Rome. And Tokyo. And Morocco. And Egypt. And the Serengeti. Halifax. Juneau. You name it. If she’d seen pretty pictures of a place in a magazine she wanted to go there. You know where I wanted to go?”

“Anywhere she was?”

He slaps his palm on the table just like I did earlier. “Nowhere. Why would anyone in their right mind want to leave Beacon Harbor?”

I feel like this is a trick question, but I say, “Best place in the world.”

“Damn right it is.”

I wait for him to tell me about how he knows for a fact that it’s the best place in the world because he traveled far and wide with his wife, but he just stares at me, as if he’s waiting for me to say something. “So, did you travel with her anyway?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Took her to Paris for our honeymoon. Didn’t like it.”

“Well, so…did Rosie travel without you, then?”

“Yes, she did. With her sister. Rome. Tokyo. Halifax. Juneau. She always sent postcards. I always secretly begrudged her for leavin’. She always came back. And then one day she was too sick to get out of bed. And then…” The rims of Crabby’s eyes get all pink. I guess he’s too dehydrated to tear up. But he looks so sad. “Ask me where I wish I’d gone with the love of my life when I had the chance.”

There’s nothing like seeing someone else’s loss to sober you up and put things into perspective. I reach out to give Crabby’s hand a squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Clarence.”

“Enh. She had no regrets. What she told me, at least. I don’t want you to regret anything, kid.”

“What are you saying? You think I should go to New York with him?”

“Don’t you ever stop making me cookies at thatbakery, you hear me? I’m sayin’ yer man’ll come around. Believe it or not, he’s smarter than me, so it won’t take him anywhere near as long. When he does, let’s hope you stay focused on the fact that he’s come back for you. Instead of mopin’ about how he’s always leavin’. Matter of fact, I bet he’ll be walkin’ through that door any minute.” Crabby turns his whole body to face the door, and like an idiot, I follow his gaze.

He has a strong point. The one man in town who thought of Grady Barber as a rival is now advocating that I shift my focus from the pain of what’s missing to the joy of what I have when Grady and I are together. If I was able to forget how much it hurt when he didn’t kiss me twelve years ago because of all the times he’s kissed me this summer, then why can’t I focus on all the kisses to come instead of the distance between us when we’re both being true to who we are? Isn’t that what a kiss is? The dream of bridging the distance between two people, if only for a moment?

I stare at the entrance to the Sea Dog. Crabby stares at the entrance to the Sea Dog. There is no chance that the love of his life will walk through that door. But even if the love of my life doesn’t walk through it tonight, I want to be able to meet him halfway, with a heart that’s full.

Chapter 32

Total E-Claire of the Heart

Grady

I was supposedto spend these past couple of days with Claire before heading back to New York to sign the final paperwork. It feels like the last days of summer vacation before school starts. Only way sadder and a lot more pathetic because everything sucks and I have nothing to live for. But I figured I might as well take advantage of these remaining days in Beacon Harbor—do things that I won’t get to do when I have to put my bullshit Armani suit of armor back on and wage corporate battle with a bunch of other assholes in a bunch of other bullshit suits.

For instance, I’m wearing sweatpants.

They’re five-hundred-dollar sweatpants, but they’re still sweatpants.

And I like them, but it makes me sad to look at them because I brought them so I could wear them at home with Claire. So she could tellme how annoyingly hot I look in sweatpants and then give me a perfect, super casual hand job while smelling like frosting and telling me about her day.

Instead of getting a hand job from the woman I’m in love with, I’ve been watching a ton of crap on TV. The kinds of shows that make me despise humanity. I’ve watched even dumber things on my phone, and I’ve been eating garbage. I haven’t gone out for a run because I don’t want to run into Claire, even though I really want to run into Claire. But Claire needs space. Or she asked me to go, at least, and I don’t know if that meantGive me spaceor not, but I don’t want to be the guy who calls and texts her and then she’s all:All I needed was a little space, but you won’t even give me that!So I’m sitting here, all shirtless in my gray sweatpants at my parents’ house because being alone in the house I rented for me and Claire is even more depressing than this is.

I check the security-system app every now and then to see if Claire is at the house. She hasn’t been. If she were, it would make me a liar because I told her I wouldn’t use this app to watch her without her permission first. That would make me a liarandan asshole who missed his girlfriend’s reopening. But if it meant her being at the house and me being able to see her face in real time again, then I’d rather be a liar at this point.

Which makes me really pathetic.

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