And she was going. Rolling off the bed, she grabbed up her clothes and dashed into Josh’s bathroom.
On the other side of the door, she heard Josh greet Toby.
“I want popcorn.”
“Little late for that, Little Man.”
“I need water.”
“That we can do,” Josh assured him.
As their voices faded, Grace realized they’d moved down the hall. She shoved herself into her clothes and made her escape, not immune to the irony that she was absolutely proving Josh’s “queen of running away” and “passive aggressive” statements.
And he was right, of course. Oh how she hated to admit that, but it was true. She was running away. She was being passive aggressive, both of which really chapped her ass.
But she was thoroughly unequipped to deal with this situation.
In fact, this situation required the Chocoholics. She texted both Mallory and Amy, and like the BFFs they were, they met her at the diner despite the midnight hour.
Mallory was wearing a pair of sweats that were clearly Ty’s, looking like she’d just crawled out of bed. “I hope this is good,” she said with a yawn. “I just left the sexiest man on the planet, and I have to be at work at six.”
“I told Josh I love him,” Grace said.
Mallory immediately softened into a goofy smile. “Awwww!”
“No.” Grace pointed at her. “No awwww. You want to know why? Because I said it first! Do you know what that means? It means I said it first!”
“Well, hell,” Amy said with a wince. “That’s never a good idea.”
“Ya think?” Grace asked, her voice resembling Minnie Mouse. God. It was a nightmare. And it wasn’t as if he’d called or texted or come after her to try to discuss.
He’d let her go.
Okay, she knew he couldn’t have come after her. He had Toby. But he might have called…
“What did he do when you said it?” Mallory asked.
“Nothing, because Toby woke up and wanted popcorn.” Grace leaned over and thunked her head on the table a few times.
“Don’t do that—you’ll knock something loose,” Amy said. “Here, have another cupcake.”
“A cupcake isn’t going to fix this,” Grace said. “I need at least two.”
Mallory handed her another. “What were you doing when you said it?”
Grace sighed. “We were…in the moment.”
Amy winced again.
“Will you stop doing that?” Grace demanded. “Just tell me how to fix this.”
“That’s easy,” Mallory said calmly. “Tell him when you’re not in the moment so he knows it’s real.”
Grace’s heart clutched. “You think it’s real?”
Mallory took her hand and squeezed it. “Yeah, I do. But it doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what you think.”
“Have you seen him frustrated and pissed off?” Amy asked.
Grace thought of how Josh had looked when Anna had fought with him over Devon. And his expression when Grace had told him to “bite me.” Yeah, it was safe to say she’d seen him frustrated and pissed off. “Yes.”
“Have you seen him upset?”
She remembered how he’d looked talking about the loss of his parents. How he’d been after Mrs. Porter’s death. Or when he’d realized Toby wanted to be a good Jedi for his mom. Or when Anna had left. “Yes.”
“Did his reactions to those emotions scare you off?” Amy asked.
“No.” Grace sighed. “Actually, they made me care about him even more.” Which was her answer, she supposed.
“You realize he’s a package deal,” Mallory said. “Right? He’s got Toby and Anna. You’d be an instant family if you take him on, and that’s a big deal.”
“Of course I realize that. And I love them all.” Grace heard the words, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “What is that? Why does that word keeping slipping out?”
“It’s because love is one of those really bossy bitches,” Amy said. “There’s no telling it what to do.”
Mallory nodded and toasted a cupcake to that. Then she set the cupcake down and got serious as she turned to Grace. “Honey, just promise me something.”
“What?”
“That you won’t be so driven by your past that you throw away your future. You need to go back. You need to face him and deal with this or he’s going to think you didn’t mean it.”
Go back…When she’d first blurted out her “I love you,” she’d been so embarrassed that all she’d thought about was getting out of there. She hadn’t thought how Josh would take her vanishing act. But she was thinking now, and she knew the truth. Mallory was right. Her leaving told him that she hadn’t meant it and that her running off was her extricating herself from his life. Maybe his parents hadn’t left him on purpose, but Ally had. Anna had.
Grace had. She stood up.
“Tell him you meant it,” Mallory said. “Tell him—”
Amy stuffed a cupcake into Mallory’s mouth. “She’ll figure it out, Ace.”
Grace wrapped her two cupcakes in a napkin for later. She was hoping things went well but in case they didn’t, there was always chocolate. She drove home. And when exactly Josh’s house had turned into home, she couldn’t say. But Josh wasn’t there, and neither was Toby. Afraid something had happened to Anna, she texted him: You okay? Toby? Anna?
His response came quickly: Got called into ER. Brought Toby with me. Nothing from Anna.
Grace turned around and drove to the ER. She found Toby in his Star Wars pj’s playing with his Zhu Zhus in the nurse’s station. “They have popcorn here,” he said happily, clutching a full bag of it.
Grace turned to the nurse’s aide watching him. “Is Josh with a patient?”
“Yes. And he’s going to be busy for a while.”
“Can you ask him if I can take Toby home for him?”
The aide came back with the okay, with absolutely no indication on what Josh thought about Grace showing up. She took Toby home and tucked him back into bed before making herself comfortable on the couch to wait for Josh.
But he never came home.
Chapter 25
Maybe man cannot live on chocolate alone,
but a woman can.
Grace woke up at 6:00 a.m., her face stuck to the couch, someone tugging on her sleeve.Toby.
He’d liberated Tank from behind the baby gate. The puppy was prancing like a miniature dancing bear. A miniature dancing bear that had to go potty. Scooping him up, Grace ran for the front door, getting him outside just in time for him to race to the closest tree and lift a stumpy leg.
Toby, still in his Star War’s pj’s, trotted across the yard to join him in anointing the tree.
Grace didn’t bother to sigh. When Tank finished, he pawed at the grass with his back feet, head high, proud of his business. Toby loped back to Grace, grinning with his own pride.
Grace gathered both the dog and child back inside and checked her phone.
Nothing.
She was playing Scrabble Junior with Toby when her cell finally buzzed with an incoming call, which she pounced on. But it wasn’t Josh.
It was Anna. “Hey,” Grace said, “I’ve been so worried.”
Anna didn’t say anything. Grace checked the phone to make sure she had reception. “Anna?”
Nothing, but she was there; Grace could feel her in the gaping silence. “Anna,” she said softly. “You okay?”
Anna didn’t say anything.
“Just tell me where you are,” Grace said, heart aching. “I’ll come get you. Are you at Devon’s?”
Disconnect.
“Road trip,” Grace said to Toby.
He immediately hopped up and grabbed Tank and his Jedi saber. Grace was too worried to argue with him. “Get the leash.”
“Tank can’t be a Jedi on a leash,” Toby said.
“He’s not big enough to be a Jedi,” Grace said.
This caused Toby to beam with pride that he was apparently big enough, and he went for the leash.
Grace drove to Devon’s building. The place looked dark and still, as if no one was there, but Grace couldn’t get rid of her bad feeling. Not in a hurry to get out of the car in this neighborhood, she tried Anna’s cell phone again.
It went straight to voice mail this time, so either it was off or it’d run out of juice. While she was still staring down at her phone, unsure of her next move, it buzzed.
Josh.
Oh God. She’d wanted to hear from him, needed to hear from him, and now that he was calling, she wanted to fall into a big hole and live in Denial City. The phone vibrated more intently, and she imagined Josh waiting impatiently on the other end of the line. “Hey,” she answered, wincing at how breathless she sounded.
“I’m off work,” he said. “We have to talk.”
Even knowing he was right, she couldn’t go there right now. She couldn’t do anything until she knew that Anna was okay. “About that…”
“What? Where are you and Toby?”
She didn’t want to tell him where she was, not yet. Anna had told him she was with friends. If she turned out to be here at Devon’s, Josh wouldn’t be happy to know it. “Give me a few. I’ll meet you back at the house.”
“What’s going on, Grace?”
Shit. He was too damn smart for her. “Okay, fine. I’m outside Devon’s place. I got two hang-ups from Anna. I think she wants help and she’s too stubborn to ask for it. I have no idea where she might have gotten that stubbornness, but I have a feeling it has to do with her last name.”
“Stay put,” he said. “I’m on my way.”
“Staying put.” Gladly.
“And, Grace? We still have to talk.”
Oh boy. She could hardly wait. She disconnected and stared at the dark apartment.
“Is Anna in there?” Toby asked.
“Not sure.” A text beeped in and she glanced at it, figuring it would be from Mallory or Amy wondering how it’d gone with Josh.
Which of course, it hadn’t gone at all.
But the text wasn’t from Amy or Mallory. It was from Anna.
I need you.
Grace called Josh. “I’m going in,” she told him. “Anna needs me now.”
“Wait for me. The neighborhood is shit, and so is that building. I’m five minutes out.”
She wasn’t going to wait five minutes, not after Anna’s text.
“Grace,” Josh said, voice tight.
“Tunnel.”
“We don’t have any tunnels,” he said. “Don’t—”
She disconnected and winced. “Whoops.” She turned in her seat and eyed Toby, unsure what to do. And Josh was right; they were in a crap neighborhood. Leaving Toby in the car wasn’t an option, but she didn’t want to bring him inside with her either.
In the end, her urgency to get to Anna made her decision for her. “Okay,” she said on the sidewalk, hunkering down in front of Toby and Tank. The two of them, boy and dog, stood side by side, facing her like two little warriors, both so adorable and serious that her heart swelled against her rib cage. “Don’t let go of my hand,” she said to Toby. “No matter what. That’s your only job, to hold on to me at all costs, okay?”
Toby, holding his lightsaber, nodded solemnly. “Arf.”
Oh God, she couldn’t take it. He was upset; that was the only time he barked these days. Giving him a quick but warm hug, while silently sending Josh a please hurry, she straightened, and they went inside the building.
Devon opened the door to her knock. He took one look at the whole brigade, and a muscle tightened in his jaw. “Busy,” he said, and tried to close the door.
Not thinking beyond must get inside, Grace reacted instinctively and stuck her foot in the door to block it open.
Devon slammed it on her, and Grace doubled over from the oh-holy-shit pain in her foot. She’d seen a foot get slammed in a door on TV a hundred times, and not once did anyone scream in pain. But then again, none of them were ever wearing wedge sandals.
Devon opened the door wide with clear intent to slam it again, but then Tank squirmed through the opening. Even through the agony radiating up from Grace’s foot, she heard Toby cry out for his dog. She envisioned what the door would do to Toby’s lanky little body or Tank’s adorable, fat little one, and she threw herself at Devon. He fell backward, taking her down with him. She landed hard, writhing at the new fire in her foot.
“You crazy bitch!” Devon yelled. He rolled them so that he was on top, smacking her head hard on the floor. She saw stars, and then Tank was suddenly there, growling and snarling as he…
Bit Devon on the ass.
“What the fuck…” Devon shoved off Grace, hand on his butt, staring in shock at the little dog. “You little piece of—” Going up on his knees, he reached out and snatched Tank up by the throat.
Tank chirped in alarm, his eyes bugging out even more than usual, paws flailing like a cat on linoleum.
Toby, in his Star Wars pj’s and wild bed-head hair, cried out, “Let go of my dog!”
Anna appeared in her chair from the hallway. She was out of breath, like maybe she’d just been fighting to get into the chair on her own, but she rolled directly up behind Toby and snatched him up into her lap. “Hey!” she yelled at Devon. “What are you doing? Put the dog down!”
Devon staggered to his feet, Tank still dangling. “It bit me on the ass!”