Page 65 of No Match Found
I wanted more of it. A lot more.
Grant took my arm and pulled me toward him as a car came peeling around the turn on the descent to the ninth floor.
He shook his head at the driver, then switched spots so he was on the side with the passing cars.
Stupid sexy chivalry.
“Fine,” I said.
Regret set in the moment the word came out. Was this crazy of me? Was I selling my soul for a snack?
Iwashungry. There were donuts in Grant’s car, but at this rate, they’d be stale by the time we got there.
“So,” Grant said, “what made you afraid of chemistry? Or maybe the right question iswhomade you afraid of chemistry?”
My fingers started to tremble, and I gripped them togetherin front of me.
I didn’t need to be dramatic about this. I could be matter-of-fact. Telling the truth didn’t require theatrics.
“I dated a guy for a while in grad school,” I said, keeping my tone light. “It was exciting and new, and I was flattered by the attention. I was naive and thought I’d foundthe one, whatever that means. And then…” I stopped. I never talked about this part. There wasn’t really a way to say it nonchalantly—especially not with this lump in my throat.
“You found yourself in a mess of Pepsi and Mentos?”
Chuckling lightly, I nodded and waited until I managed to swallow. “He told me dating me felt like dating a spreadsheet.” Laughing about trauma was healthy, right?
Grant stopped, looking at me with a deep, confused frown. “What does that even mean?”
I shrugged, ignoring the way my body shook with vulnerability, like I was in shock or something. “That I’m too analytical. Too rigid. Too sterile. Too uptight, like Leo said.”
His frown didn’t leave. If anything, he just looked more skeptical. “And instead of realizinghewas the problem, you restructured your entire emotional operating system?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. I’d just told Grant what was wrong with me—things I thought about all the time but never voiced aloud—and it hadn’t fazed him.
I kept walking. “You don’t know he was the problem. You don’t know Chase.”
“I don’t have to. I knowyou. That’s enough.”
My chest pinched, but I kept walking, forcing my mind to focus on the cars we were passing. But scanning every maroon car in the vicinity didn’t require enough brain power to prevent my thoughts.
Grant was saying the words I wanted to believe—things that might undo years of emotional self-flagellation if I really internalized them. But it was easy for an outsider like him to say; I’dlivedit. I knew the data, and they didn’t support what he was saying.
I stopped walking and turned toward him. “Do you know what the statistics say about women like me, Grant?”
He watched me but said nothing, his eyes sharp with focus.
“Women in heavy-hitter roles—CEOs, executives—we’retwotimes as likely to get divorced in the first year, and that’s with a divorce rate of 42% for the general public. Or how about the fact that men’s stress levels skyrocket and their mental health declines when their wives make more money than them? How much chemistry do you thinkthatgenerates in a relationship?”
My chest heaved like I’d just shot-put a hundred pounds of the questions that kept me up at night right at his face.
But Grant just looked at me, quiet, as the seconds passed. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t cringe.
“It was my ex too.”
I blinked.
“The person who made me afraid of believing a lie again.”
Chase and all those angry statistics fled my brain like birds after a gunshot. I stayed still, like blinking or breathing might stop Grant from telling me more. I couldn’t let him get away with a short answer this time.
