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The disgust on her face fades quickly. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”
She gives me her phone, and I add my number, texting myself to make it look like I needed hers, too.
“Use it,” I tell her as I hand her phone back.
Her eyes lock onto mine.
“Sure.”
“I’m serious, Grace. The contact between us from this moment on needs to be locked in. People are sneaky. Put me under a nickname or something to really sell it.”
“Oh-kay.” She jerks her phone from my hand. “A nickname?”
“Yes,” I say. Why won’t she just listen to me? While she was freaking out over her brother and then getting ready, I was facing my own communication hell.
My father is persistent, and if I don’t respond to him soon, he’s bound to show up here.
But as soon as I reply to him, I’ll need to make a statement to the board.
Grace and I need to be more on the same page before I do that. Preferably, I’d like to wait until it’s not day one of this new arrangement.
I’ll never tell her this, but I was panicking this morning when she almost changed her mind. I’d have made a statement if that was what she wanted, but it would have made my situation with the board much worse.
She’s not the only one this needs to work for.
“I don’t have a nickname for you,” she adds quickly.
“That’s fine. Make one up real fast.”
Her gaze narrows.
“What are you putting for mine?”
“Sunny,” I say, not missing a beat.
“Ugh. Still? I don’t get it. You’ve called me that for years.”
I shrug and look her in the eye. “If you’ve noticed, then maybe others have, too. It’s a great addition to our love story.”
As she moves past me to the fridge, I ignore the fact that I very clearly saw an eye roll.
“Don’t say love story,” she quips.
I let out another long sigh.
What happened to the Grace from last night? I was starting to enjoy her.
When she said a truce for the night, she meant it.
“Maybe we should practice being around each other,” I suggest.
“Why? We are always around each other, even when I don't want to be.”
“That,” I say and stand quickly. Grace doesn’t even flinch at my jerky movement. Instead, the look in her eye dares me to keep talking.
So I do.
“You cannot talk to me like that. The sarcasm is going to instantly suggest we are already having problems.”
