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God, I was tired. Tired of trying to decipher his words and meaning, as if I could onlyunderstandthen everything would make sense. But he was never going to make sense. Not to me. And I was done trying. One hundred percent done.
I hadn’t realized how fuckingexhaustingGrant was until Michael had shown me that things could be different. No subterfuge. No hidden meanings. Cards on the table.Easy.
I needed to excise Grant from my life. It was the only way to stop the insanity. Why couldn’t I do that? We were divorced. No kids. Who the hell shared custody of a dog? It was ridiculous and completely messed up. Colonel Brandon was mine. No matter what Grant said, I had taken very good care of him. I had made mistakes, but so what? No one was perfect. Least of all Grant.
“I’m done,” I said. “I can’t do this anymore. I tried, I really did, but sharing custody of Brandon doesn’t work. From now on, Brandon lives with me. He’smydog.”
He shook his head. “I won’t agree to that. We’ve been through this before. You were the one responsible for feeding him and taking care of him, and how did that go? He has diabetes.”
“Stop it. Juststop. Stop trying to make me feel guilty for something I didn’t have control over. Brandon has type one diabetes because German Shepherds are prone to it, not because I fed him crap. The vet told us that. You gave him to me for my birthday, which means he’s mine. He’s staying with me. If you don’t like it, take me to court.”
“Be careful, Nora. I might just do that.”
Maybe it was an idle threat. It was hard to tell with Grant. Did courts even settle dog custody cases? I didn’t want to find out. But maybe I wouldn’t have to. I still had a card to play, and even though it made me feel dirty, I was going to put it on the table. Maybe playing dirty was the only thing Grant could understand.
“Where’s your ring, Grant?” I asked quietly.
His eyes narrowed up at me. “I think you need to ask yourself, Nora, if a bitter, vindictive person is who you want to be.”
I wanted to defend myself, but I bit my tongue. I kept my gaze steady, letting my silence do the talking.
Michael gave my thighs a gentle squeeze. “Time to get down. Hold on tight, kitten.” He lowered carefully into a squat, then took my hand to help me off his shoulders. When he straightened to his full height, his body blocked their view of me, and I took the opportunity to yank my skirt down over my underwear.
“I don’t really care for your tone, man,” Michael said. I stepped to his side only for him to nudge me behind him again.
Grant crossed his arms. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,man.”
“Noraismy business.”
Oh, great. My gaze bounced anxiously between them. Neither Grant nor Michael was the type to throw down in a bar parking lot, but I wasn’t particularly eager to stand there while they traded snippy insults, either.
“Enough. I’m cold,” I announced. Michael immediately started to remove his jacket, but I shook my head. “I don’t need that. I’m going inside, where it’s warm and my drink is waiting for me, so we can continue what’s left of girls’ night.”
Grant stepped back to let me pass. “We’ll talk tomorrow, Nora. Work through things.”
“No,” I said. “We won’t. I’m not kidding, Grant. If you take one step on my property, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
“I thought you were better than this.”
I gritted my teeth against the urge to argue. It was painful, this need to convince him that I was a decent person. As though I wouldn’t be worthy of love until he deemed me to be. Which he never would. I needed to stop giving him the power to make that call, because it wasn’t his to make.
It never was.
I knew that, rationally. But somehow it was still so hard to believe.
“My favorite part,” Kate said conversationally as we trooped inside, “was when Michael managed to get you off his shoulders without showing us your underwear. I held my breath the whole time. That took skill.”
“Thank you.” He sounded pleased.
Suzie snorted derisively. I shot her a worried look. Suzie hadn’t said a single thing since I’d declared I was dating her brother. “Suzie?” I asked, my voice little more than a timid whisper.
“Let’s go egg his house,” she said. “You put up with him for a decade? Of all the gaslighting, passive aggressive…fucking asshole. He’s theworst.”
I didn’t want to talk about Grant. I didn’t want to think about him. Ever again. But I was relieved Suzie wanted to egg his house. That meant she couldn’t be that mad, right? “I was an idiot. But what about—” I glanced at Michael.
Suzie’s mouth pressed into a tight line. “It’s fine.”
Fine? I bit my lip. One thing it definitely wasn’t wasfine.
