My Ex-Love. MY BODYGUARD

CHAPTER FIVE

"Smoking can kill you," she said, and there was something brittle in her voice. Something that suggested she wasn't actually talking about cigarettes.

Adrian should have made a joke, should have kept things light and surface-level. Instead, he found himself saying, "Everyone dies eventually. Smoking just speeds up the timeline."

The way her face crumpled just for a second, just barely made him regret it immediately.

"My dad is dying," she said, and the words came out like they'd been under pressure, like they'd been waiting for someone to ask so they could escape. "Cancer. He has maybe two months, and he's " She stopped, awareness crossing her face. "I don't know why I just told you that."

Adrian stood there, suddenly aware that he was holding a cigarette like some kind of prop, like some kind of symbol of his own stupidity. "I'm sorry," he said, and this time he meant it. "That's rough."

She didn't say anything, just wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

"Look," Adrian said, and he heard his own voice soften in a way that surprised him. "I'm an asshole. I know that. But I didn't mean... that thing I said was stupid."

"Yeah, it was."

"Yeah." He paused. "I'm Adrian. I'm new here. Just transferred halfway through the semester because my family is basically cursed."

She looked at him then, really looked at him, and Adrian felt that same pull from English class that sense that something had shifted. "Grace."

"I know. The teacher called you Grace in English class. And I also may have tried to trip you to get your attention."

A small laugh escaped her. "That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen."

"Agreed."

They stood in silence for a moment, and Adrian had the strange sensation of standing on the edge of something. Like she was testing him to see if he was going to say something stupid, and he was terrified that he would.

"Why are you out here alone?" he asked finally.

"Why are you?"

"Touché."

She pulled her arms down slightly. "Everyone's being weird. Whispering about my dad. Offering their condolences like he's already dead. I just needed to not be around that."

Adrian understood that more than she probably wanted to know. "My dad's not dying, but he's also not going to win any father-of-the-year awards. So I get the feeling of wanting to escape things."

"Do you have a family curse too?"

"Something like that."

She studied him for a long moment. "You're from the South."

"Originally Louisiana. We've been everywhere. My dad chases jobs like they're going to save his life."

"Will they?"

"No. But he keeps trying."

She smiled then a real smile, not the polite kind she'd given him earlier. "That's very optimistic of him."

"It's very stupid of him."

They talked for another hour, standing on that porch while the party raged on inside. She told him about her father and her mother and the piano that nobody played anymore. She told him about her dreams of singing and writing music. She didn't tell him this like she was bragging; she told him like she was confessing something she wasn't sure he'd think was important.

When she finally said she should go, Adrian did something that surprised him. He asked her to dinner.

She hesitated. "I don't usually date people I've just met."

"I know. And I usually don't ask people out after three total conversations. So we can both experience something new."

The way she smiled suggested she knew exactly what he was doing, making himself small and a little ridiculous so she wouldn't feel pressured. It worked.

"Okay," she said. "Tomorrow night. Pick me up at seven."

********

Adrian borrowed his mom's car, a decade-old sedan that smelled like both her perfume and her sadness and spent twenty minutes sitting in his truck outside Grace's house before actually getting out. The place was exactly what he'd expected and also nothing like it. Big, sure. Well-kept, definitely. But also lived-in in a way that suggested the people inside it actually cared about things like the baseboards and the front porch light.

When Grace opened the door, Adrian forgot momentarily how to breathe.

She was wearing a simple denim dress and had done something different with her hair. She looked beautiful and young and also like she was bracing herself for something painful.

"You look nice," he managed.

"Thanks. Do I need to..." She glanced back into the house.

"Yeah, probably. Meet your parents?"

She nodded and stepped back. "Just a warning my dad's sick and my mom is overprotective and they're both going to judge you."

"I'm definitely going to fail that judgment."

"Probably."

But when her mother came down the stairs, she was softer than Adrian expected. And when her father wheeled himself out visible even from across the room that his body was betraying him in real time Adrian felt something shift in his understanding of who Grace was. This wasn't a girl worried about typical teenage things. This was a girl trying to hold everything together while her world was actively falling apart.

The father shook his hand. Looked into his eyes like he was trying to read something there. Adrian held his gaze and tried to convey something true: I'm not going to hurt her. At least not on purpose.

The drive to the restaurant was quiet. Grace stared out the window, and Adrian let her, understanding that sometimes people needed space to just exist without performing.

But Grady's was the wrong call. He knew it the second he pulled up, could see the hesitation on her face. The place was rough in a way that Grace's world didn't seem to accommodate. But he was also stubborn and seventeen, so instead of pivoting, he doubled down.

"Trust me," he said.

She didn't, but she went anyway.

The date itself was a disaster at first. Grace ordered a salad. Adrian ordered a burger and ate it like he'd never seen food before. She made a comment about gentlemanly behavior that clearly surprised her as much as it surprised him, and he almost left right then. But something in her face, a kind of gentle rebuke that wasn't actually meant, made him sit with his own failure instead of running from it.

"Why'd you even say yes to going out with me?" he asked as they drove home, and he heard the actual vulnerability in the question. Heard himself asking her to confirm that she didn't regret it.

"I felt sorry for you," she said, and then immediately looked like she regretted it. "Not in a bad way. You just seem like you're carrying something heavy. And I'm... good at carrying heavy things right now."