Mercy
The interior of the greenhouse was clean, stained-wood floors and old bags of potting
soil tucked underneath a counter that stretched along the back wall. Stacks of pots in
various sizes—clay and charcoal plastic and white ceramic—filled the surface, lined up for
whatever use I’d find for them. Delicate strands of fairy lights wound through the post in
the corner, and tucked underneath was a raw-edged photo of us, folded and slightly
battered, like I’d moved it from one place to another before it found a home. A sick urge to
rip it down crowded underneath my ribs, but I tore my gaze away instead, far too raw to
acknowledge that I’d wanted reminders of him out here too. The space was larger than I’d
thought, with enough room that I could get a good angry pace from one end to the other
before he filled the open doorway.
He’d removed the navy vest from earlier, and only the white oxford remained. His shirt
was soaked, clinging to all the muscles on his heaving chest. Through the translucent
material, I could see a light smattering of dark hair over his skin and a thin line that split
through the muscles on his flat stomach, disappearing beneath the waistband of his
trousers. The fire in his eyes made me stumble back against the wooden counter. He
slammed the door shut, clay pots rattling behind me.
The smell inside the room was earthy and rich, like soil and rain. But it smelled like
him, too, which was why I tried to ke ep my breathing shallow. If I filled my lungs with him,
I’d never be able to think clearly.
That was the problem, though, wasn’t it? Too many unclear thoughts fighting for the
front-row seat.
“You know I’m right,” I told him. “We can’t ke ep doing this. I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
His expression was so fierce, so unguarded, that my ribs shook. My stomach trembled.
And my heart . . . my heart could hardly ke ep up.
“I’m not in the mood to argue semantics with you, Hastings.”
“You don’t want to lie anymore, is that it? You’re giving up.” He took a st ep closer.
“Waving the white flag.”
“It’s not about surrender.” I gestured to the house. “They love you. You have a family
that is bending over backwards right now to show you how much.”
“My grandmother just wants—”
“She wants you to be happy,” I said. “I don’t know what happened when we visited, but
that woman is not trying to drag you back home kicking and screaming. Maybe she
pretended like she would, but this trip was more of a test for me than you.”
His eyes narrowed. “And you’re the expert after two days, are you?”
“The expert on families?” I let out a bitter laugh. “Decidedly not. But I know when they
don’t care what you want.” His expression shifted into something close to pity, and I took a
st ep closer, temper flaring hot in my gut. “Don’t you dare pity me right now. I don’t miss
them.”
“I know. I was there the day you showed up at Connor’s, bag in hand.” The color was
high in his cheeks. “Do you know how many people asked if I wanted to tell your family
about your accident? Dozens. All the nurses. The doctors. And I told every single person
the same thing.”
My heart was louder than thunder. It shook the entire frame of my body, like it had
windows to rattle, doors to shake, from the thump, thump, thump smashing against my
ribs. “What?”
“They haven’t earned the right to be by your side,” he said, the precise, clipped
consonants raising goose bumps on my arms.
“But you have?”
He lowered his voice, the rough, dangerous timbre of it almost more than I could bear.
“Yes, I bloody well have.”
The anger built, but not at him. At everything. But he was the only one within the blast
zone as it slammed into me. “I need to know everything, Grant. Everything.”
His eyes flashed—clouds lit by a lightning strike. “Now is not the time.”
“It’s never the right time, is it?”
“Eventually, it will be,” he ground out. A drip of water clung to the edge of his jaw, and
after a moment, it released its hold and absorbed into the wet shirt that had molded to his
skin. “But not now.”
“When? Tonight when they’re sle eping? Tomorrow after tea? Let’s sit down with the
whole fucking family. Rose already knows we’re lying.”
His head reared back. “She does?”
“Yes, because we’re terrible at it. On a good day, I’m a shitty liar, and you’re asking me
to pretend to be something that I’ve never seen. That I don’t understand. I’m finding out
all these things about you in front of them. It’s embarrassing. It’s hard. I can’t do it.”
“This isn’t about my family and you know it. It’s still there and it terrifies you.” He was
so close. My head swam. Grant dipped his chin, his gaze on mine. His eyelashes were wet,
dark spikes around the storm-cloud gray. “You may not remember, but it is there. I can see
it in your eyes when you seek me out and can’t understand why.”
I was shaking my head before I could stop it. “No. You don’t get to dangle little bits of
information and act like you’re doing me a favor.”
He shook his head. “Mercy—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You are my wife!” he roared. “Don’t ask me not to call you by your name, because I’ve
earned that right too.”
“You’ve earned it? How?” My chin jutted into the air, a false show of bravado. “By
fucking me so well?”
Grant moved in a flash, his hand gripping the back of my neck. “Among other things,”
he said, his mouth hovering inches over mine. “I know what you’re doing, darling. You
think to push me away because it’s easier. You think to run because then you don’t have to
face this.”
My mouth fell open, my pulse thready and high as I tried to cast a net over the writhing
mass of my anxious thoughts. I wanted the explosion, and I’d gotten it. Wanted to uncork
the bottle and let everything loose, but now . . . now I couldn’t put it back in.
“That’s not what I’m doing.” I struggled against his hold, but he k ept his grip firm, his
thumb pressing underneath my jaw. “Let me go.”
Grant’s eyes locked on my mouth, then his hand fell away, the tips of his fingers
dragging briefly along the line of my neck.
“You are,” he said. “You’re scared. Of the lies and why it hurts to tell them and the
things you don’t know. You’re scared of this. But I am not the enemy, no matter how badly
you wish it.”
“Wouldn’t you be scared?”
“Of course.”
“Then tell me,” I yelled. “Tell me what I’m missing. I can’t handle this just one thing
bullshit anymore, even if it does make you feel better to control what I do and don’t know.”
It was unfair. The moment the words left my lips, the moment he looked like I’d
slapped him, I wanted to take it back.
That was the thing about words, once you let them be spoken. You couldn’t take them
back. Even if it was a selfish, weak impulse, driven by fear or jealousy or envy or any
manner of sins, the damage was done.
“Control?” he said quietly. “This isn’t about control.” Grant tipped his head back and
stared up at the ceiling of the greenhouse, like he could feel the rain on his face.
“Everything I’ve done . . .” he whispered. When he dropped his chin, the intensity in his
eyes clawed the breath from my lungs. A lock of hair fell over his forehead, and he left it,
taking another st ep closer. “Every-fucking-thing has been about you. So that you don’t
shut down. So that you don’t run, because that’s what you do. You want to know, Mercy?
I’ll tell you. Want to slice me open to hear the things I’ve been holding on to for weeks by
myself, then go ahead.” He spread his arms out wide, the muscles in his bic eps and
shoulders shifting underneath the drenched shirt. “Do you want me to bleed so you have
visible proof that this has been absolute fucking hell for me too?”
I couldn’t breathe. My heart was climbing out of my throat. “Grant, I —”
“Go ahead!” he yelled. “Ask me what you want to know, and I’ll give you everything.
You wanted my attention, you’ve bloody well got it.”
This was what I’d craved, wasn’t it? Grant unraveled. The gloss and the perfection
dismantled. But I’d never pictured him completely undone over me. Broken down walls
that he’d smashed through to try to re capture some piece of us that he lost.
After weeks of polite choreography, moving in careful st eps to avoid damage, it was
like gasoline on a flickering flame. It roared to life with a sharp whoosh, filling every inch
of the space with blistering heat.
I wasn’t even sure what had brought us to this place—wet and messy and completely
wrecked—but it felt like life, like a gasping breath of air after breaking the surface of a
wave. For the first time in weeks, there was a stuttering pulse after days and days of a
flatline. Of no hope.
I didn’t ask him anything.
I didn’t think. I couldn’t. Ignoring the heat of the flames was impossible, because the
warmth of it on my skin after weeks of feeling chilled to the bone . . . I was done ignoring.
“Everything?” I whispered.
“Take it,” he said back, his voice low and tortured and ragged. “Just take what you
want, Mercy.”
Our eyes met and held, and when my gaze dropped to his lips, we both moved, mouths
crashing into each other while the rain battered the world around us.