Imaginary Grace (7 page)

The rest of the night went by in a blur. So many people approached me about how much they liked my performance. I was flying high. I started looking around the bar for who I’d be taking home tonight. I had had several offers, including one from Amber, who was out of the running (unless of course she brought along a willing friend again). Each girl who approached me was hotter than the next. Being a “rock star” (even if it was for only one night) did have its advantages.

Before I knew it, it was last call and the bar was closing up. I was still in the mood to party so I convinced Scott (which wasn’t too difficult) to head over to a little after-hours place I knew of up the block. We left J.D.’s with two hot blondes; –apparently being the roommate of a rock star also had its advantages.

When we got to the bar, it was already filling up with other J.D.’s patrons who still wanted to party. We headed through the bar toward the back where there were a few pool tables. An older couple was finishing up a game, so we didn’t have to wait long. Scott grabbed a few beers from the bar while I entertained the ladies. When he came back he began racking up the balls, insisting all the while that he be the one to break. I rolled my eyes. Scott was the worst pool player – not that I was much better, but at least I could make a decent break.

As I stood there laughing at him, my arm draped over Girl #1’s shoulder, I lifted my gaze to the other side of the room where my eyes locked with Gary’s. He was staring at me with a smug little smile on his face.

My mood instantly turned dark. I watched, removing my arm from what’s-her-name’s shoulders as he slowly made his way over to me, weaving in and out of the crowd until we were standing toe to toe.

“Hey, Tanner, what’s up?” he said – a little too perky as he eyed the girl.

“Not much, Gary,” I replied with an icy stare.

He stood there silently for a minute, then he looked me in the eye and smirked before slowly backing away. “I knew it was bullshit with you and Grace.”

Busted
. He walked off without turning back. God dammit, that asshole had just ruined my whole fucking night—maybe even my whole plan. I was going to have to do some major damage control. I couldn’t fuck up now that I had already told Cole I was definitely committed to the tour. Now I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. I tried to get Scott to come with me, but there was no way he was leaving without Thing 1 and Thing 2, so I finally walked out alone.

I started walking in the direction of my apartment, hoping to hitch a ride with someone, when I had an idea; I reached into my pocket, took out my phone and shot off a quick text to Grace.
Hey, what’s up?

About a minute later I got a response:
Nothing. How bout u?

I texted back
: Just hangin with Scott & 2 of his cousins from out of town. Boring. Gonna head home. U wanna hang out this week?

I waited for a reply, which came in shortly.
Sure.

I texted back:
K. I’ll text u 2morrow
.

Satisfied that I had covered my bases, I put my phone away. I walked a few blocks and then it hit me – I was exhausted. Luckily for me, Cole was passing by in the car and offered to drive me the mile or so back to my apartment.

“Thanks,” I said as I got out of the car, “that gig took a lot out of me.”

“No problem, get some rest,” I heard him say as I shut the door. Once in my apartment I collapsed onto the couch and turned on the television. There was some stupid chick flick on, but I was too tired to look for something else. As I stared blankly at the screen, my thoughts once again turned to Operation Grace and how I had almost blown it twice in a matter of twenty-four hours.

That was it, starting tonight I was all in. No more fuck-ups. But just then Scott arrived back home with the two girls from the bar.
Correction: starting
tomorrow
I’m all in.

“
Where’d you go, man?” Scott asked, “I turned around and you were gone.”

“Long story,” I said as I got up from the couch. He knew not to question me anymore in front of our guests—who I now kinda remembered were named Kayla and Rachel. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge as Scott and one of the girls disappeared into his bedroom. The other one (I think it was Rachel) followed me into my bedroom and I certainly wasn’t going to turn her away.

I lay back on the bed and she climbed on top of me. I said, “Listen, I’ll show you a good time, but I’ve got to get up early tomorrow, so you can’t spend the night.”

She hesitated, clearly taken aback by my bold statement, but then agreed. They always did.

Chapter 9

Grace

I
barely slept a wink after the text I received from Tanner. I couldn’t wait to tell Beth! So much was going through my head. First, what did he mean when he said he wanted to “hang out”? Did that mean he wanted to come over, or maybe he wanted me to come over to his apartment, or maybe he just meant working out together at the gym?

What would I wear? Then I thought about my conversation with Beth the night before. I wanted to jump out of bed right then and start rummaging through her closet. At some point during my whirling thoughts, I must have fallen back to sleep.

I woke to the sun peeking through the shades, and looked over at the little alarm clock on my nightstand. Seven-thirty. I got up and looked out the small window down at the quiet courtyard below. I knew there was no falling back to sleep, so I decided to go for a run. Maybe Beth would be awake when I got back and I could tell her about the latest developments.

I quietly got dressed, twisting my hair into a long sloppy braid, and then I slipped my Nikes on before grabbing my iPod and heading out the door.

I ran for about five and a half miles through the various winding paths around campus before slowing to a jog and, finally, coming to a stop. After resting on one of the benches for a few minutes, I headed over to the deli for a bagel and an iced tea.

There were quite a few people in line ahead of me so I put my iPod back on and pressed shuffle. I was listening to Boston when I felt a gentle tug on my braid. I turned around to find Tanner standing behind me looking all . . .
perfect
.

“O-oh, hi!” I stammered, pulling the ear buds from my ears.

“Hi,” he said with a smile. “I was on my way over to the gym when I saw you duck in here so I thought I’d say hi.”

“Oh, yeah, I just finished a run,” I said, hoping I didn’t look too sweaty.

“Whatcha listening to?” he asked motioning to the iPod.

“Oh, nothing,” I said, slipping it into my pocket.

“I didn’t know you were a runner. I run a few times a week. Maybe I could join you sometime.”

“Uh, okay, sure,” I stammered. By then it was my turn, so I quickly ordered my bagel and iced tea and paid the cashier.

“Are you going to eat here or were you going back to your room?” he asked.

There was no way on earth I was going to eat in front of him, so I quickly said, “Oh, I’m going to eat when I get back, after I take a shower.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll walk you back, then; it’s on my way.”

“Okay,” I said, praying I didn’t look
too
bad.

As we approached the door he reached in front and held it open for me – a move that did
not
go unnoticed. I walked through ahead of him, thinking how polite the gesture was; then he even offered to carry my bagel and iced tea. During the walk back there was mostly small talk – the weather, teachers we had, what we were doing for Thanksgiving break (turned out he had a job lined up for that weekend that was not too far from where I lived).

Then he said, “Oh, I ran into your buddy Gary last night when I was with Scott and his cousins.”

My
buddy
Gary? “Oh, you mean Gary from the gym,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“We’re not really ‘buddies.’”

“Oh, well, speaking of the gym, do you want to meet up and ride the bikes again this week?” By then we had reached the steps to my dorm, and I was counting the minutes till I could get away from him and into a hot shower.

“Sure,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too eager.

“Okay, great, I’ll text you later or tomorrow,” he answered, handing me the bag from the deli. As I reached for it, our fingers touched ever so slightly, sending a delicious chill up my arm.

“I’ll see you around,” he said as he slowly turned away and walked off down the path. I watched him until he disappeared around the corner, then I raced up the stairs and burst through the door, startling Beth out of a sound sleep.

“Beth, you are not going to believe the morning I’ve had!”

“Do tell!” she responded as she stretched. Good old, Beth, willing to trade sleep for a story.

“Oh my gosh, where do I begin!” I proceeded to give her the details of what had transpired, starting with the texts Tanner had sent the night before and ending with the encounter with him this morning. I stopped only to catch my breath.

“Grace, I dare say that you may be in need of changing your Facebook status sometime soon!”

I just grinned as I sat down to eat my bagel, which I had almost forgotten about in all the excitement. “Let’s not get carried away.”

“Are we going to the gym later?” she asked, changing the subject rather abruptly.

“Yeah, but I’ll meet you there since I already did my cardio.”

“Okay, I’ll go over around two o’clock, and I’ll met up with you in the weight room around three,” she said as she grabbed her towel and her robe and went into the bathroom we shared, leaving me alone to dissect every word Tanner said.

After she left I jumped in the shower, then did homework for the rest of the morning and into the early part of the afternoon. Before I knew it, I was changing back into workout clothes to meet up with Beth. When I arrived at the gym she was still on the bike, so I got started without her.

I was looking around for the weights I usually used when I noticed Gary walk in. “Hi, Gary,” I said.

“Hey, Grace, what’s up? Did you have fun at the game Friday night?”

“Oh yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was so packed.”

“Yeah, that’s a big rivalry, so that game in particular always draws a big crowd,” he replied.

I found the weights I had been looking for and was getting them all set up when he added, “Oh, by the way, I ran into your friend Tanner last night.”

My
friend
Tanner. “Oh yeah, he mentioned that he saw you. He was out with his friend Scott and Scott’s two cousins,” I replied absently, but I noticed Gary’s raised eyebrow.

Clearly, Tanner and Gary weren’t very fond of one another. Maybe they have some sort of “gym rivalry” thing going on, I mused. I was about to ask him when Beth walked in.

“Hi, Gary,” she said as she walked in, “any parties next weekend you want to let us in on?”

“You know there’s always a party somewhere, Beth,” Gary replied, laughing.

Back in our room after dinner Beth reminded me of the conversation we’d had the other night.

“Beth, I’m getting a little nervous about this. Maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

“No way, Grace. I saw the look on your face after the tailgate party. You can’t back down now. We can take it slow at first.”

“Ok,
real
slow,” I answered.

“Good, your first step should be to lose the hoodies.”

“Can I wear something in place of the hoodies?” I asked.

“Yes, but when you get to wherever you’re going, weather permitting, you have to take it off.” I squirmed a little. “Grace, you asked for my help, so now you’re going to have to follow my lead. Trust me, you can do it. Now gather up all your hoodies and put them on the bed.”

I slowly opened the closet and gathered all fourteen of them – I actually had fifteen, but I grabbed one off the hanger and threw it to the floor of the closet in the back without Beth noticing.

“Hey, how about we go shopping next week? We’ll take the bus into Baltimore,” she announced.

“Beth, I don’t have a lot of money…” I started.

Beth quickly put her hand up. “Stop. I Googled consignment shops in the Baltimore area, and quite a few came up. You can find a lot of treasures consignment shopping, trust me, and in the meantime you can borrow some of my things. Here, try this on,” she said as she tossed me her jean jacket. I put it on, and it fit like a glove. “See, it looks great on you. You can wear it tomorrow. Now, let’s see, you seem to be okay in the jeans department, but you’re definitely short on tops, so that’s what we’ll concentrate on when we go shopping next weekend.”

She then handed me various cute little sweatshirts and jackets to get me through the week. I wondered to myself how one person could have so many clothes.

I went to class all week with a different jacket on each day, and it felt great. I saved the jean jacket for Friday because it was my favorite and that was the day I would be seeing Tanner. I was disappointed that I hadn’t heard from him all week, but he did text me Thursday night asking if I wanted to go to the gym with him after class on Friday.

Oh, yeah!

So, armed with my gym bag, backpack, and Beth’s jean jacket I was off, arriving at class nice and early, as usual. I sat and waited for him to walk through the door. When he did, he didn’t disappoint. He breezed down the row I was in, taking the seat directly behind me. This time I didn’t pretend to be reading. I looked up and he smiled at me, causing me to practically melt into my seat.

“You ready for our workout?” he said brightly.

“Yep,” I said, just as the professor walked in.

When we got to the gym, I quickly changed in the locker room. Then, after taking one last look at myself in the large mirror, I headed for the door. No Beth today; I was on my own. As I was walking past the front desk, I heard Tanner call my name. When I turned, I saw him talking to a rather attractive girl.

“Grace, come here a minute,” he said as I slowly walked over. “Grace, this is Jennifer. She usually works the early shift. Jen, this is Grace,” he said as he put his arm around me.
There’s that arm-draping thing again!

She gave me the once-over with a rather curious expression on her face. “Nice to meet you, Grace,” she said, somewhat flatly. Then she added, “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you, too. I usually come in later, so that’s probably why we’ve never seen each other,” I answered, trying not to sound nervous.

She smiled coolly, then turned her attention back to Tanner, completely dismissing me. “Well, have a nice workout.” Her eyes lingered on him just a bit too long.

Any bit of confidence I had gained completely drained out of me in that moment. Who was I kidding? What was he doing here with me when he could be with someone like her?

Well, there was nothing I could do now. I was here and without Beth to help me along, so I was just going to have to suck it up. I tried my best to put “Jen” out of my mind as we headed for the bikes.

It was more crowded than the last time we were there, but we managed to find two bikes next to each other. I hopped on and started full-on pedaling. Tanner seemed to sense my uneasiness and carried most of the conversation. For some reason he asked about my family, so I told him all about Jagger and Ryder and about the town I was from and what high school I went to. He seemed genuinely interested and before I knew it, thirty minutes had passed and we were done.

I reached for my towel, wiping the sweat from my face before getting off, and he did the same. We both stood there in an awkward silence.

“Well, this was great,” he finally said. “Maybe I’ll see you over the weekend.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll see you,” I said as I headed back to the locker room, where I changed my sweaty t-shirt before heading to the weight room.

I was getting all my weights set up when I heard, “Grace, you’re still here?” I turned to see Tanner walking into the weight room, also wearing a clean t-shirt.

“Oh, yeah…I usually work out with the weights first, but since I was meeting you here I did it the other way around.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you used the weights,” he said.

“Well, Beth and I started back when school began, but before that I never worked out with weights.”

“Oh, so Beth showed you what to do…?”

Without thinking I replied, “No, Gary showed us.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realized I probably should have kept that bit of information to myself because his expression turned dark and unreadable.

“Gary?” he said, pulling his eyebrows in.

“Yeah…when we signed up he was the one who showed us around.”

“Was it just that first time or do you guys still work out with him?”

I looked at him curiously.
Why all the questions?

“He’s usually here when we work out, but we don’t actually work out with him. He just showed us what to do in the beginning. Why?”

“No reason,” was all he said. Then after a minute, he added, “Well, since we’re both here, why don’t you show me your routine, and maybe I can give you some pointers.”

“Sure,” I said as I grabbed a set of dumbbells. Tanner was very helpful, showing me how I could mix things up a bit to get better results. I tried to avoid staring at his perfectly executed repetitions. We were in the weight room for well over an hour before we finally finished and once again parted ways.

©

The next morning Beth and I were up bright and early for our day of shopping. When I came out of the shower I noticed two big bags on her bed. I peeked inside just as Beth went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. “Beth, what are you doing with all my hoodies?”

“Oh, I had a great idea” she called out, “I thought that since we were going to the consignment shops we might as well try to sell them.”

“Sell them? All of them?! That seems so…I don’t know…permanent,” I replied, but then I remembered the hoodie I’d hidden in the back of my closet.

“Permanent indeedy!” she chuckled.

“Fine, whatever, let’s just get going.”

After a short walk to the bus stop – hoodie bags in hand – and a five-minute wait for the bus, we were on our way. As we took our seats Beth casually mentioned that she was meeting up with Adam from the tailgate party later that evening.

“Beth,” I said, “it’s none of my business, but what about Thomas? I mean, you guys have been together for over two years and you’re meeting up with Adam tonight?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally she answered, “Grace, I’m not naïve. I’m here in Maryland, and he’s in North Carolina. I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t ask him, and he doesn’t ask me, and that works for both of us. Besides, I don’t want to have any regrets later that I missed out.” Then she turned and quietly stared out the window.