Give Me Grace (13 page)

“Morning, Casey,” he said, and began brushing at an imaginary piece of lint on his pants.

“Tim.” I gave him a nod as I passed through his outer office and into mine.

“Back the truck up,” he commanded, suddenly on full alert as he eyed the bags in my hand. “You went shopping?”

I turned, arching a brow as I walked backwards into my office. “Is that a problem or should I have cleared it with you first?”

He muttered something I didn’t catch. I dumped the bags near one of the cabinets by my desk and sat down, noting the cup of piss-weak coffee sitting on a coaster by my laptop. Fuck it. This ridiculous feud Tim had going on with the local barista had to stop. I vowed to go down there myself and sort it out.
Just not today. Today was Monday, and Mondays were right up there with boy bands—an unbearable phenomena that kept recurring no matter how fucking horrible they were.

Flipping open the screen, I fired up my laptop. I had a routine. My week would start with me unlocking the bottom drawer of my desk and pulling out the old, worn file. I would review it carefully like I always did. Then I would find nothing new and hide the file away again with a lump in my throat I
could never swallow down. Frustration would grind my bones until it made me ache. And then I would begin my week, hurting just a little more than the week before.

Today was no different, but the possibility of getting answers via Morgan firmed my resolve. Just as I reached for the locked drawer, Tim barged in, pausing just
long enough to strip all the clothes from my body with his eyes. That was Tim’s morning routine. I was left feeling naked as he marched into my office with an ominous pile of files. His other hand held a bunch of phone messages. He dumped the files on my desk and handed me the messages one by one as he recounted them.

“Richard. Penrith Police. He wants you to call first thing.”

He handed me the second.

“Carol.” I raised my brows at that one. Carol was our office administrator and supposed to start annual leave today. “Her cruise ship leaves in an hour. She wants you to call before then. She’s worried about not getting reception once they leave.”

He handed me the next one, bristling with irritation. “Morgan. She wouldn’t say what it was in relation to despite me asking her. Twice.” I held my hand out for the message, raising my brows when he didn’t let go. “Who’s Morgan?”

I shrugged. “She was at the Florence Bar on Friday night.”

Tim sniffed as my phone beeped an incoming message. I picked it up, unable to hide the grin when I saw
Grace
on the screen. Opening the text, I read it silently, my grin turning into a chuckle.

You can shove your apology up your ass.

I quickly hit reply and tapped out a new message.
Ouch. Sounds kinky. Got you a new phone.

“Who’s Grace?” Tim asked, peering at my phone. “And why’s she talking about your ass?” His eyes went wide. “Wait! This isn’t
Grace
Grace, is it? Henry’s Grace? His
sister,
Grace?”

I tossed my phone back on the desk and snatched the message from Morgan out of Tim’s hand, replying, “Yep,” as I read his neat scrawl. Putting the message aside, I went back to my laptop. “Anything else?” I asked Tim’s hovering form.

“No, no.” He backed away. “I’ve got some calls to make. Those reports from Friday are in the files on your desk.”

“Oh, Tim?” I called out before he disappeared. “Can you get Frank to find the contact information for Helen who used to work at Bankstown Police?
Tell him she’s working airport security over at Sydney Domestic now.” Frank ran our control room upstairs and usually handled all our operations behind the scenes as well as ferreting out information that wasn’t public record. He was good at finding out what you needed to know without asking questions.

“Helen?” His voice sounded faint. “You’ve had a busy weekend.”

I schooled my features, not wishing to instigate one of those office gossip sessions Tim excelled in. Having my balls waxed was less painful. “And now it’s Monday, and some of us have work to do,” I pointed out.

He left as another message from Grace beeped through on my phone.

You can stick the new phone in the same place as your apology.

My lips curved as I sent off another reply.
Do you have a fetish for my ass? You keep mentioning it.

Despite Henry’s warning, Grace was proving addictive. When no immediate response came through, I tried putting her from my mind and focused on working through the draft reports Tim left for me. I stopped after an hour, my growling stomach reminding me I hadn’t eaten breakfast. Sitting back in my chair, I stretched before picking up my phone and checking the screen. Another message sat there from Grace.
Maybe because you’re always talking out of it.

I laughed out loud and Tim appeared in my office. “Having fun on a Monday, Casey? That’s not like you.” His eyes fell to the phone in my hand and his brows raised inquisitively. “Grace again?”

“Need something, Tim?” I asked mildly as I tapped out another message.
Seems there’s too much talk about my ass and not enough about yours.

“It’s lunch time,” he announced as I put my phone back on the desk. “Want me to grab you something?”

Mondays were officially declared ‘Fast Food Mondays’ in our office. With Jared not working, it was the safest day of the week to indulge without getting chewed out, no pun intended. The man was a health food Nazi and I didn’t need someone telling me what I could and couldn’t eat. I might’ve appreciated the whole
my body is a temple
thing, but too much clean living was bad for your health.

“Great. Can you get me—
”

“A burger with the works and a brownie,” he replied, fussing at his hair so it sat just
so.
At my raised eyebrows, he added, “You went for a surf this morning, right? That always makes you hungry, but you went shopping straight after, which means you probably didn’t take the time to eat. You’ve also got that little
fucking hell, it’s Monday
furrow in your brow going on, which means you need sugar if I’m going to put up with you this afternoon.”

As soon as Tim
left the office, I picked up the phone and dialled Morgan. She answered after several rings, sounding breathless.

“Bad time?” I asked, hearing loud voices in the background.

“No! Just … hang on.” The sound of footsteps came through the line, followed by muffled quiet before she came back on the line. “I’m at work and it’s a little crazy today.”

I tapped a pen impatiently on my desk
before stilling the movement. Keeping my voice low, I asked, “Settling in okay over there?”

“I think so. I’m learning off a great partner, but he’s giving me all the grunt work. I was expecting it, but it
kinda sucks.”

I laughed
. “Yeah I remember all about being a rookie. I don’t miss it.”

She sighed. “
So … I was wondering if you were free Thursday night? We could go to the cinema. There’s a couple of good movies out I’ve been wanting to see.”

“Great. Sure thing.”

“So … should I message you the time and then meet you there?”

My gut feeling was busy telling me this was all wrong. Ignoring it
, I replied, “This is a date, right? So I’ll pick you up, okay?”

“I’d like that,” she replied with warmth in her voice.
“I’ll message you my address.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you.” I checked my watch. “You must be a busy girl, so I’ll let you go. Talk soon, okay?”

“You got that right. Later, Casey.”

“Later,” I replied and hung up.

After eating lunch and putting in another solid hour on paperwork, I pushed it all to the side. Tim never made mistakes and these were filled with too many to count. Pushing back my chair, I picked up the files and headed for his outer office.

“What are these, Tim?”

He took the reports, flicking through all the sections I’d highlighted and frowning. “Crap,” he muttered, his eyes suddenly filling with tears. “These are a mess.”

Shit.

I backed up a step.

“It’s just
…” Tim took a sudden turn for the worse, drawing a deep, shaky breath that made me nervous. “Dean and I broke up over the weekend,” he choked out. “He accused me of having a thing for Jean and, well, someone else.” Tim cleared his throat. “He says I’m not focused on
us
and that I need to grow up. I’m sorry,” he added, slumping a little. “I thought coming into work would be a good distraction. I should’ve stayed home.”

“Jean?”

“You know, the barista?” he replied impatiently.

No, I didn’t know the barista’s name was Jean, but there you go. The barista was ruining my day by proxy once again.
First with bad coffee, and now this. Tim was a flirt. This was not news. He and Dean broke up over the issue more times than I could count, but Dean needed to learn that Tim was Tim, and he didn’t have to change his spots for anyone. It meant the time had come to intervene. “And do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a thing for Jean?”

“No!” he cried out. After a pause, he added, “Well, maybe. But just because the guy’s hot doesn’t mean I’m trying to get in his pants. I love Dean!”

I sighed internally and folded my arms. Fuck Mondays. Fuck them upside down, left, right, sideways, and every which way. “Do you want me to punch him?”

Tim
looked me over and visibly shivered. “Yes!” Then he covered his face with his hands. “God, what am I saying? No! I don’t want you to punch him, but uh, thanks. Violence is not my thing.”

“Oh, okay.” I pretended to nod thoughtfully. “So that
guy I saw watching the MMA on YouTube the other day was your alter ego?”

“Yes.”
He nodded along with me. “It must have been.”

“You want to take the afternoon off, Tim?”

“No!” He shook his head, his eyes once again filling with tears. He dashed away one that spilled over. Reaching for a tissue, I offered it towards him but rather than using it, he began shredding it into little pieces. “He isn’t working today. He said he was going to pack some stuff and stay at his brother’s place for a few days.”

My phone buzzed in the background. “You should get that,” Tim
told me. “I’ll ring Mac. Maybe I can stay at the duplex for a couple of days. I can’t face going home without Dean there.”

“You can’t stay there.
Grace is using their guest room.” Tim chewed on his fingernail and gave me a hopeful expression. After a few beats of silence, I yielded far too easily to his puppy dog eyes. “Fine. You can stay at the loft. But don’t leave your million and one products all over the bathroom like you did the last time you crashed our pad. I couldn’t find the basin beneath all your crap. And you can’t have Coby’s bed this time. You have to take the couch.” Coby had been out of town the last time Tim and Dean had a falling out. I’d let Tim take over his room for three days. Coby was pissed when he found out. Well, maybe a bit more than pissed. The man had developed a nasty eye twitch on hearing where Tim and Dean’s reconciliation had taken place. It took weeks and the purchase of a new mattress for him to get over it. I narrowed my eyes in warning. “No sex on the couch.” I liked my couch and its well-worn groove. I didn’t want a new one. “Or anywhere else,” I added.

“
No sex on the couch!” he repeated and picked up the phone to ring whoever the hell it was he rang when this shit happened. “Thanks, Casey!” he called out as I returned to my desk.

“Don’t thank me yet,” I replied dryly
, picking up my own phone to make a call. “You’re gonna be the one to tell Coby.”

After several rings,
the call went to voicemail. “Hi, this is Dean. Leave a message.”

After the beep, I replied, “Dean, this is Ca
sey. We need to talk.” After hanging up, I read the new message from Grace that was waiting on my phone.

You should stop messaging me.

You’re right,
I tapped out.
I should ring you instead.

It was late Wednesday night when Casey rang. Two long days of band rehearsals had wiped me out. After going to bed early, I was twisted in a pile of blankets and sleeping like the dead when Lily Allen’s “Fuck You” screeched loudly through the quiet duplex. Dragged reluctantly into consciousness, I scrambled for the phone off the bedside table and answered with a bleary, “’Lo?”

“Slim,” came Casey’s own sleep
-rough voice. “Did I wake you?”

Brushing a
tangled lock of hair from my face, I took the phone away from my ear to inspect the time. “Casey?” My own voice sounded just as rough when I spoke his name. “It’s midnight so yeah, you woke me. Is something wrong?”

“
No, but I spoke to Helen over at the airport today. I wanted to tell you.” I heard the sound of rustling sheets as I struggled to wake up and failed. Closing my eyes, I started drifting off while I waited. “You there?”

“Mmm hmm,” I mumbled
, the phone starting to slide from my ear.

“Jesus.”

“What?” I breathed. Rolling to my side, I put my phone on the bed so I could lie on it and keep both hands free. Then I grabbed a pillow and closed my eyes again, hugging it close.

“You’re sexy when you’re half asleep,
Slim.”

“I’m not,” I mumbled, barely even able to process what he was saying
.

“Can’t take a compliment?”

Even though he couldn’t see me, I rolled my eyes. I’d never tried that manoeuvre with my eyes closed before. It actually made my eyeballs ache a little bit. Letting go of my pillow, I picked up my phone, snapped a quick photo and sent it to him. “There. Submitting exhibit A into evidence.”

There was a pause before I heard his soft chuckle.

“It’s supposed to show you how unsexy I am when I’m half asleep, Casey. It’s not supposed to be funny,” I mumbled.

There was brief pause before my phone beeped an incoming message. Looking at the
bright light of my screen made my eyes ache all over again. I opened the message to a photo of Casey that made my heart thump. Despite the cracked screen, I could still see his face. He was lying on a pillow so he must have been in bed too. He looked tired. His hair was mussed, eyes red, and his jaw covered in scruff. I wanted to bury my face in the spot where his neck met his bare shoulder and just breathe him in.

I put the phone back to my ear and whispered softly, “Casey.
”

“Grace,” he whispered back.

I performed the ‘lying on my phone and hugging my pillow’ manoeuvre again and closed my eyes. Only now all I could see was Casey’s face and how worn-out he looked, and for some reason that made me want to hug him instead of being pissed off at him like I should. “So what did Helen say?”

“She said the old lady sitting
beside you on the flight gave them the information. Apparently she flies to Sydney regularly to visit her daughter and every other month she makes a delusional complaint. They tend not to take her too seriously.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“All that drama over nothing.” Though I knew why she might think me suspicious when I remembered the vitamins in my handbag. I’d accidently smashed the bottle and put the pills in a plastic packet. She must have seen them when my handbag was knocked on the floor and everything fell out. Still, making the leap to drug carrier was a stretch. “
That little old lady has a lot to answer for,” I told Casey.

“
Agreed. I think she’s probably watched
Miami Vice
one too many times,” Casey replied. His voice was still low and gruff. I started drifting off at the hypnotic sound. “You there?”

“Mmm,” I mumbled.

“I was thinking … Maybe we should start again.”

“
Again?”

“Yeah, again.”

How many do-overs could you have before it got ridiculous? It was already feeling ridiculous, and maybe a tiny bit adorable. Perhaps Casey was right though. Starting again was probably a good idea. I could hold that to him when he eventually saw his shredded backseat. I could claim we’d started over therefore everything that happened before that point in time didn’t exist. “’Kay,” I agreed, impressed by such logical thinking on my part while still half asleep.

“I’ll go first, okay?”

“’Kay.”

“
My name’s Casey Daniels,” he began and
God,
his voice was sexy. If I lay there long enough while listening to that deep, husky timbre, I would have an orgasm. I squished my pillow a little tighter, tempted by the idea of testing that particular theory. “Apparently, I’m addicted to fucking up on a regular basis. It’s been…” there was a pause “…three days and four hours since my last douche move.”

I giggled sleepily.

Douche move
was right. The man had spoken to Dalton when I asked him not to and then finished the conversation by breaking my phone. Casey had issues. Big ones if you took his vigilante tendencies into consideration. I’d tried to stay pissed at him, I really did, but anger had taken a backseat to humiliation after Dalton’s
cold bitch
comment. He’d said that to
Casey.
I’d wanted to curl into the corner and rock for a while after that. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been time for such an emotional indulgence. The best I could manage was to ignore the man for the rest of the night, hiding the hurt and embarrassment behind a mask of indifference.

Talking to Casey should ha
ve brought that humiliation flooding back to the surface, but it wasn’t there. Maybe because he was talking to me like I was a real person, not someone who was there to make money, or do someone a favour, or be used as an accessory to whatever event was on that weekend. Casey had stripped away my emotional composure in no time at all and refused to give it back. I liked that he made me
feel
. I
liked
him.

“Slim?” he prompted.

“My name’s Grace Paterson,” I began. “I used to date a douchebag. Apparently, someone told him if he called me again, he would wish he’d never been born. It’s been…” I paused “…just over three days and four hours since he rang me last.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“Hey. We’re starting over remember? That means a clean slate. Technically you can’t apologise if we only just met,” I pointed out.

“Do you think we’ll do a better job this time?”

My stomach growled, reminding me what little I ate at dinner had long since burned off. “Of what?” I asked, picking up the phone and holding it to my ear as I slid out of bed.

“Our do-
over.”

“That depends,” I replied, padding
down the stairs in nothing but a singlet and panties. It must have been only a quarter moon because it was so dark I could barely see.

“On what?” he asked as
I used my free hand to trail along the wall, feeling my way as I took each step with caution. Late night tumbles down stairs rarely ended well, and with Casey on the phone, it could only end in embarrassment.

“On the potential for
future douche moves and interference by ex-douchebags,” I answered, arriving safely in the kitchen.

A deep chuckle came through the phone.
“That’s a lot of big words for someone who’s half asleep.”

“Douche is a big word?”
I scoffed as I flicked on the electric kettle. A cup of tea would settle the ache of hunger in my belly. “And I’m awake now, thanks to you,” I told him, turning around to open the fridge and get the milk.

“I heard the fridge,” he told me as I slammed it shut. “
Are you having a late-night binge?”

“I wish,” I muttered as I
turned and grabbed a teaspoon from the cutlery drawer.

“
You should eat if you’re hungry.”

I leaned against the kitchen counter while I waited for the kettle to boil. “The industry I work in doesn’t allow for that kind of luxury, Casey.”

There was a pause. “Then you should quit. No amount of money is worth starving yourself.”

Thinking of what
that amount of money had done to pay medical bills, tuition for my brother and sisters, and give them a future, I couldn’t agree. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. “You’re wrong,” I told him around the lump in my throat. “You’re dead wrong, Casey.”

“I’m wrong? Real
ly?” His voice turned hard. “I’m disappointed you put money above all else, Slim. I didn’t realise you were so superficial.”

“You asshole!” Hurt welled in my chest.
“What gives you the right to sit in judgement of me? You know nothing about me and my life. You know what? Fuck you. This whole do-over was a mistake.”

“Touchy subject, huh?”

“Arrghhhh!” I tossed the teaspoon at the sink. The resulting clank was loud in the quiet kitchen.

“Shit. Slim.” Casey exhaled
sharply. “You’re right. I don’t know anything about you and your life. You want to hear what I do know?”

I wanted to tell him to
shove what he knew up his ass, along with his apology and the new phone, and despite the anger, I almost laughed, thinking it was getting crowded in there, but he continued before I got a word out.

“
What I
do
know is that you have an issue with food. If the amount you ate at dinner on Sunday night was normal for you, then I have no idea how you find the energy to get up each day. I know you get photographed for a living. I googled and saw pictures of you that took my breath away. I know that when your older brother needed you, you dropped everything in an instant to be there for him. I know you’re good at making threats but your follow-up could probably do with some work. You have a soft spot for aggressive little dogs that nobody else wants. You’re crazy beautiful when you’re angry—your eyes become like some wild, windswept ocean that a man could drown in and die happy. I know that nothing is sexier than you half asleep in bed, and after seeing your photo message without all that makeup on your face…” there was a pause before his voice got huskier “…I now know you have a sprinkling of freckles across your nose that I have a desperate urge to kiss.”

Dazed,
I slid slowly down the kitchen cabinets as he spoke. How could he do that—piss me off and make my body melt into a puddle on the floor at the same time? I barely knew him.

“
There’s something else I know,” he continued. “Somehow, somewhere along the way, something happened to make you think your self-worth was based only on how much money you earned.”

“No.” My voice came out
hoarse so I cleared my throat. “Maybe when I was younger I felt that way, but not anymore.” I’d made the declaration on the phone to John that my new life started now. I had all intentions of following through. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself or sorry for the choices I made. I was just going to start making those choices for
me
now rather than everyone else.

“What happened when you were younger?”

I moved my hand away from my mouth when I realised I was chewing my thumbnail. “You heard some of Henry’s stories. That was me all the time. I was a difficult child.”

The light flicked on, flooding the dark kit
chen into brightness. I hissed and burrowed my face into my knees. I tried opening my eyes against the blinding glare and failed. Covering them instead, I peeked through my fingers to find Henry standing in the kitchen. The left side of his hair was sticking up and pillow creases lined his cheek.

“Grace?
” His brows were raised as he stood looking down at me. “What are you doing?”

Casey was
silent on the line while Henry spoke.

“I’m
trying to make a cup of tea.”

He paused.
“In the dark while sitting on the kitchen floor?”

Henry sounded incredulous, as though such a feat was impossible to perform. “
You think it can’t be done?” Casey’s laugh came through the phone. “Stop laughing,” I told him.

Henry shuffled over to the sink and filled a glass with tap water. He turned around eyeing me as he took a sip.
“Who’s on the phone?”