Give Me Grace (4 page)

Sam nodded wordlessly.

“There’s more of those at home,” Quinn whispered.

I met Quinn’s eyes briefly and saw the sheen of tears
. Clearing my throat, I said to Sam, “Well this is going on my fridge. Front and centre. You know why?”

He shook his head.

“Because when everyone sees my name all over the fridge, they’ll know all the food in there belongs to me. That means no one else can eat it.” Sam’s eyes were solemn, as though what I’d told him was the most important thing in the world. “But,” I added, “I’m pretty sure I saw some ice cream in there that had
your
name on it. Want some?”

Sam nodded again,
and this time I was rewarded with the corners of his lips turning up slightly. Just that slightest reaction made me want to fist pump the air.

“But you have to do something for me first, bud, okay?” A frown started to overtake his face. “Give me a hug?
I need one of those because it’s been a long, tiring day,” I told him with a meaningful glance at Travis. It was a wasted effort because football just came on the television. Kicked back in my recliner with a beer, Travis looked in no apparent rush to be going anywhere.

Sam walked straight into my open arms. I
stood up, bringing him with me, and he burrowed into my chest. After helping put the picture on the fridge, we got the ice cream. Holding onto him with one arm, I used the other to get a spoon from the drawer.

“
Bowls are for girls,” I told him with mock seriousness. “We’re men. That means we can eat it straight from the carton.”

“Casey! You’ll teach him bad habits.”

I chuckled at Quinn as I handed the spoon to Sam. “Hey, I know how to take care of kids. Fill them with the sugar, show ‘em how to jump on the bed, then send them home to puke all over their parents.”

Quinn
scowled and set her wine down on the bench. “Maybe this—”

“
I’m assuming he has things, right?” She nodded. “So go get them and bring them up so you can go already.” I shifted Sam in my arms so he could reach the ice cream carton, noticing Quinn’s hesitation. “Hey. I got this, okay?”

She shuddered visibly. “Don’t say
‘I got this.’
It makes me nervous. Last time someone said that, my life turned into an episode of
The Sopranos
.”

“Blame
Mac,” Travis called without shifting his eyes from the screen. “Everyone has a catchphrase. That’s hers.”

“Oh yeah?”
Quinn dug through her bag for the car keys. “What’s mine then?”

Travis paused for a moment before saying,
“Baby, you’re so
big.
” He smirked at her before licking his lips in a way that would give me nightmares for weeks.

Quinn rolled her eyes as she walked out the door. “Be right back.”

“Take your time!” Travis shouted after her.

By
the time she returned, the three of us were on the couch, Sam sitting on my lap as we watched the football.

“Look who I found
downstairs just about to ring the bell,” Quinn called out.

All eyes shifted to the doorway and
tension rose swiftly in the air, thick enough to choke on.

Ah shit.

I lost my voice for a moment, and not in a good way. Morgan was standing beside Quinn, and I’d seen Band-Aids bigger than her outfit. The way she ran her eyes over me would make a porn star blush. I shifted Sam in my lap, feeling the urge to cover his eyes.

Stupid s
onofabitch.
I had no business being set loose in a bar, drunk. The evidence of that stood right there, waiting for me to say something. I was left with two options. One: I could pretend I didn’t know her from a bar of soap—unlikely to work—or two: I could introduce her to the room and face the wrath of my business partners. Where was door number three when you needed it?

I re-introduced Morgan to the room. Then I handed over Sam, took Morgan by the hand
, and with an, “excuse us for a minute,” I led her down the back of the loft for privacy.

“You didn’t return my calls,” she began.

“Sorry. I got caught up with uh, work.”

Morgan took in my filthy, dishevelled appearance with sympathy. “Tough case, huh?”

I thought back to our paintball expedition and the fact that Mac had somehow overcome all odds to come out the winner. “You could say that,” I hedged.

“I know exactly what w
ill make you feel better.”

The gleam in her eyes left no doubt. “I bet, but I’m babysitting Travis and Quinn’s little boy tonight. Maybe we could try this again another night?”

She shrugged and stepped a little closer, not seeming to mind the smell of sweat wafting off me in waves. “I can help. I’m good with kids. Want me to stay?”

Jesus. Morgan was
persistent, I’d give her that. I glanced over to the living room to find all eyes on us. I shifted uncomfortably and smothered the heavy sigh. I really wouldn’t mind getting laid. All that naked and willing flesh on display was making my cock sit up with interest. “Sam’s not good with strangers.”

Ten minutes later I managed to get her out the door. Then I turned to face Travis with his flat, knowing eyes and folded arms. “We need to talk.”

I made a point of looking at the large clock on the wall in the kitchen. “Oh is that the time? You guys are gonna be late.”

“Tomorrow,” he warned me. “You and
I are going to have a chat.”

On that ominous note, they left, Quinn shooting me a look of sympathy before she disappeared out the door. I went back to the fridge for another beer and then changed it to a juice, getting one for Sam while I was there. I didn’t like drinking around little kids when they were in my care. I’d experienced firsthand the damage alcohol could do to an angry parent around a child.
I wasn’t my father. When it came to kids, I knew the importance of responsibility.

“Tilt your chin up a little and look at me.”

Like a good little soldier, I tilted my chin and faced John and his camera. With brows drawn, he crouched a little and changed his angle.

“Narrow your eyes more, Grace. I’m supposed to be seeing your inner bitch, but right now you look about as pissed off as a bag of chips.”

I gave a deep, heavy sigh before setting my jaw and narrowing my eyes. John shook his head from behind the camera. I don’t think he was buying it. I couldn’t blame him. I was a
hardened professional in the modelling world, able to summon whatever look was required from me with ease, but today was not my day. Nothing was going right, and two days after flying in from a quick assignment in Italy, jetlag was still making me its bitch. Why was I so damn tired all the time? Exhaustion burned deep in my bones and I couldn’t shake it.

A loud thump came somewhere from my left, followed by my assistant, Jemima, hissing, “Mitsy!”

I squinted, unable to see beyond the glare of the lights. Not that I needed to. Mitsy had been disrupting the entire photo shoot since he stepped paw inside John’s Melbourne city studio. The damn dog hated the entire world and everybody in it. Now he was busy making sure we knew just how much. The fluffy, white dog slash furry beast belonged to my boyfriend Dalton, but Dalton was still in Italy, spending an extra week with mutual friends.

Dalton’s mum had been taking care of Mitsy in his absence, but she stopped by unannounced this morning, claiming she had to go out of town for work. I suspected she was telling a big fat lie. Not just because she worked the counter at the local
post office, but because she couldn’t look me in the eye as she handed him over. That should have been my first clue that today would suck donkey’s balls. The second had been when I put on my jeans and realised they were a smidge tight. Being thin was
always
the new black in the fashion world, and I hated having to watch everything I ate. The third clue had been the missed call on my phone and subsequent message. I hadn’t listened to it yet, but I already knew what it would say and it scared the living shit out of me.

Just give me a few more days.

Please.

Feeling suddenly vulnerable, I’d taken pity on Mitsy and brought him along to the photo shoot with me. That was an obvious mistake we were all currently paying for.

“Grace!” John clicked his fingers to get my attention. “Give me some bitch, okay?”

Instantly I thought of Dalton’s dog and the heat of my glare should’ve cracked the camera lens. Mitsy didn’t travel well
, as evidenced by the nasty message left behind in the cab on the way here. Too late, I’d remembered Dalton mentioning Mitsy’s aversion to moving vehicles and that it helped if the dog had something to chew on. Arriving at John’s, I’d had to hand over an extra wad of cash just to pay for the cleaning.

“Perfect,” crooned my photographer and best friend.

John was early-thirties with short, dark silky curls and facial hair that wasn’t quite a beard, but longer than stubble. What would you call that? Brubble? I tried not to snort. The
brubble
was new since I saw him last. It suited him, adding to the tattoos peeking out from his shirtsleeves. The man was rough and a little wild. All he needed was a Marlboro hanging from his lips and someone should’ve been photographing
him
instead of me.

“What?” he said.

Click. Click. Click.

“Nothing,” I murmured, schooling the amusement that flashed in my eyes.

No one could read my expressions like John could, not even Dalton, who on more than one occasion accused me of being a cold, unemotional bitch with no personality. Not true, but something inside held me back from being my real self in a relationship, and it was something my boyfriend liked to bring up numerous times when drunk. Pushing the issue aside, I focused on John.

“I’m just wondering what you would call that growth on your face.”

Click. Click. Click.

John changed the camera angle and squinted through the viewfinder. “Is that what’s going through your head right now, Grace? My beard?”

I shrugged, ignoring the growls of hunger from my stomach and the ache of my tired body. “I was thinking
brubble
, but the word sounds a little abrasive, like I could use your face as an exfoliator.”

He shifted
position and my eyes followed his movement, making sure to keep my glare as directed. “I don’t know if I should keep it or not. What do you think of it?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“On how far you plan to take it. I mean
, beards are trending right now. I still watch
Lord of the Rings
just for Aragorn’s facial hair, but if you take it too far...”

John paused, brows raised in question as he relaxed his hold on the camera. “Too far?”

I fought the grin. “No one wants to have sex with Chewbacca.”

He laughed from behind the lens, his chuckle deep and sexy. Damn. Why wasn’t I able to fall in love with John?

Bracing my hands on my knees, I glowered as directed.

Click, click,
click.

John was my one true friend. I didn’t want to ruin that. Neither did he. We’d talked about it and decided
it was too weird. John’s theory was that my one true love had been brutally murdered in a past life and I was waiting for him to come back to me. Admittedly, he came up with that when completely wankered from a bottle of wine. John was usually a hard liquor man, but that night it was all we had on hand after finishing a photo shoot in Broome at three a.m.

“Dalton doesn’t fit the profile,” he’d slurred, pointing his finger at me with a hand that held both his wine glass and a cigarette.

“What profile?” I slurred back.

“The profile of your
gladiator.” John hiccupped. “The warrior who’s fought through the centuries to find his way back to you. You’ve just gotta lose the cold armour, Grace,” he informed me, his closet romantic side escaping with every sip he took. “He won’t be able to bust down your castle walls if you don’t. Dalton’s too weak. You need someone who’s going to push your buttons, and not just the ones in your panties.” He offered a meaningful look towards my lady parts as well as waving his hand in the same direction in case I didn’t get the reference.

He was right about the cold armour. It never used to be there, but life had a way of chan
ging you into someone you never imagined you’d be, and giving you a life that you’d never really wanted.

I came from a big family.
Two loving parents, an older brother, Henry, and two younger twin sisters, Emma and Ava. Henry was lead guitarist in the band,
Jamieson.
I always knew he’d be famous one day. He’d been attached to that guitar from birth. Emma and Ava were fraternal, but similar, sort of like peas and corn. They’d decided at an early age to join the Air Force. Our house subsequently became fluent in
Top Gun
. For an entire year, they wouldn’t answer to anything other than
Iceman
and
Goose
. And me? Every day was different. One day I wanted to be an Olympic trampolinist, the next a heavy haulage trucker. Only one thing remained constant: I was the sister that caused trouble. We were allowed ice cream if we ate all our vegetables, and I was always the one that fed them to the dog and said I ate them. When we went to the shops, I was the one screaming and causing a scene for the chocolate so craftily displayed at the supermarket checkout. I was the one that begged for a skateboard and broke my arm when I tackled the biggest hill in our housing estate. I was the one that wouldn’t go to sleep at night without demanding at least five stories and a glass of water.

You probably get the point, but nothing fazed my mum, not even me. She was the person you could just look at and
know
she was someone who loved life
.
She radiated it from every golden pore, like some goddamn beacon that was too beautiful for words. My father worshipped at her angelic feet, but when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, everything changed, including me, and when she died four years later, everything inside my dad died too.

He’d spent years doing everything to prolong her life
: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, tonics and healthy eating. It was horrific, because at such a young age, even I could see there was nothing left of her. Watching someone so bright and vital fade into nothingness was unbearable; it was harder than saying goodbye.

Two months later at the age fourteen, I stumbled on a foreclosure notice from the bank.
We were losing our house
. Employing my best snooping skills—because I was the child that
always
found where the Christmas presents were hidden—I found out just how bad it was, and my heart broke for my father. We were left with medical bills so big they might as well have been Mount Everest. In that one horrifying moment, I saw Henry giving up his guitar, feeling obligated to work some boring, dead-end job to help support our family. I saw Emma and Ava’s dream of the Air Force turn into working the check-in counter at Sydney’s international airport. So when some random stranger at the local coffee shop took in my gangly, awkward frame and told me I could be earning big dollars on international catwalks and “hey, here’s my card, call me,” I didn’t laugh in his face. I clutched that card like I was adrift in
The Perfect Storm
and it was my goddamn life raft.

I’d been working nonstop ever since,
most of the time away from home with a tutor to help me finish high school. And while the money I made had paid the bills a thousand times over, the price
I
paid was horrendous. I didn’t know my family anymore. We weren’t close. I’d lost them at the same time I’d lost my mum. Henry, Emma, and Ava were out there living their dreams while I was stuck in a life I’d never wanted.

Now I was just the sister who was never there.

“Early lunch break!” John shouted, snapping me out of the past and making my stomach rumble painfully.

He murmured something to his assistant
, who then disappeared from my field of vision. I hoped he wasn’t getting fast food. If I had to stand there for another hour while breathing in the smell of fried fish and hot chips, I was going to smash John’s camera against the wall.

“Hold that glare,” he ordered swiftly.

I froze.

“Yap! Yap!”

A white streak of fluff blurred across the floor behind John. The rapid dash ripped a cord from the wall and all eyes went wide with horror as one of the lighting stands began to topple in slow motion.

“Mitsy!
Godammit, Grace!” Jemima yelled and I winced. Her bright purple hair fell in her eyes as she made a grab for it, catching the expensive equipment before it smashed to the floor. John’s second assistant rushed over to help and together they both righted the stand while Mitsy made his great escape.

Click. Click. Click.

John continued working, ignoring the chaos around him while I stood there praying for a swift end to a lousy day.

“Oh gross.”

My eyes flicked left at the comment. Mitsy was now humping the shagpile cushion on John’s studio couch. His doggy hips pumped like an aerobics instructor on crack. I cringed, seeing his little unneutered balls slapping madly as he made the cushion his bitch.

John paused, before muttering, “Oh for fuck’s sake.” He made a sound of disgust, calling to one of his team to burn the molested cushion. It was dragged from underneath Mitsy with a thumb and forefinger and taken away. Jemima rushed forward and clicked a leash on Mitsy’s collar. He
resisted, snapping and snarling as my beleaguered assistant dragged him away.

John sighed heavily and refocused his camera. “Why are you looking after the douchebag’s dog, Grace?”

“You’re too old to use the word
douchebag
anymore, John. It reflects poorly on your growth as a decent human being,” I replied.

“
My
growth? Your birthday dinner last month. You paid for his food and drinks, and by drinks, I mean he cleaned out the bar,” he reminded me in the stern, patient tone my father used to use.