contemporary romance

G+B Chapter 4: Discovery

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I woke to the scent of coffee, bacon, and eggs drifting through the bedroom.

I followed the aroma to the kitchen, where Graham stood over the stove, transferring strips of sizzling bacon from the pan onto two plates.

I stood there for a moment watching him. It felt like stepping into a childhood memory. Twelve-year-old Graham in the apartment kitchen, cooking whatever he could manage to scrounge up. Even then, he was always taking care of me.

I blinked and the memory dissolved.

“Morning,” he said from over his shoulder.

“Morning,” I replied.

I took a seat at the table and rubbed my tired eyes.

When I opened them again, a plate sat in front of me, piled high with eggs, bacon, and buttered toast.

I looked toward Graham who was back in the kitchen, pouring coffee into two mugs. He carried them both to the table, then went back to grab his own plate before sitting across from me.

I wrapped both hands around my mug, letting the heat sink into my palms.

Graham lifted his mug to his lips. “Sleep okay?” he asked before taking a sip.

He looked at me over the rim, the early morning sunlight catching in his eyes and making the green stand out even more. 

There was something about the way he was looking at me…

Oh god.

Had he heard me standing outside his bedroom door last night or was it my own guilty conscience reading more into his expression than was actually there?

I lifted my own mug and took a sip, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way heat crept into my cheeks. 

“Mmhmm,” I said. “You?”

“Fine,” he replied.

Before I could decipher the look in his eyes, a sharp buzz sounded from his back pocket.

He drew out his phone, his jaw tightening as he glanced down at the screen.

“Excuse me,” he said. He stood from the table and walked toward a room I hadn’t noticed before. The door swung closed behind him but didn’t shut completely.

Graham’s voice was low, but I caught a few clipped words.

“Yes. Transfer. I’ll be there.”

When he came back, there was an edge to his features that hadn’t been there before.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“I have something I need to take care of,” he said, heading for the door. He shrugged on his coat and reached for the doorknob. “I won’t be long.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

I stared at the closed door for far too long, a familiar knot forming in my stomach.

My breakfast sat untouched in front of me, my appetite gone. I tossed the food into the trash and carried our plates to the sink. As I washed the dishes, the knot in my stomach grew tighter, old feelings clawing their way inside.

He said he would be back, I told myself. This wasn’t the same as before. He wasn’t leaving.

I told myself this over and over, but still the tightness persisted. Maybe if I had something else to do, something to distract myself, I might feel better.

I wandered into the living room and carefully added a new log to the low fire the way I had seen Graham do it. Once the log caught, heat spread throughout the room.

I stepped away from the fireplace, and stood in the center of the living room, taking my first real look at it. The furniture was sleek, modern, all in warm brown tones and soft leather. I moved to the shelves on either side of the fireplace, scanning the books and movies that lined them. A thin layer of dust coated the tops as if they were merely there for the look of them.

The cottage should have felt lived in, yet it didn’t. There were no photographs. No personal clutter. Just furniture and books arranged like it was a showroom.

A strange heaviness settled in my chest.

The cottage reminded me of the apartment in a way—lifeless.

Graham had left on his own. Built a life for himself. Yet standing there, surrounded by untouched books and spotless furniture, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life he was really living.

I turned to leave but my gaze caught on a partially open door to the right of the living room. I slowly pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was his office. His scent was stronger here, as if he spent more time here than anywhere else.

The space was small, with minimal furniture, but cozy. A dark wood L-shaped desk sat in the center of the room with a high-back leather chair tucked in behind it.

I walked around the desk and huffed a quiet laugh at the sight.

“Organized chaos,” Graham would call it.

Stacks of folders sat in uneven heaps, their contents spilling from the sides. Loose papers and legal pads were scattered across the desk, and several books had been left open.

I sat down in the high back chair behind his desk and looked it over. My gaze dropped to the drawer, and before I could talk myself out of it, I opened it.

It was filled with dozens of manila folders. Company names were written in the upper right-hand corner of each one, all organized alphabetically.

I shut it and opened the one below. It was filled with more files from companies I didn’t recognize.

I closed it and moved to the other side, opening the first drawer. Unlike the others, this one wasn’t organized at all. There were various pads of yellow sticky notes with rough writing scribbled across them, and a handful of stray paperclips and thumbtacks scattered about.

Just as I went to shut it, I noticed the frayed edge of a faded blue notebook. I carefully pushed the papers and thumbtacks aside and froze.

A familiar tattered notebook stared back at me. My fingers trembled as I pulled it free.

Graham’s name was written across the center in careful block letters. Beneath it, in my own crooked eight-year-old handwriting, were the words: and Hazel.

A small smile tugged at my lips. I hadn’t gone by Hazel in years. Somewhere along the way, Graham had started calling me Bambi, and I’d been Bambi ever since.

I opened to the first page. Math problems lined the page, written in Graham’s handwriting. Taking up nearly all the space in the margins were a chaotic arrangement of tiny flowers, suns, and hearts. I flipped to the next page where Graham’s notes stopped abruptly halfway down. The rest was overtaken by a wild and uneven rainbow. The next few pages were the same. More math problems and notes interrupted by explosions of colorful doodles and drawings.

 On the next page, a crude drawing of a family sat askew in the center. The color had dulled and some of the lines were slightly faded, but I recognized the drawing instantly. It was my dad, Caroline, Graham, and me.

I flipped to the next page. Then the next. With each turn of the page, with each new drawing, both Graham’s and my own, my vision blurred more and more.

I pressed my thumbs harder into the paper as if that might steady me.

The floorboards creaked loudly from the kitchen.

“Bambi?” Graham’s voice echoed down the hall, and a second later, he appeared in the doorway.

His eyes flicked to the notebook, then back to me.

I closed the notebook and moved slowly around the desk. I held his gaze and walked towards him, clutching the notebook in my hands.

“You kept it,” I said, my voice shaking.

“Yeah.” His voice came out rougher than before.

I stepped closer until our chests were nearly touching. I tilted my head back, refusing to look away. “Why?”

His jaw worked for moment, before his lips parted slightly.

My heart beat hard, daring to hope that he might finally answer me, but I could see the hesitation in his eyes. It had never been this difficult to get him to talk to me.

I wasn’t sure what to say now and truthfully, I wasn’t sure my words would be enough, so I did the only other thing I could think of.

I lifted my hand slowly and pressed my palm against his chest. His breath caught, and I felt his heart stumble beneath my fingers.

Graham’s hand rose even slower. He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers barely grazing my skin. It was as if he was choosing the only place he could touch me without losing himself.

His gaze dipped low, then back to my face, so quickly I almost missed it. Then, just as quickly, his hand dropped away and the wall he’d been so close to letting fall, snapped firmly back in place.

I lowered my hand and took a step back. I knew I wasn’t going to get the answer I was hoping for.

“Everything go okay?” I asked softly.

“I met with a rehab coordinator,” he answered. “Caroline won’t be coming back anytime soon.”

“It won’t last,” I told him, recalling the last two times I’d tried to get her into a program. “It never does.” 

“She doesn’t have a choice this time.”

“And what about me?”

“I already told you, Bambi. You’re not going back there.”

He was quiet for a moment, then added. “I’m selling the apartment. There won’t be anything for you to go back to.”

My stomach dropped.

“Why do you get to be the one that decides that? That was my home too, Graham.”

“I’m deciding what I won’t let happen.”

“You didn’t decide that before.”

Graham’s jaw tightened. “No. Someone else decided for me.”

He shoved his hands in his pants pockets and started toward his room. After a few steps, he glanced back at me and nodded at the notebook.

“Keep it. It was always yours anyway.”

Then he disappeared down the hall.

I stood there a moment longer before finally shutting the office door and heading back to my room.

I climbed onto my bed and set the notebook down in my lap.

It should’ve been comforting to know that he’d kept it, but somehow, it only confused me more. I sighed and fell back against the pillows. 

He was the one who left. Without warning and without explanation. Yet for four years he’d held onto this notebook.

If he hadn’t cared… why keep it? If he had… why’d he leave?

My gaze drifted back to the notebook in my lap. I ran my fingers over the worn cover before opening it again.

I flipped through the rest of the pages, most of them blank, until dark scribbles made me pause. It was the last drawing in the notebook.

Drawn in dark, rough, almost angry strokes was the figure of a witch. It wasn’t like the witches from a fairytale or cartoon dressed in black with pointy hats. It was darker than that. There was something sinister in her eyes, and her smile, too wide, looked cruel. The witch looked almost happy in her cruelty.

My eyes stayed fixed on the page. The shape of her face, her eyes, the way the edges of her mouth twisted as she smiled, all disturbingly resembled Caroline.

I couldn’t unsee it, now. The similarities between the two.

Was this how Graham had seen her? And if so, maybe there was more to what happened than I realized.

For so long I had told myself that Graham had left without a single care. I’d believed it for years. But what if that wasn’t the truth?

What if I hadn’t been the only one hurting? What if I wasn’t the only one still hurting?

Chapter Five

G+B Chapter 3: Safe

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Graham slid off his coat and hung it on the rack by the door, the sleeves of his dark shirt pulling taught around his forearms as he moved.

He moved easily, comfortably through the space, as he made his way toward the fireplace. He crouched in front of it, picked up a log from the low stack beside him, and added it to the fire. After brushing his hands against his jeans, he reached for the poker hanging on the wall.

“There’s a spare room at the back of the house,” he said. “It’s yours.”

I stared at his back, as he adjusted the logs. The wood crackled and popped, sending bright orange sparks swirling up the chimney.

“Mine?”

He looked at me from over his shoulder. “Yours.”

My brows knit together, my eyes narrowing slightly. I watched him a moment longer, unease twisting low in my stomach as I wondered what he wanted from me after all this time.

Four years had passed since he’d left, and not once had I heard a word from him. So why had he come back now?

The question sat on the tip of my tongue, the words barely held back before I realized getting an answer from him would be like trying to squeeze water from a rock—impossible.

I turned, leaving Graham tending to the fire, and went in search of the spare room. My room.

My steps slowed as I passed the open kitchen, my eyes catching on a bowl of red apples sitting in the center of the counter. My eyes shifted to the glass cabinets, each one neatly lined with food. I stilled, my stomach grumbling in response, and I pressed my palm against it.

“Something wrong?” Graham’s voice startled me back into reality. I hadn’t realized he had been watching me.

“Nope,” I answered quickly, moving away from the kitchen and down the short hall.

A door stood half open to the left. A small shaft of light from the living room stretched into the dark room. I peered inside, then quickly pulled back when I recognized the room as Graham’s.

I hurried down the hall, bypassing the bathroom to my right, and stopped at the room at the end. I nudged the door open, then felt along the wall for the light switch. Soft light filled the room instantly.

The spare room was nothing like the room I’d grown up in. It was at least twice as large. The walls were clean and painted a warm cream color and had no bare stucco in sight. Tall windows sat uncovered along the far wall. There were no boards nailed across them, no cardboard taped over them, no draft slipping through them.

I stepped up to the bed and ran my fingers along the solid wood bed frame, half expecting it to splinter under my touch. I skimmed my fingers across the duvet. The fabric was smooth and impossibly soft, nicer than anything I’d ever slept in.

I turned slowly, taking it all in.

Home.

It’s yours.

My throat tightened and I blinked hard against the tears burning behind my eyes.

It had been a long time since I’d had anything that wasn’t broken, worn down, or falling apart.

“You’ll need this,” Graham said.

I jumped and whirled around to face him. He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, a folded shirt in his hand.

“Stop doing that,” I muttered, taking the shirt from him.

He was quiet for a moment, his gaze studying me in a way that made heat creep up my neck. It felt like Graham could see far more than I wanted him to.

“There’s no need for you to be so jumpy anymore, Bambi,” he finally said.

He said it as if it were that easy, like it was some simple choice. But it wasn’t. He hadn’t been around to see how quickly Caroline had deteriorated. He didn’t know what it was like to spend every day wondering which version of her I’d wake up to or how I’d had to learn to navigate her constant mood swings.

He pushed off the frame, his eyes still fixed on mine, and took two steps toward me. The space between us narrowed to almost nothing.

I held my breath, wanting nothing more than to back away and stay exactly where I was.

“You’re safe here,” he said as if he knew where my thoughts had gone.

Before I could say a word, he turned and walked away.

“Dinner in fifteen,” he called from the hallway.

My legs trembled beneath me as I crossed the room and eased myself down onto the edge of the bed.

I slowly unfolded the shirt and the scent—smoke and vanilla—hit me immediately. My body’s reaction was instant. Visceral. Goosebumps rippled along my arms and a warmth unfurled low in my stomach.

I froze, my fingers curling tightly around the shirt. It was just fabric, I told myself. Just cotton. Nothing more.

My body disagreed.

Embarrassment heated my cheeks. I swore under my breath and tossed the shirt aside as if that would undo my reaction.

I left the room without looking back.

When I entered the kitchen, the table was already set. Two white bowls sat across from each other, the spoons placed neatly beside them.

“Sit,” Graham said without looking up from the stove.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek and sat.

He placed a large pot of creamy potato soup in the center of the table. Then he took my bowl and ladled a generous portion into it before sliding it back in front of me again.

I stared at my bowl. I hadn’t had a meal like this in weeks.

“Eat.”

I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him he couldn’t keep ordering me around, but my stomach growled before I could say anything.

“Bambi,” he chided, nudging the bowl closer.

He pulled out the chair across from me, the legs scraping against wood, and sat.

I picked up my spoon, keeping my eyes fixed on my bowl as I took my first bite.

My mouth watered as the savory flavor bloomed across my tongue. It was tastier than I expected, better than I remembered.

I took another bite. Then another.

Just as I was bringing another spoonful to my mouth, I felt it.

My eyes slowly lifted to Graham, finding that his attention was already on me.

I lowered my spoon to my bowl. I hadn’t meant to eat that fast.

“You’re hungry,” he said, nodding once at my bowl. “Eat.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ve probably had too much anyway.”

Graham looked entirely unconvinced.

Only when I picked up my spoon again and took another bite, did he look away and take his own.

Throughout the rest of dinner, the only sounds were the clinking of our spoons against ceramic, the soft crackling of fire behind us, and our breathing.

Before long, the quiet began to press in. It was different than the stagnant silence of the apartment. This silence was loaded with things unsaid. And I couldn’t stand it.

I set my spoon down harder than necessary.

“Why did you come back, Graham? Where is Caroline?”

His hand stilled halfway to his mouth before lowering again.

Slowly, he finished chewing and set his spoon aside. When he looked up at me, his expression was unreadable.

“I told you,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “She’s gone.”

My fingers curled around the edge of the table. “Gone how, Graham?”

“Hospital. It was an overdose.”

My heart knocked hard against my ribs. “Well, is she okay?”

“She’s alive,” he said before sliding back from the table and collecting our bowls.

My relief was short-lived, quickly overshadowed by anger. “Why couldn’t you just tell me? Why all this… this… cryptic bullshit?” I waved my hand in the air. “It’s not like this hasn’t happened before, Graham. She would have been home in a few days.”

The dishes clattered in the sink. “Exactly,” he said more sharply, frustration slipping into his tone. “But you won’t be.”

I stood abruptly, the chair tipping on its hind legs. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He braced his hands against the edge of counter, his knuckles turning white. “You aren’t going back.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

Graham straightened, turning fully toward me. “This isn’t a discussion, Bambi. I do. And I did.”

He closed the distance between us, each step slow and deliberate. He crowded into me, so close I could feel the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

I tilted my head back, meeting his gaze. His eyes blazed like an emerald fire.

“You aren’t going back to that shitty apartment or her, ever again. My word is final.”

“You don’t own me,” I said forcing as much defiance into my voice as I could.

“No,” he said. “But I won’t let you waste away there either.”

“That didn’t stop you before.”

His hands clenched at his sides. He held my gaze for one more second, then stepped around me.

“Get some rest, Bambi.”

I turned on my heel and stomped to the spare room, slamming the door behind me.

I paced circles around the room, my attention snagging again and again on Graham’s shirt crumpled on the bed.

Despite all my efforts, my gaze snagged on the shirt one final time. I shouldn’t want it, but I was already moving toward it, the choice made. I pulled it on, then before I could think too hard about it, climbed into bed and dragged the covers up to my chin.

I stared at the ceiling fan as it spun in slow, steady circles, willing sleep to come. The house was still. The air warm. The bed soft. Everything I hadn’t had in months and should have savored.

Sleep should have come easier. But every breath carried Graham’s scent, stirring feelings I should forget but couldn’t let go of. His scent enveloped me and heat settled low, deeper than it had any right to go.

I groaned and turned on my side. I lasted five minutes. Maybe ten. Then I threw the covers back.

I told myself to stay, but my body wouldn’t listen. It carried me down the hall, the hardwood cool beneath my feet.

I stopped in front of Graham’s bedroom door.

My hands curled at my sides, my mind telling me to turn back. I ignored it and lifted my hand to the knob anyway. My hand closed around the cool metal, turning it halfway before I froze.

I shouldn’t be standing here. Worse, I shouldn’t want to. I shouldn’t want comfort from the man who left me. Who decided for me.

And still, I was here.

Floorboards creaked behind the door. As if he’d been standing there too.

I dropped my hand and retreated back to my room.

Chapter Four →

G+B Chapter 1: Cold and Dark

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The winter wind slipped through the boards nailed over the windows and settled into my bones. I curled in on myself, dragging the threadbare blanket higher over my shoulders, trying to hold in what little warmth remained.

I closed my eyes and, just for a moment, let myself pretend I couldn’t feel the cold… or the hunger.

I imagined myself back in our old house, when my dad was still alive and Caroline wasn’t struggling with addiction, where a warm fire was always burning in the fireplace. Where a hot, home-cooked meal was always waiting. Where there was always laughter and love.

My stomach tightened, then twisted, and the illusion shattered. 

Back then, the constant cold and hunger hadn’t existed. Now, that was all that existed. 

There were no warm fires, no home-cooked meals. The heat in our apartment had been shut off a week ago and the fridge had been empty nearly as long. Laughter hadn’t been heard inside these walls for years. Not since… 

I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that now.

The boards against the window rattled again as another gust of icy wind swept through. My teeth clacked together as a shiver ran through me.

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, willing sleep to take me, if only to give me a few hours of reprieve from the harsh reality I was living. 

I must have eventually drifted to sleep, because when I opened my eyes, soft morning light filtered through the cracks in the boards. 

I pushed myself up, blinking a few times. As my vision adjusted, I realized the light bleeding through the dark wasn’t sunlight at all, but the glow of the streetlamps from across the road. It was still night.

I sat quietly, listening for any sign that my stepmother had returned, but the apartment was silent. Something about it felt… off.

I wrapped my blanket tighter around me and slipped from the bed. 

 “Caroline?” I called out.

Only the howling wind answered. 

I crossed the hallway to her room, the floor ice-cold beneath my bare feet.

I leaned into the doorway. Her room looked the same as always: clothes scattered across the floor, shoes tipped onto their sides, cardboard taped over the window. Her mattress was shoved against the wall, the sheets twisted in the center, untouched. 

On the nights she went out looking to get high, she rarely made it back to her bedroom, anyway. The couch was closer. 

I made my way down the short hallway stopping just outside the bathroom to check for her there. I passed the second door beside it, avoiding looking in its direction No one went in that room. Not anymore. 

My fingers found the light switch at the end of the hall and flicked it on before I remembered the power had been cut due to nonpayment.

I peered into the living room, squinting through the darkness. The couch was empty.

She disappeared like this sometimes. It wasn’t unusual for her to be gone for hours at a time, but she should have been back by now. 

A familiar thought pressed in. What if this time… she didn’t come back?

I sank onto the couch and waited for the dread to set in. Except it didn’t. Instead, another thought formed. Would it really be so bad if Caroline didn’t come home? I wouldn’t have to clean up after her anymore or drag her to her bed when she couldn’t stand upright on her own. I wouldn’t have to work double shifts at the diner to pay the mountain of overdue bills or worry that she’d spend what little was left on drugs.

Maybe it would be better if— 

No. How could I even think like that? Despite all her flaws, Caroline was the only one who hadn’t left me.

A thud sounded at the front door. Keys scraped against the lock. The knob turned.

I exhaled. She was back.

I turned as the door opened. The knob struck the dent in the wall, sending drywall dust and flakes of plaster drifting onto the pile already scattered across the floor.

I expected to see Caroline’s thin frame to stumble through the door, but an imposing figure filled the doorway instead. He stood there, unmoving, his broad shoulders backlit by the fluorescent hallway lights. 

My pulse kicked hard and I pushed to my feet, my eyes fixed on the figure in the doorway.

He took a single, unhurried step forward. 

“Bambi,” he said, taking a single unhurried step forward.

My breath caught and a familiar flutter stirred in my chest. There was only one person who had ever called me that. 

But he had left in the middle of the night without a word. Four years ago.

I smothered the feeling before it could take hold. Anger was safer.

“What do you want, Graham?”

Chapter Two →