What I Should Have Done ✓

Chapter 37

With mixed feelings, I stood in front of the suite door and took a moment to steel myself for anything that might come. Please be home. Please don't be at an afterparty. All I could do was hope it wasn't too late. Taking neither the first nor the last deep breath for the night, I lifted my hand and rapped on the door. I could have opened it myself, I knew John's passcode in my sleep, but that was not the right way to start out.

Seconds passed, and everything remained still. So still that I feared the door would remain shut in my face, but at that moment, Devin flung the door open, still in his slacks and shirt, sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up to his tan forearms. When he laid eyes on me, likewise still in my teal dress, surprise overtook his features.

"Grace, hey."

His polite tone scratched at my heart with iron claws. We had been good friends not too long ago. Before I had hurt his best friend. After a moment, he moved away from the door.

"Hi, Devin. Is John there?"

"Tss, and here I thought you had finally come to your senses and were here to confess your undying love to me."

The smile didn't reach his eyes. I could tell I was making him on edge and I hated it.

"Hang on." He turned to knock on John's door held ajar by a formerly white name brand sneaker, then peeked his head in. "Grace is here."

Three seconds passed, then five, then eight, and Devin's head was still hidden by the door. My heart sank. He didn't want to see me.

A moment later, Devin's voice ripped me from my self-pity. "Mr. Jay will see you now."

As quickly as it had sunk, my heart hoisted itself back up and beat in my throat instead of in my ribcage. I couldn't allow myself to think of all the months that had led up to this moment.

I nodded at Devin, then quietly and with all the caution in the world, stepped around him and pushed open John's door with my pinkie and ring finger before I slipped inside and pushed the sneaker aside with my foot for the door to close.

Click.

While I took off my coat and hung it over my arm, I assessed his room. It was messy, but no more messy than usual. John was perched on the edge of his bed. He and Dev must have just gotten home, because he, too, was still dressed in his black dress pants and white shirt. The top button was undone and, like Devin's sleeves, his were also rolled up and exposed his forearms. God, how can forearms be so sexy? His shoulders were slumped, his eyes glued to the floor.

A couple of seconds passed before I managed to speak. "Hey."

Goodness, my voice is all over the place.

"Hey," John replied and looked at me only briefly before returning his gaze to the blueish-gray tiled linoleum.

Embarrassment was written on his face and I wanted nothing more than to alleviate his discomfort. However, I had once again come unprepared and didn't know what to say to him, how to tell him. This was becoming a bad habit.

I couldn't expect him to fall into my arms. But the thing was, from early on, despite everything with Liam, it had only been John, and now it seemed so stupid that we still weren't together. I was thinking of what he had said earlier tonight: we liked each other and could be together, where was the problem?

Sighing, I placed my coat on the back of the wooden chair by the door and sat down right beside John on the edge of his bed, leaning my head onto his shoulder. It seemed instinctive when he raised a hand to brush a strand of hair away from my face before stopping himself and dropping it back into his lap. I lightly grazed the inside of his forearm with my fingernail and goosebumps formed on his perpetually tan skin. When he didn't pull away, I ran the pads of my fingers toward his wrist, past his raging pulse that matched mine, and slipped my hand into his. He gripped it with a forceful desperation, then brushed the back of it with his thumb.