Devlin's Grace (13 page)

* *
* *

Gracie roused and for a few
seconds failed to recognize her surroundings.
 
As the warmth of Devlin’s body, still wrapped around hers, registered
she blinked and searched the room for a clock.
 
The big blue numbers indicated it was past seven and with her first
class at
eight,
she should’ve already been awake.
 
She moved, untangling her limbs from his with
slow care but he woke anyway.

“Hey,” he said, face brightening
like a holiday light display. “You’re still here.”

“I am but I’ve got to go before
long or I’ll be late,” Gracie said.
 
Her
mind raced as she made a mental list of things to do.
 
Shower first, dress, and hurry to the nearest
bus stop.
 
No time for breakfast, but
she’d manage.
 
More often than not, she
skipped the morning meal anyway for economic reasons. “Where’s the closest bus
stop anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Dev
said,
voice still thick with sleep. “Don’t worry about it,
Gracie. I’ll take you to campus.”

“Okay,” she answered. “But I have
to be there in less than an hour.”

“Oh, Christ,” he muttered. He sat
up and ran a hand through his tousled hair. “What time is it?”

“Seven fifteen.
 
What time do you have to be at work?”

Dev swore under his breath.
“Seven fucking thirty,” he said with a growl as he rolled out of bed. “I’ve got
to go.”

By then he had his jeans halfway
up his legs and in the next moment he zipped them.
 
Devlin plucked a clean shirt from the dresser
and pulled it over his head.
 

Gracie watched and as he sat down
to put on socks, she said, “Then you won’t have time to drop me off.
 
It’s
okay, but I
need to find where the bus stops.
 
I’ll
never walk from here and make it on time, not even if I started now.”

The good mood she woke up with dissipated
as Gracie realized she’d probably miss her first class of the day which
normally wasn’t a problem, but there was an exam this morning, one she couldn’t
miss.
 
She should’ve studied too but
didn’t.
  
Panic crept over her happiness
like a shadow moving across a sunlit strip of grass.
 
Being tardy or missing a class wouldn’t seem
like much to Devlin, she mused, and it wasn’t compared to his Iraq experiences,
but it mattered to her, so much she fought against an unreasonable urge to cry.

Glancing up as he tied his shoes,
Devlin frowned. “Hey, what’s the matter? I’ll take you on the bike even if it
makes me late or you can take the car.”

Gracie cocked her head.
 
“Car?”

He paused. “Yeah, you can take my
car if you want.”

Somehow she’d missed something or
maybe she could be a lot stupider than she ever imagined.
 
If Devlin owned a car, she’d never been
aware. “What car?”

Fully dressed, he came over to
where she sat on the edge of the bed and cupped her chin in his hand. “Baby,
the old Ford parked out back is mine.
 
If
you want you can drive it to school or whenever you want.
 
I never thought about it before, but you
can.”

She pulled up a mental image of
the beat up old green Ford Taurus.
 
Devlin always pulled up beside it, but she’d never wondered who owned
it.
 
“I guess I thought it belonged to
someone else,” she said.
“Another apartment person or the
landlord or something.”

Devlin laughed. “Well, it’s
mine.
 
I’m sorry, Gracie.
 
I figured you knew.
 
I ride the motorcycle all summer, but when
it’s really cold or snowy or there’s ice on the road, I take the car.
 
I guess I never told you, huh?”

“No,” Gracie said.
 
Her mind explored the possibilities of access
to a car.

His eyes cut over to the clock.
“I’ve gotta go,” he said. “Let me give you the keys.
 
Do you work today?”

“Yeah, from three until close,”
Gracie said as she followed him out to the kitchen. Dev plucked a set of keys
off a hook and handed them to her.
 
“I
can bring it back here and catch a bus.”

“No, you don’t have to do that,”
he said. “Go ahead, drive it to work if you want and we’ll catch up later, but
be careful.
 
You can drive, right?”

Amusement tinged her momentary
resentment. “Of course I can drive!”

“And you have a license?”

If she hadn’t spotted his grin,
Gracie might’ve got mad. “Yes.”

“All right,” Devlin said. “I’ll
see you later, sweetheart.” He caught her in his arms for a swift but thorough
kiss then headed out the door.

“What about breakfast?” she
called after him.
“Or coffee?”

“I’ll get some at the store,”
Devlin replied. “Love you, babe.”

Those three words sweetened her
mood and she hurried to the door waving.
 
Gracie watched him ride off then dashed into the shower.
 
A few minutes later, she hurried out to the
Ford.
 
Nervous, she climbed behind the
wheel and started it.
 
Despite the beat
up exterior, the engine turned over without protest.
 

Although she hadn’t driven for
awhile, Gracie’s confidence returned as she pulled out of the driveway and
headed to the campus.
 
As she parked it
like a real commuter student, not a poor girl who walked or took the bus, she
couldn’t stop the smile bursting across her mouth.

* *
* *

Despite her fears, the exam went
well and she thought she might have aced it.
 
Gracie didn’t doubt she’d passed it.
 
After her classes, she stopped by the library and caught Lauren on
break.
 
The two women chatted about
Devlin and parted with reluctance.
 
Although he’d said she could drive to work, Gracie didn’t.
 
She realized if she did, she might not see
him tonight and Gracie didn’t want to give up any time with Devlin.
  

She delivered the car back and
used the key on the ring to let herself into his place.
 
Being alone there without Devlin seemed
almost an intrusion, but Gracie enjoyed it.
 
She could be at home here, she decided, and maybe she would move in
soon.
 
For now, she wrote Devlin a note
of thanks.

Devlin,

Thanks
for letting me take the car.
 
I brought
it back in case you needed it.
 
If you
want, come by and see by at work.
 
Maybe
you can give me a ride home, too.

Thanks
for yesterday and last night.
  

I
love you, Gracie

On impulse she folded it over and
after she touched up her lipstick, Gracie made an imprint of her lips on the
paper.
 
Maybe Devlin would get a kick out
of it, and she figured he’d understand the message of love, a virtual kiss.

Although she wanted to keep the
key to his apartment, she left it, key ring and all.
 
If Devlin wanted her to have one, he’d give
it and until then she wouldn’t take what wasn’t offered.

Thirty minutes before the
bookstore closed, Gracie glanced up to see Devlin ride up.
 
By the time he entered the store, his
appearance wicked and dangerous, she managed to move near the front.
 
He came to the aisle where she zoned and
straightened books.
  
Gracie moved to him
and he opened his arms.
 
Without a care
for the security cameras or the chance co-workers, supervisor, or customers
might see, she folded herself into his embrace, where she belonged.

Until now he’d never come into
the store, just waited outside, but she liked his presence very much.
 
And what it meant even more.

Chapter
Eight

Rain battered the autumn leaves
and knocked most down onto the pavement or yards.
 
Halloween dawned gray and somber, the ideal
setting for a celebration of something spooky, but Gracie’d hoped for a
beautiful day to celebrate Devlin’s birthday.
 
Despite his protests and insistence he didn’t
mark the occasion, she planned to make it special.
 
Accomplishing it wouldn’t be easy,
though.
  
Each time she mentioned it,
he’d diffused any ideas, so Gracie was on her own with creating a
celebration.
 
The week before his
birthday, she even asked his cousin, Lauren, who shook her head.

“I don’t have a clue,” Lauren
said.
 
“Dev hasn’t let anyone do anything
for his birthday for years, not since he was about fifteen, I think.”

Gracie, who treasured memories of
past birthdays, had to ask. “Why?”

“I hate to say it, but it’s the
truth,” Lauren said.
 
“His mom forgot his
birthday all together.
 
Back then, we
were close, Robert and me.
 
When she
didn’t wish him a happy birthday, he figured she might be planning a surprise,
but nothing happened.
 
After she went to
bed, he knocked on her bedroom door and told her it was his birthday.
 
The way he told it, Aunt Michelle stared at
him, turned around and took a twenty from her purse, handed it to him, and
said, ‘okay, happy birthday’.”

Outraged, Gracie said, “How could
a mother forget her son’s birthday?”

Lauren’s expression shifted.
“He’ll want to shoot me if he finds out I told you, but Aunt Michelle drank a
lot back then.
 
Well, she always drank a
lot until she got really sick.
 
I guess
she just didn’t remember, but it hurt Robert a lot.”

“I’m sure it did.
 
I mean Halloween would be hard to forget as
your only child’s birthday, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yeah.” The way Lauren
twisted one corner of her lips hinted there must be something more.

“What?” Gracie asked. “Tell me.”

“It’s awful and I shouldn’t.”

“Tell me, Lauren.”

Devlin’s cousin sighed.
 
“I just know what my mom always told me.
 
When Dev was born, Michelle thought it was
cute the baby came on Halloween, but later, when she’d be drinking heavy,
sometimes she would say horrible things to him.”

Anger sharpened her tone as
Gracie asked, “Like what?”

“Well, if Robert had been ornery
for any reason, teased his mom, or played a trick on her, Aunt Michelle would
say he had the devil in him.
 
She did it
all the time, but when she got toasted, she’d say maybe he was the devil, just
like his dad.”

Understanding dawned through her
growing rage. “And let me guess,” Gracie said. “I bet his dad was named Robert,
too.
 
It must be why he doesn’t want to
be called by his name.”

“Exactly.
 
Poor Aunt Michelle had a lot of issues. Sober, she wasn’t a bad mom, not
really, but it never lasted.
 
My mom
always tried to protect Devlin when she could, but unless he’d lived with us,
she couldn’t.
 
As long as she was alive,
his grandmother did what she could. Until Michelle died, my mom was one of the
few people Robert would let get close, but on the day of the funeral, they got
into a fight.”

“Why?”

“Robert drank a lot himself when
he first got home from Iraq,” Lauren said, visibly upset. “My mom said
something about it, begged him not to be like his mother.
 
He got mad and wouldn’t speak to her.
 
She forgave him a long time ago, almost as
soon as it happened, but I think he’s afraid she might reject him so he stays
away.
 
He’s had a rough time all his
life.
 
Now you understand all the more
why I’m so happy for him to be with you, I bet.”

Gracie did.
 
She also saw with a deeper clarity what made
Devlin the way he was.
 
Iraq did a number
on him, sure, but some of the emotional damage happened much earlier.
 
No wonder Devlin hated pity and why he’d had
trouble knowing the difference between it and empathy.
 
His mother’s death must’ve ravaged him, but
with more guilt than grief.
 

“Thank you for telling me all of
it,” she told Lauren. “I won’t say anything to Dev, I promise, but it helps me
to understand him more.
 
He told me they
called him Devil in Iraq to explain the horns on his motorcycle helmet and the
mirror.”