Authors: Kristen Ashley
His phone stopped ringing only for it to start up again.
But he ignored it and kept looking at me.
When his phone quit ringing again without him speaking, I started, “Gray –”
“She’s in there,” he interrupted me on a murmur, “just saw her.”
I felt my brows draw together and I asked, “Sorry?”
His phone started ringing again, he muttered, “Fuck,” reached to his back pocket, pulled it out, looked at it, flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Janie. Now is not the time.”
I stared at him, really wishing he still wasn’t so beautiful, really,
really
wishing I hadn’t blurted out Lash’s secret and lastly wishing that he would just go away and I could get on with my movie marathon.
That marathon would most assuredly include a couple of boxes of Kleenexes but whatever. I’d survived before, I’d survive again.
I just had to hold it together in the now.
I moved across our large room that started with a kind of sitting room. This led through a large open doorway to another room that held a king-size bed off which was a huge, pristine bathroom that was at the end of a wall that was filled with cabinets, cupboards and a built-in wardrobe. There was a mirror behind a shelf covered in various-sized crystal glasses, a mini-bar that wasn’t so mini, a safe behind a cabinet, shit like that. It was spacious, comfortable and elegant. A serious upgrade and it was sweet.
No half-measures for Lash, ever.
I sat on the end of a chair, crossing my legs, my spike-heeled, strappy-sandal-shod foot bouncing as I heard Gray say into his phone, “Yeah, I found her. I’m with her now.”
Great. Janie and Gray were talking about me.
I put an elbow to my crossed knee, my head in my hand and kept impatiently bouncing my foot waiting for this to be done, him to be gone and me to be free to have nervous breakdown number five gazillion as pertains to Grayson Cody.
Then Gray’s back shot straight before I saw his body freeze.
Oh no.
My body froze with him.
Then he whispered, “What?”
He listened.
I waited.
Then his eyes came to me.
Oh no!
What was Janie saying?
“Say again?” Gray asked into the phone softly. He listened again, I stared as his face changed to something I didn’t get but whatever it was scared the hell out of me and as I did this I tried (thankfully successfully) to force myself to keep breathing. “Right,” he said quietly then again, “Right. Later.”
He flipped his phone shut and turned to me.
“What?” I asked when he didn’t say anything but he didn’t answer, just looked at me with that expression on his face that scared the shit out of me. “What, Gray?” I pushed.
“You wrote me a note?” He was still talking quietly.
Shit.
This again.
I stood and crossed my arms on my chest. “Yes, Gray. Seven years ago I stole off in the dark of night but before doing it, I wrote you a note. This happened
seven years ago
and those words are the only words I’m going to give this shit. It’s over. It’s been over for seven years. I’m not going over it.”
It was like he didn’t hear me and I knew this when he asked, “You came back?”
Okay, now, he
really
didn’t want to get into this.
“Listen, you said what you had to say, we had it out, now can you just leave?”
“You came back,” he stated, again not listening to me.
“Gray, I asked relatively nicely and I’ll do it again. Please leave.”
“You came back,” he repeated and I uncrossed my arms from my chest, planted my hands on my hips and snapped, “Yes, I came back.”
“
Why didn’t you come to me?
”
I took a step back because I had no choice. His words came at me in a roar, a wall of sound that was physical, beating into me.
“I –” I started, thrown, stunned, scrambling, unable to think.
“Why the fuck didn’t you come to me, Ivey?” His voice was deep and rasping, it was so abrasive.
“Gray –”
“Why
the fuck
didn’t you come to me?” he shouted and once again, I lost it.
“Because I saw you, you
asshole!
” I shouted back, leaning in. “I saw you with a pretty brunette walking down the sidewalk, smack in town, your arm around her, holding her close, smiling in her face. Like only three months before you’d hold
me!
” I kept shouting. “I knew about Cecily and Nancy, all of them, all the way back to Emily, all your history. Twenty-five and Mustang’s resident player who played
me.
So do not stand there and pretend you didn’t get my note and do not stand there and bullshit me that this is about me leaving. This is about you and your pride and needing to get something off your chest. Whatever. You did it. Now get
the fuck
out.”
“I wasn’t with another woman, Ivey,” he ground out, his eyes locked to mine, his burning.
“Bullshit, Gray, such fucking bullshit.
I saw you with her.
I was not seeing things. It was not the dead of night. The sun was shining. You were smiling. Do not…
bullshit me.
”
“I wasn’t with another woman,” he repeated.
“
Do not bullshit me!
” I leaned forward to shriek.
He didn’t move, not a muscle, just stared at me.
Then he whispered, “Brunette.”
“Yes, Gray, she was a brunette. Switching it up again. Cecily was too.”
His eyes held mine and I noticed his chest was rising and falling deeply (just like mine) then he tore his eyes away from me at the same time he tore his fingers through his hair. Then he dropped his hand and when his eyes came back to me it took everything I had to keep my feet at the pain etched in his features.
“I didn’t get any note,” he whispered. “And that girl was my cousin Chandler. She went to Auburn back then. She was back for summer vacation. Outside Audie, she’s the only cousin I like. Fuck, I’m closer to her than I am Audie. Closer to her than anyone but Gran.”
Every word hit me like a blow, each carrying too much force I couldn’t stop myself from swaying back. I hit chair and steadied.
“You should have come to me,” Gray said softly but each word held at least a ton of weight.
I couldn’t process that. If I gave those words time, they would crush me.
Instead, I whispered, “I left you a note.”
He shook his head. “I was outta my mind when you disappeared. Looked everywhere for you. Janie and I went up there. Swept clean. Nothin’ there but the stuff you borrowed from me.”
My heart was beginning to race and something was crawling in my belly, tearing at the lining, trying to get out.
“That isn’t true,” I said quietly. “I packed in a hurry. I left clothes behind. Books. Shoes. I told you I’d be back.”
“There was no note, Ivey. There was nothing left of you at all.”
It was my turn not to hear him.
“I told you I’d be back,” I whispered as that thing tore through the lining of my stomach, infiltrated my system, rushed to my brain.
“Baby, there was no note.”
“I told you I’d be back,” I repeated in a voice so soft there was nearly no sound because in that instant it hit my brain, all of it.
It never made sense.
Until right then.
Casey.
And all that acid leaking out of my shredded stomach drenched my system, I couldn’t hold it back anymore so I turned and dashed straight to the bathroom. I hit the tiles painfully as I fell to my knees, sliding. I tagged the toilet and barely got the lid up before I let fly.
Breakfast. Gone.
My back arched and bowed with the strength of sick pouring out of me but I could vomit forever and never get it all out.
It ran in my veins.
It
was
me.
Vomit. Sick. Filth.
Fucking
Casey.
My stupid, fucking, loser, dickhead, user, asshole
brother.
“Ivey, baby, Jesus, you’re scarin’ me,” Gray’s voice whispered from close, his hands shifting my hair away from my neck. I couldn’t endure his touch so I lurched away.
Throwing myself on my ass in the corner, pressed between the wall and tub, I saw Gray crouched by the toilet start moving to me.
My arm flew out straight, palm up toward him and I cried, “Don’t!”
He stilled.
“Don’t,” I whimpered, dropping my arm.
Then I looked at the wall, reached out, grabbed a towel from the rail, pulled it down and gathered it close like a security blanket, holding it to my body, the edge of it to my mouth.
Gray closed the toilet lid, flushed it, sat on it and leaned his elbows into his knees before he begged, “Dollface, talk to me.”
“He had money,” I told my bent knees, curling them closer, wrapping one arm around.
“Get outta that corner, honey, come with me. We’ll talk in the other room.”
I didn’t move.
“He had money. A lot of money,” I semi-repeated.
“Ivey –”
My eyes stayed glued to my knees. “I thought he’d stolen it. Now I don’t know. I don’t know where he got it.”
Gray was silent.
I kept talking.
“He said they were after him, us. They’d beaten him badly. I saw that. But months we were on the run. He never pushed the hustle. Never asked for money. Never dropped a con. I looked through his stuff and found the money. I just thought he stole it.”
“Please, baby, let me come to you, get you off this floor.”
I ignored him.
“I never saw them. He told me they were following us but I could spot a tail. I was better at it than him. He was acting weird. All over me. Never left me alone. Never. Never let me get near a phone. Twitchy. God, so damned twitchy. It freaked me out.”
“Right, Ivey, I’m comin’ to you.”
I kept ignoring him even as my ass was suddenly off the bathroom floor, Gray’s was on it and mine was in his lap.
I held my towel to my mouth, looked into his eyes and kept talking.
“Something was up with him,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Gray whispered back, holding me close, holding my eyes, his holding clear concern as he kept his gaze locked to mine.
“I never got it. Never. In the end, I thought he’d made his play just to get me back so we could go on the hustle again because he couldn’t make it without me. But I don’t think it was that. I don’t know what it was but all that money, Gray. I don’t think it was that.”
“So you got shot of him and came back to me,” Gray said quietly.
I nodded vaguely. “I promised you in the note that when the danger was gone, I would. But I can sense danger, Gray, and as we ate up the miles, town to town, state to state, days into weeks, I never felt it. We weren’t being followed. Casey lied to me. The way he was acting, all over me, all sweet to me, but watchful, jittery, it wasn’t right. I couldn’t get a lock on it then I thought I figured it out. I stole his car, left him behind and I went back to you.”
Gray closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tile.
Then he opened them and looked at me. “And you saw me with Chandler.”
Tears filled my eyes and I nodded.
“Fuck, baby,” he whispered, staring at me.
“I thought you saw my note and didn’t care. I thought you moved on. I thought you didn’t want my hassle. I thought you didn’t care I had bad men after me. I thought,” a tear slid out of my eye, “I thought you didn’t care.”
“I loved you, Ivey, and I thought you cleared out on me.”
“I wrote you a note.” My voice broke on those words.
He pulled in breath then sighed.
Then he asked, “That fuckin’ brother of yours, he have the opportunity to grab that note?”
I thought about it and nodded but added, “He couldn’t grab my stuff, though, Gray. And I left stuff. Not a lot of it but it meant something to me. I worked for it, earned it. My skirt, my dress, my heels. I wouldn’t leave that behind. I wouldn’t leave
you
behind.”
“Fuck, I wish you’d have fuckin’ come to me,” he growled.
“Casey said they had guns. Said they’d shoot you. I couldn’t go to you.”
“Okay, then, I wish you’d have fuckin’ come to me when you got back.”
“You were with another woman,” I reminded him.
“She was my cousin, Ivey, and you knew me better than that.”
“You were my first kiss,” I blurted, he blinked and his arms spasmed around me.
Then he whispered, “What?”
“You weren’t just my first lover, Gray, you were my first
everything.
”
That pain I saw earlier slashed through his features and his arms again spasmed but stayed tight around me.
I kept talking.
“I wasn’t experienced enough. I thought I wasn’t…” I shook my head. “I was a pool hustler virgin who you’d given her first kiss at age twenty-two. You were too good for me, I knew it and I figured you figured it out too so you moved onto better.”
“Baby, fuck,” he hissed on a near snarl, his eyes narrowing and his arms going super tight. “there was
nothin’
better than you.”
And right then, yes again, I lost it.
Six words that held the impact of a nuclear bomb disintegrating years of work building a wall to protect my heart. All of that gone, demolished, rubble at…six…words.
There was nothin’ better than you.
But I didn’t lose my temper or lose my mind or blurt my beloved friend’s secrets.
I lost hold on my emotions. Tears sliding from my eyes, body wracked with sobs, I fell face first into his shoulder and just cried.
Gray gently pulled the towel from my grasp, got up from the bathroom floor and took me with him. Then he moved us out of the bathroom as a whole. Then we were down on the bed, Gray’s back to the headboard, me held close, his arms tight, his knees cocked, cocooning me in all things Gray.
All things Gray.
I wanted to glory in this. I wanted to burn it in my brain so I’d have it forever. But I didn’t have it in me. All I did for a long time was just cry.
Shit. Just like always.
All these years, years of tears and Grayson Cody never leaked out of me.
Still crying, suddenly I felt his body tense then we were up. He held me close with one arm around my back but carefully dropped the arm behind my knees. My sandals hit floor but he held me tight to him, his body still tense and I would know why when I heard, “What the fuck?”