Relief washes over him almost immediately. Blowing out a deep breath he says, “You two need to pack your bags. You’re coming to my house.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you! You are off your rocker!” Mindy shouts and jumps up from the couch. With wild eyes, she stumbles over her words and is screeching about not knowing him and not being safe anywhere and having no idea what’s going on and why we were just forcibly taken and that she is refusing to go anywhere. Grady keeps his expression neutral, but I think I’ve had enough run-ins with him to know that he’s having to work at it. Patiently, he waits until she’s done and has puttered off into some kind of incoherent babble. Her eyebrows are raised and she’s pretty much pleading with him, but it’s doing no good. I know that flat expression of his. It means that the only way you’re getting out of doing what he wants is to either shoot him or overpower him. Since she can do neither, I don’t hold my breath for her success. “I don’t know what’s going on, but that asshole was watching me for weeks. He was in the shop all the time and I… I thought he liked me. “Just, please. Leave me alone.”
“It’s either my house or Duke’s house,” he says. Having been given a choice, Mindy relaxes some and takes a moment to think it over. She looks at me and shrugs. This is the first I’ve heard that this guy and Mindy’s coffee shop guy are the same person. She didn’t say a word about it until just now.
“If I stay with Nic, will you come with me?” she asks. She looks positively desperate.
Just as I’m telling her that I will, Grady butts in, saying, “She’s staying with me.”
“You’re staying with him?” she asks me. I look from Mindy to Grady and back to Mindy again. They both look determined and more argumentative than agreeable. I shrug and give a non-committal nod. Mindy gives a small huff, folds her arms over her chest, and looks at the floor.
“I don’t know you,” she says then looks up at him.
“This situation is fucked up. I get that. I wish you didn’t have to go through that. But the best thing I can do right now is to keep you safe, and that means getting you to a place where you can be protected. That’s not here. So you can either stay with me where Holly is going to be, or you can stay with Duke and Nic. Make a decision right now, or I’m making it for you,” Grady says.
Mindy doesn’t question why I’m apparently staying with Grady. She knows most of what’s gone on between us—well, an altered version of it. I told her I nearly ran him off the road when I got sick while driving and he stopped to check on me and yell at me, and ever since we’ve been doing this kind of dance around one another. I wouldn’t break my promise to Grady, not even to tell Mindy, if I absolutely didn’t have to, but I had to give her something. She knew something was up, and I couldn’t keep totally denying it. When I’d first returned home after being shot, I was able to keep it up for a few days before I made up the stupid car story. Then after the run-in with the mafia guy at the high school, I confessed that I’d been at Grady’s house that afternoon. I did, however, leave out the whole having my life threatened thing.
“I’ll stay with Nic,” Mindy says. Her voice is quiet, and she sounds so defeated. I’m about to tell her that she’ll get used to Grady’s bossiness when I realize that, despite these scary and uncomfortable situations, Grady isn’t a part of my life. In fact, the only time we’ve actually spent any time together is after something awful happens, and then I go back to my boring life and he goes back to whatever he does. I’m always left with the same dull disappointment that I didn’t have or take a chance to get to know him better. He’s saved me more times than I’d like to admit I’ve needed saving, and yet these rescue missions are really all we have. That and that one kiss. That explosive kiss that I almost took too far. A small, stupid part of my brain wants more.
“Go pack.” Grady leans in and presses his hand to my lower back, guiding me down the hallway. I’m not paying attention and thus not very compliant, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He pushes me forward gently. When I start to walk on my own, he follows behind and leans himself in the doorway of my room. The small room is pretty messy. Swiftly as I can, I kick stray bras under my bed and cover my dirty panties with other pieces of dirty laundry.
“You ain’t got nothing I haven’t seen,” he says, eyeing under my bed, where I’ve kicked two bright red bras.