“Neither do you.”
He put me on equal footing with Grace, and even though I didn’t deserve it, I loved him all the more for it. “I’m strong enough to handle a few days of ambiguity. Just…keep your hands…you know.”
His face was stoic but his eyes, they spoke volumes. “My hands only want to be on you.”
I forced a smile. “See, nothing to worry about.” Parker’s smug face was a blur as I passed her, damn-near tripping over my feet to get out of that room. His room. Our room. Where she would sleep. In his bed. Our bed.
While he set everyone up, I studied in my room.
“Sam?” Parker knocked and entered in the same motion.
“What can I do for you, Parker?” I asked, putting my book down.
She looked at the general chaos of my room and forced a smile as she sat on my bed. “I know we don’t really get along.”
“That’s a gross understatement.” I tiptoed the line between handing Parker her ass and remembering that she was important to Grayson.
“It’s not that I don’t like you—”
“Oh, you don’t like me, but there’s no legitimate reason. You see, I don’t like you because you treat Grayson like crap. You won’t forgive him for something that happened five years ago, when he was basically a kid. Something that wasn’t ever his fault, though you won’t let it go because you love Grace so much that you needed someone to blame.”
She picked up the pencil off my notebook and twirled it. “Yes.”
“So you take it out on Grayson, which is why I don’t like you. Valid. But you don’t like me because I have the audacity to love your brother.”
“I watched him pray for a miracle. For years, at her bedside, he begged. Now he has his miracle. She’s here, and he’s throwing it away…for you. You’re the instrument of his ruin, and if you really loved him, you’d be unselfish and let him go. But you won’t, will you? You’ll make him suffer, torn between the two of you so that you can hold onto him a little longer.”
Selfish. She hit the nail on the head with an accuracy that exposed every one of my nerves. “He wants to be with me.”
My soul ached, all my deepest insecurities laid bare in front of the last person I would ever want to display them for.
She looked at me, all traces of menace and snark gone. “Just do me a favor. While she’s here, watch them. See how they fit together, complement each other. Really pay attention to them, and when you do, you’ll see it.”
“What?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“His future. Their future. He wants to be with you, yes. But he loves her. It’s his happiness in your hands, Sam. Let him go.” She patted my knee like I was a dog, and left me alone with a heart that was slowly ripping itself in two.
In the middle of the night, Grayson came into my bed, sneaking like we were teenagers. My laughter didn’t last past the first kiss. He made love to me like we had forever, lingering, savoring, promising me things with his body that I wasn’t sure his heart was capable of.
God, I wanted so badly to believe it.
We fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, and when the sun rose, he kissed me gently and snuck back downstairs to the couch as quietly as possible.
Like we’d done something wrong. Dirty.
I scrubbed myself clean in the shower, and as I came out into the hallway in my bathrobe, I startled and stepped back so Grayson could pass with Grace in his arms.
He shot me a longing look, but that was it.
“Good morning, Sam!” Grace called back over his shoulder as they headed toward the stairs. Her hair was perfectly mussed, and her eyes joyful as Grayson jumped the last two steps to the landing. They both laughed.
She makes him laugh.