Page 79 of When We Had Forever
I know without asking which one he means. The one he doesn’t let anyone see.
My eyes stray to his chest. A few buttons adorn the neck of his shirt, only half of which are done up. The inky end of something oblong and pointed—a stylized leaf, maybe?—peeps at me from the curve of his pectoral muscle.
I tell myself to stop staring, but the urge to know more pushes questions against my lips. And from the way Grayson’s watching me, intently and with half-hooded eyes, I have the strangest sense that if I asked, he’d strip off his shirt right now and let me see for myself.
Something flutters in my throat. I break from his gaze and carry my wine toward the daybed, then pause, realizing we can’t both occupy it without touching. I turn back, at a loss.
Grayson’s mouth quirks. “It’s okay. I don’t have any problem with the floor.” He takes a cross-legged seat on the rug and gestures at my abandoned pillow nest. “Looks like you’d already gotten comfy down here, anyway.”
I reclaim my earlier place, grateful for the four feet of empty air between us. “I can’t believe you drove all the way up here in the middle of the night.”
“I can’t believe you let me.”
I turn my cup around but don’t drink. Maybe I shouldn’t. I already seem to be making decisions I normally wouldn’t. “It sounded like it was important to you.”
“It was,” he says.
“Why?”
He heaves a breath. “I already told you. I need to know you’re okay. And I couldn’t stand the idea of you getting mauled by some wild animal with no one around to help. I mean, I get why you came, but have you really thought this through? The wilderness isn’t the kind of place you should go wandering in alone. At least not at twilight.”
I glance toward the fire. Of course I haven’t thought this through. My entire mission here has been borne of desperation. Of a need to do something other than take the same painful, lurching steps I’ve been attempting for months, none of which seem to have gotten me anywhere.
Best to be honest with myself about that. And with Grayson, after the way he’s bared his soul.
“I don’t have any kind of plan,” I say. “And maybe I shouldn’t have come. But I just couldn’t spend another minute in that house.”
“Look, I’m not saying this was a mistake.” His tone softens. “I’d just feel a lot better if you had someone watching out for you. At least until you go back home.”
Back home.
The words immobilize me. I can’t imagine returning to Seagrove—sleeping in the same bed Michael and I once shared, reimprisoning myself among the trappings of a life that might never have been what I hoped for. I can’t picture myself ever plucking those divorce papers off the floor without wanting to throw up.
I screw my eyes shut, blocking out the thoughts.
“Hey.” Grayson’s voice fills with smoky concern. “Where’d you go?”
“Somewhere bad,” I say.
“Yeah. I can see that.”
I open my eyes. He looks worried. Maybe because he’s already emptied his cup.
“Here.” I push my drink his way. “This is the last alcohol in the house. You can have it. I’ve already had two, anyway.”
He doesn’t look down. “I don’t care about the wine.”
“But you care about me.” I mean it as a question, but somehow it comes out like a statement.
“Yes,” he says.
“Because I’m your brother’s wife?”
He hesitates. “No.”
I give a faint shake of my head. “Then I don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
