Page 110 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
Dylan’s gone.
The woman who was slowly saving me disappeared.
Christ.
She’s really gone.
My need to work is paramount. To keep busy so I don’t think of Grady.
But who am I fooling? It’s been a week since I left Sunnyville—since I left him with the note on the counter and a kiss on his sleeping lips—and I feel like a piece of me has been left behind.
Emerson was right. I did leave my heart there, but hell if I’ll tell her that. And I can’t bring myself to answer her texts, either, because I miss her too.
Who knew going to Sunnyville to escape Jett would make me find a whole different life I’d want to keep?
I roll my shoulders as I stare out the conference room windows at the bustling city below. The city I had missed like crazy. The one full of broken dreams and rising stars. The one in which I thought I belonged but now feel like an imposter.
There is no pig wandering around to make me laugh.
There is no constant hammering of Grady and his brothers as they work on the playroom.
There is no scanner going off sporadically in the night.
“Dylan, love. So great to see you. I hope your trek in the country did you well.”
I rise from my seat when Callum Divish strides into the room, hair pulled back into a ponytail, and trademark tinted lenses hiding the truth in his eyes. “Good to see you again, Callum.” We air-kiss each other’s cheeks, as is his fashion, before sitting. “And it did.”
“Jett’s late. So we’ll start without him.” He shakes his head. “I’d say the country was good to you and, in turn, me. The songs you wrote . . . Dylan, they are spectacular. I’m going to have a bloody hell of a time picking which ones to put on the album. You really outdid yourself.”
“Thank you.” I nod, my pride brimming while my heart knows most of those songs are about Grady. They’re true and heartfelt.
“We’ll get the last few recorded and then meet again with Kai and the team and start deciding which ones we want to use.”
“Sounds great.”
“In the meantime . . .”
Exhausted is the only way I can describe how I feel.
Everything is draining. From Jett and his bullshit in the studio—the things I now see as complete immaturity—to my lack of sleep. The nights feel like endless bouts of tossing and turning. Grady wasn’t the only one who found solace in our sharing the same bed.
Grady.
My heart twists in my chest as I sit at the computer like I have almost every day since I left. I head to the Sunnyville Gazette and read about what’s happening in the town I’ve left. I open up a blank email, type Grady’s email address, then delete it. Then I begin to type him an email but don’t know what to say. He hasn’t reached out to me since I left. He hasn’t texted or called or sent up a smoke signal. So maybe I made this all up in my head. Maybe I was still so fresh and raw from my breakup with Jett that I saw things in Grady that weren’t there.
Maybe he came into my life just to teach me how to let go.
That’s such crap.
I know it was real. I know how I felt.
How I feel.
So then why haven’t we talked?
The cursor blinks as my email alerts my incoming messages. I tab over and scan through the new ones. My first thought? There are none from Grady.
I open the one from my brother to see the new pictures he had taken of the twins, and I contemplate flying out there when Callum gives this album the A-okay. I need some family time. A connection with someone I know won’t hurt my heart.
