Worth the Risk(64)
“Gray—”
“No. I’m doing the best I can, and it isn’t enough. It’s such a hard thing as a parent to recognize that fine line where protecting your child turns into hurting your child.” I step forward and put a hand on his arm and squeeze, his sudden vulnerability coming on the heels of his fiery temper is almost unnerving. “He’s had a rough couple of weeks. Nightmares. The fight . . . I don’t know what’s bringing all this on, but I know it’s on me.”
“My mom used to tell me there are no instructions to having a kid, and being a parent is one huge learning mistake after another.”
He gives a measured nod but keeps his eyes focused out the window to the front yard. I hate that he won’t look at me. “You shouldn’t have gone today without talking to me first.”
I open my mouth to speak and then close it, my inability to read his body language giving me pause. So I say the only thing I can. “I’m sorry.”
He nods but doesn’t look my way. “I’ve gotta get back to Luke. To home.” And without waiting to see if I respond at all, he opens the door and exits completely different than he was when he entered.
Resigned and silent.
I stand at the window and watch him—those broad shoulders of his as he walks toward his truck, the way he slides behind the wheel, rests his elbow on the sill of the open window, and runs a finger over his lip.
He sits there for some time, seemingly lost in thought. The sight is heartbreaking. A man so strong otherwise, conflicted over teaching his son truths he knows will hurt him.
When he pulls away from the curb a few minutes later, I pick up my cell and call my father just to say hi.
Watching Grayson struggle with this has made me understand my father a little bit more now, and how hard making his decision to send me here must have been on him.
The morning coffee rush is in full swing as I sit in the back of Better Buzz with a cup of my own and work on my laptop. It’s louder and more chaotic than the office, but it makes me feel like I’m back in the city. It makes me not feel so homesick when, after last night and everything with Grayson, I am desperately so.
He may not have walked away in the fit of rage he stormed into my house with, but his silent resignation almost feels worse.
Is he still mad at me? I don’t know.
What I do know is that every part of me wanted to drive over to his house and talk to him . . . but I took a step back and told myself that he was dealing with Luke. That Luke comes first. That my showing up would only have proved to him that I think of myself first, when I’ve been fighting against that preconception since we first met.
Zoey. I miss her, and if she were here, she’d calm my crazy—her warm hugs, knowing looks, and the effortless way she seems to just get me. I miss the fresh flowers at the corner florist stand that I used to pass every day on the way to Thorton Publishing’s main office. I miss Stink, the homeless man parked on Greer and 4th who I brought some kind of food to a few days a week. I even miss my own place, with its seemingly endless supply of hot water and its pillow-loaded bed.
Funny how I didn’t realize how homesick I was until Grayson got mad at me, and how alone I was here until Rissa didn’t pick up her phone. That is probably for the better, though, since I can’t tell her about what happened.
“Sidney, is that you?”
When I look up from my laptop, I find Betsy Malone standing at the coffee doctoring station with a cautious smile on her lips.
“Hi.” We eye each other with a wariness that says we both know what this conversation is going to be about but are uncertain if we want to go there.
“May I have a minute of your time?” she asks, but before I answer, she has already crossed the short distance and is lowering herself into the empty chair across from me.
“Uh, yeah, sure.” I laugh the words out, my sudden uneasiness showing. “What can I do for you?”
She stares at her hands, which are wrapped around her paper to-go cup, and it’s a long minute before she meets my gaze. She looks nervous. Nervous, when yesterday I found her to be not only quite funny and inquisitive but also carefree and open.
“I need to apologize for a couple of things.”
“If this is about yesterday,” I say and shake my head, “you don’t need to apologize for anything.”
“Yes, I do. I told you it would be okay and that I’d take the heat for it and . . .”
“And I’m a grown woman who can make her own decisions.” I smile warmly at her. “Let me guess, he overreacted and unleashed his temper on you, too?”
Her eyes well with tears briefly before she blinks them away. “He may have overreacted . . . but I deserved it.” Her silence as she stares at the steam coming from her coffee quiets the protest on my lips. My reassurance won’t matter. It’s her son’s rebukes that will hit her the hardest. She shrugs and looks up at me. “I was curious about you. All I know is what Luke has told me and the gossip from town, but not a single word from Grayson. That in and of itself says a lot, so maybe I bypassed asking Gray if it was okay to let Luke invite you . . . maybe I told you he would be okay with it when I wasn’t one hundred percent certain. I only wanted to see if it was all true.”
“You wanted to see if I was good enough for Grayson?”