Worth the Risk(82)

“We’re back to this again?” I throw my hands up in frustration.

“You don’t know the half of it, Princess.” His derisive chuckle forewarning of a storm waging beneath the surface.

“Grayson, what in the ever-loving hell are you talking about?”

“You don’t fit in here.” Confused, I reach out to touch his arm, and he steps back so I can’t. He can spew any words at me—I have tough skin—but that action hurts more than I want to admit. “You and your friend in your designer clothes and loaded shopping bags . . . you don’t fit in here. Isn’t there some fancy party you need to attend or something?”

“You aren’t making any sense.” But he is. He’s making perfect sense. He saw me with Zoey last week, and instead of seeing two ladies having fun, he saw Claire. He saw what he thinks is my getting bored of Sunnyville and preparing to move on. I know exactly what he saw, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

“Sid.” He hangs his head for the briefest of seconds and sighs, defeat in every part of his posture. “It’s probably best if you just go. I’m in a shitty mood, and I’m dealing with crap that makes no sense to you and . . .” His words fade as he turns from me, laces his hands on the back of his head, and paces to the end of the yard.

“I’m not Claire.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Goddammit, Grayson! I’m not Claire!”

“Aren’t you, though?”

“Fuck. You.” Every part of me screams the words that my lips speak in such an even tone.

When he turns to face me, his expression is stoic, at best, emotionless at worst, and I scramble for how to fight with someone who looks like the fight has already been taken out of them.

Then my thoughts click into place. The lie. The lack of communication after we’d been talking daily. Nightly. Every moment in between. It all makes sense. He wasn’t? Was he?

“You were testing me, weren’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You lied about Luke being sick and canceled our dates to see how I’d react.”

His chuckle is condescending. “Well, your little tantrum right now pretty much proves my theory right.”

“Your theory?” I yell as rage riots within. It all makes sense. The sudden disappearance of Grayson and him blaming it on Luke. His accusations that I’m like Claire. He wanted to see if I’d bail on him like she did.

When he was the reason he couldn’t see me.

“Yeah. Your little tantrum because I haven’t been at your beck and call proves me right. You only think about you. You only care about you. You’ll get mad if I have to cancel because something happens with Luke.”

“I wasn’t mad at you at all until now! Until you lied to me to try to prove I was like Claire. Until you didn’t trust me.” I scream. “You can take your theory and shove it up your ass. You can take the homemade soup that I made two different times because the first batch was horrible that’s sitting on the counter in your house and shove it right along with your theory. I was worried about the two of you because Luke had been sick for so long that I tried really hard to make something for you when I don’t cook.”

Tears burn as they well in my eyes, but I blink them away. I will not give Grayson the satisfaction of seeing me cry over him.

It’s my turn to move. To pace. To abate every ounce of anger I have vibrating within.

“This is my life, Sidney.” He throws his arms out to his sides and matches me shout for shout. “Luke gets sick. I have to cancel things. Luke’s needs aren’t always first, but they are a lot of the goddamn time. Can you handle that? Can you handle being second place in your first-class world?”

I stare at him. He’s so fucking gorgeous I don’t want to look away, yet the sight of him makes me want to scream and yell and tell him to go to hell.

“Screw you.”

“Apparently, that’s the one thing we’re good at.” His nonchalance only serves to enrage me. The way he just cast aside, with those few words, how close we’ve become hurts more than expected.

“What the fuck is this, Grayson? What are we doing here? Because I can’t figure you out. One minute, you want me, and the next minute, you don’t. One minute, you’re lying to me, and the next minute, you’re giving me some kind of fucked-up test to see if I’m good enough to be a part of your life. Is this just sex? Is this more? Because you send so many goddamn mixed signals that I don’t know which way is up anymore. Do me a favor and make up your mind and quit playing with mine.” I fight the tears that threaten as he stares, the muscle in his jaw pulsing and tension radiating off him.

“Sid . . .”

“I’m fighting for you, Grayson. Is that what you want? I’m fighting for you when she wouldn’t, but I sure as hell won’t compete against your ghosts.”

“I’ve never asked you for anything.”

I feel like every part of my body has been wrapped as tightly as possible in barbed wire. Like I’m suffocating although I’m in the open air.

Fuck you.

I hate you.

Screw you.

I don’t say any of those things because as much as I tell myself that I don’t care, that this is just a fling like he says, I know I feel more from him. I know there is more between us than this.