Worth the Risk(85)

“That’s wonderful, dear. And when the contest is over? Do you have other plans for the magazine? Will you be moving on to an editor position?” My mom fishes as my brothers glance at each other.

Sidney looks at me and then my mom and draws in a shaky breath.

She doesn’t need this shit. The Malone inquisition.

And neither do I.

Without caring what my family thinks, I shove my chair back abruptly and stand. “Can I speak with you inside for a moment?”

Sidney’s flustered by my request, that much I can tell, but she makes a quick apology to everyone at the table and follows me into the house. I head for the living room—the farthest room from where everyone sits on the patio—and wait for the squeak of her shoes on the hardwood floors to come to a stop.





He knows.

That’s my first thought when Grayson turns around. It’s as if every emotion a human being can feel has been thrown in a blender, turned on high, and then blended again. His eyes swim with the words his lips can’t seem to form.

He already knows I’m leaving. He found out.

I panic with what to say since he’s not saying anything. I fumble for words, with how to explain, then chicken out and choose avoidance. I let him take the lead. “Congratulations, again, on making the top five. You should be ecstatic.”

He grunts. “Hmm. I don’t feel very ecstatic.”

He doesn’t know?

“Grayson?” Nerves take over every single part of me as the realization hits that I have to tell him that I’m going to be leaving. I can’t . . . I shouldn’t put it off anymore.

He’s already mad. I’m already miserable. Wouldn’t it be better to just tell him right now and cut ties while I’m already a step back? “I need to tell you—”

He takes a step closer and holds his hands up to stop me. “Look, I fucked up. Again. I owe you an apology but . . . but those are just words, and for a man who takes a lot of pride in standing behind his every word, I sure seem to keep fucking them up when it comes to you.” He takes a step closer to me. “I’ve picked up the phone a million times, and each time I knew I was going to fuck this up further because, honestly, you have no reason to trust that I’m not going to be an ass again.”

“I need to—”

“It’s been a shitty couple of days knowing I hurt you, and the only time it hasn’t been was when you walked in here tonight. It seems the only way I’m good at expressing myself to you is by showing you.”

And without preamble or pretext, Grayson pulls me against him and kisses me. I’m completely shocked by it at first. From the caged look he had to the restlessness he exuded, I for sure thought we were in for a huge fight but this . . . the kind of kiss that is so tender and soft that I feel like I just crawled inside him and melted . . . this is not what I expected.

I tell myself to fight it. To push him away because he doesn’t just get to kiss me and make all the hurt from what he said go away. After the misery I’ve felt over the past few days from fighting with him—the loneliness, the sadness, the everything—it feels so damn good to have his lips on mine. It also doesn’t hurt to know that he has been just as miserable as I have.

When the kiss ends. When the laughter from the backyard seeps in through the open windows. When my thoughts are so scrambled I can’t remember what I was supposed to be telling him. When his hands framing my cheeks direct my face so I can look up at him . . . I know without a doubt my heart has been lost to this man.

I also know I still have to stand my ground.

“That doesn’t fix everything,” I murmur, still floating on air from that kiss. My body a mix of contradictions. My mind telling me to take my hands off him but my heart saying not yet. Just give me one more second of this feeling.

“I know it doesn’t.”

“You tested me.”

“I was an ass.”

“You said things.”

“I was an even bigger ass.”

“Grayson.” I chuckle in protest, and his lips meet mine again and then he rests his forehead against mine.

“I said a lot of things,” he says, “most of which I’m not proud of. They’re my hang-ups, Sid. They’re things I need to fix if we’re going to make this work. They’re things I need to fix so that I can be a better man.”

It takes me a moment to swallow over the lump in my throat his words have formed. To realize what he is telling me without coming out and saying it.

“Make this work?”

He looks like a scolded little boy having to explain himself, and I hate that I want to step into him and take it all away.

“Yeah. Make this work.”

That panic I felt moments before intensifies for so many reasons . . . all of them good except for one.

“There are things I need to say, too, that haven’t been said.”

“Not right now.” A brush of lips. A soft touch of tongues. “This is my turn to apologize. This is my turn to tell you that we’re good together, Sidney. That it’s been a long time since I’ve allowed myself to feel whatever this feeling is. I know we still have to be quiet about seeing each other . . . but can we just figure out how to enjoy this right now? Can we just accept this step and take it day by day without sticking parameters on it while we feel our way through?”