Worth the Risk(95)

When I turn to find Grayson, he isn’t staring at the view, but rather, at me. His expression is intense. His eyes are a sea of uncertainty. I want to crawl into his arms. I want to stay right there for as long as we can, so we don’t have to figure out what needs to be faced.

I’m afraid to be the first to speak.

“What are we doing here, Sidney?”

“Looking at the view?” I say to try to add some levity, but he doesn’t even crack a smile.

“I’m serious.” He exhales. “What are we doing here? Are we pretending that we’re something we aren’t? Are we simply accepting that we only have a few weeks left together before you leave and that we’re just going to enjoy the time we have? Or should we call it quits now and save ourselves from the inevitable?”

“Grayson.” His name is barely audible when I speak it, but only because every other part of me is dying inside. “I screwed this up.”

“You did . . .” He shakes his head and takes a step toward me. “But I did too. I screwed up a lot of times and it wasn’t fair for me to ask your forgiveness time and again . . . but you did. And then the first time you screw up, I didn’t give you the same courtesy. But damn it to all hell, Sidney, you’re leaving, and you didn’t tell me?”

My sigh is loud and loaded with the mixture of emotions warring inside me. Fear. Hope. Desperation. Love. Everything I feel and am so damn scared to express. “This wasn’t my intention. To come here. To find you. To fall for you.”

His breath hitches and I know he heard me. “I know you have a life to get back to. Well you know what? So, do I. A life that had no room for you in it, but goddamn it, you’ve weaseled your way in somehow. Now what am I supposed to do? I have more than myself to protect here. I have Luke to think about. I have . . . Christ.” He runs a hand through his hair and paces to the railing before bracing his hands on it and staring at the view beyond. “This will never fucking work.”

The pain in his voice owns me, and I keep hearing his dad’s words in my mind. “If you’re not going to stay, let him push you . . . But if you’re going to stay, I hope like hell you’ll fight for him, because he’s worth every misspoken word and uttered curse and ounce of confusion.”

Is he pushing me, or is he making it easy for me to leave without regret?

Fuck that. There will always be regret. That much I know.

“We could try to make things work. Weekends and little trips back and forth,” I say and then realize how stupid it sounds. How shallow it sounds. That’s no way to have a relationship.

“I can’t make you happy here. This isn’t some big fancy town where trendy nightclubs pop up as quickly as they shut down, and Michael Kors isn’t likely to set up shop any time soon. There isn’t anything here but Luke and me and goddamn grapes on the hill. That’s not enough to make someone like you stay.”

“Someone like me?”

He groans in frustration. “That isn’t what I mean.”

“It’s what it sounds like.”

“It can sound like whatever you want. It seems in your world I’m staying and I’m leaving don’t really seem to have any significance, so does it really matter?”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

“So are you saying you want to end this—?”

“Sid—”

“Are you pushing me away because you’re too scared to say you want to make this work?”

“Dammit—”

“You think that I think I’m too good for you and Luke and this town and so it’s easier if—”

“Quit putting words in my mouth, Claire!”

And right there is the dagger to my heart. Right there is the exact reason we could never work.

It’s one thing to accuse me of being like her. It’s another to call me by her name because deep down he just can’t get over her.

I take a step back.

“Sid . . .”

I take another step.

“Sidney.” He reaches for me, regret and fear and heartache playing across his features. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean—it was a slip of the tongue. You were thinking I was referring to her and then . . . FUCK!” He shouts and bangs a fist against the railing. “I didn’t mean it.”

He meant everything by it. My heart already knows it.

“You may not think you do, but you did. You have held me up against her pretentious pedestal since the minute you opened your front door almost six months ago. And you know what? Back then, you probably had every right to accuse me of being like her. I was. But things have changed, Grayson. Being here . . . working for Rissa . . . meeting Luke . . . being with you. That has changed me. It has changed me in ways I never saw coming. So for you to stand there and call me her name, it just proves that you don’t know me at all.”

I stand tall, my shoulders square, and in this moment, I realize everything I just said is true. This place has changed me. The people in this town were a huge part of that. And not only did they change me—how I look at things, how I look at other people—they also made me realize how empty my life was before. How hard it’s going to be to go back to it, step into my old life, and not miss all of this.