Beyond What is Given(21)

I folded myself into the front seat and slid it back. “Is your boyfriend a shrimp or something?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “No boyfriend.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so incredibly pleasant.” I raised my eyebrows at her, and she flipped me off.

Mia burst into giggles as we left the parking lot, pulling out onto 64 and heading off Roanoke Island. The traffic backed up once we crossed the bridge into Nags Head, and Parker cursed, “Fucking tourists.”

“Watch your mouth around Mia.”

“I’m eighteen, Gray. It’s not like I haven’t heard the word ‘f*ck,’ or even said it a few times. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. See?” Mia stuck her tongue out. That girl was going to give a guy a run for his money one day. She’d love Sam.

I shut that thought down pronto. There was never going to be a reason for Mia to meet Sam.

“Well, you still act thirteen, so let’s hold off on the swearing. Especially around Mom. Unless you’d like to put on a show, in which case, I want to be there.” I rolled down the window and took a deep breath of the ocean air. This, I missed. Everything else? Not so much.

“It’s not like I have a death wish.” Mia laughed, poking me in the shoulder as I took my phone off airplane mode.

A text came through.

Unknown: Hey, where do you keep the cumin?

My eyebrows hit the roof.

Grayson: Who is this?

Unknown: Oh, come on. Like Josh or Jagger even know what cumin is?

A corner of my mouth lifted. Samantha. I entered her as the contact on the number, whispering her name as I spelled it out on the keyboard.

Grayson: What have you done with my kitchen?

Samantha: Wrecked it. There’s batter dripping from the light fixture.

I full-on snorted.

Grayson: Top shelf to the left of where we used to keep the coffee. Please be careful when you get it down. I’m not there to catch you this time.

My hands itched, remembering all too well the feel of her curves in my arms when she’d fallen, the way her gaze had dropped to my lips. Damn. Even a thousand miles away, I felt tethered to her by an attraction that only burned hotter the more time we spent together…the longer we lived together. Knowing Sam existed would be enough, but living with her heightened everything, like reverse immersion therapy or something.

Samantha: Then stop putting things where I can’t reach them.

“Smartass,” I muttered.

“Holy shit, is that…” Parker’s head whipped back to the road. “Is that a smile?”

“What’s different about you? You almost seem…happy?” Mia added in.

Happy? Everything in me locked down, like I’d been caught stealing, or worse…cheating. Sam’s face flashed through my mind, the way she’d fit perfectly against me on the bathroom floor, the softness of her skin setting fire to mine, and the scent of vanilla. That was ludicrous. Yes, I had…something for Sam, but it could hardly be considered cheating, right? I rolled up the window and focused on blinking brake lights as we crawled through the Memorial Day influx of tourists. “Nothing’s different.”

“Who’s Samantha?” Mia prodded, digging in.

“No one you need to worry about, imp. Just one of my roommates.” I regretted the words the moment they were out of my mouth.

“You live with a girl? Is she pretty? Nice?” Mia leaned forward so her head was between mine and Parker’s.

My jaw flexed as I gritted my teeth. “Yes, yes, and yes.”

“Does that mean—”

“It means nothing, Mia. She’s just a roommate.” Keep telling yourself that.

Parker shot me a sideways look but didn’t poke. “You want to go home and grab your car?”

I nodded, itching to feel the wheel of my 66 ? Mustang under my fingers. Mia filled the silence with details of her senior prom last weekend, from the dress to the corsage to the bullshit I didn’t care about but pretended to because she was my baby sister.

We pulled into the driveway as the sun started to set behind the house. “Thanks for the ride, Parker.” I grabbed my bag and tossed it into the passenger seat of my car, noting that it hadn’t been locked.

“Have you been driving my car?” I asked as Mia swung around one of the support stilts that raised our house off the sand.

“Headed to see Grace?” she asked, dodging.

“Uh huh. You wreck it, I wreck you. I don’t care how cute you are.” I raised my eyebrows. Yeah, she was definitely not getting near Sam. Those two could rule the world.

“Have fun!” She blew a kiss at me and flounced up the stairs. Something told me I was going to be killing off a few boys at UNC next year. “She’ll be happy to see you!” she called back over her shoulder before I started the ignition. She purred to life.

Gravel crunched under the tires as I pulled out of the driveway. Happy? Of all the things Grace was…happy to see me wasn’t going to be one of them. I let go of that dream years ago. Or at least tried to, but no matter how dead my hopes were, there was one impossible-to-kill kernel of faith that burned brighter than the darkness. It was that faith that kept me coming home to her.

But even that flame was fading, and I hated myself for it.

I fiddled with the radio, switching between the local stations as traffic moved at a snail’s pace until I reached Grace’s. Parking, I took a deep breath and curved the brim of my hat before heading in.