Beyond What is Given(60)

“So you’re not moving back to Nags Head.”

I scoped out her wineglass to see if she was drunk. Hadn’t he clarified that?

“No,” Grayson answered.

“You mean not yet.” Mr. Masters’ glare could have cut Grayson in two.

“I mean not any time in the near future, if ever. I haven’t decided.” My heartbeat rushing in my ears was the only sound in the silence that followed.

Every eye at the table was locked on Grayson, who nonchalantly took a bite of his potatoes. “These are really good, Mom.”

Take the peace offering.

“But, but…” Parker stuttered, and I braced for impact. “But you can’t not live here. What about Grace?”

Boom. There was not enough wine in the world to deal with this dinner.

“I think I deserve a life, too. A future.” Grayson spoke each word slowly, with a kindness I couldn’t have shown in the same situation. A small sliver of hope embedded in my heart, just strong enough to hold my deepest fears momentarily at bay. A future.

“And what did my Grace deserve?” Tess fired.

“What about your copilots, Gray?” Mr. Masters came in for the kill. “Don’t you think they deserve to live? You have no right to be in the cockpit. You’ll get someone killed…just like before.”

My mouth dropped. His father still blamed him. It was no wonder Grayson kept his life neatly compartmentalized. He was perpetually under attack at home. His muscles coiled beneath my hand.

“That’s enough!” Mrs. Masters stood, her chair falling to the ground behind her. “Gray, this is your life. We might not like your choices, but you’re a grown man. Honey, get over it. Joey’s been running the shop with you for years and has more than earned her place, agreement or none. Tess, Ian—I love you as family, but if you ever insinuate that Grayson was responsible for Grace’s…condition, you will no longer be welcome in my home.”

Grayson pushed back from the table. I followed him, since he still held my hand. In my other, I clutched the study guide that had brought this all on. “Mama,” he whispered as he kissed his mother’s cheek. Then he turned to the table, where everyone sat as if they’d been frozen. “We’ll be leaving now.”

With a hand at my lower back, he led me into the house while the table remained eerily silent behind us.

I buckled into his Mustang as he threw the car into drive and tore out of his parents’ driveway. Grayson’s face was a mask of harsh angles and unforgiving lines. When I reached for his hand, he moved it away.

I didn’t try again.

We pulled into the rental, but he didn’t kill the engine, or even look my way. His gaze was fixed ahead of us, on his past, no doubt on Grace, on everything that had been thrown in his face tonight. He was as close as my next breath and as unreachable as yesterday. I had to find a way to get through to him. “Stay with me tonight.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I waited.

“Okay. I have to get my stuff from my parents’ house and deal with…all that.”

I cupped his stubble-rough cheek in my hand. “I’ll wait. And Grayson. You’re amazing and deserve to fly. If they can’t see that, I’m sorry. But you do. I’ll pin your wings on myself if they don’t come around.”

“Promise?”

“On my life.” He deserved so much better. Yes, he was leaving in five months, and yes, under that insanely jumpable exterior lurked the hottest mess of a man I’d ever seen. But maybe, if I could put my own emotional baggage to the side for a minute, I could help him the same way he’d been helping me since I got to Alabama.

He never looked me in the eye, but he pressed a kiss to my palm in way of good-bye and drove away once I had the front door to the house open.

He was at war with the two sides of himself. I could see it as clearly as if there were literally two of him. I just didn’t know which one would be coming back to me.

I was also too far gone to care. Maybe I could save both sides.





Chapter Nineteen


Sam


“Come on,” Morgan begged as she leaned back into the passenger side of the Yukon. “You know you want to come dancing. Grayson is as moody as they come, and this is vacation.”

“It sounds like a ton of fun”—and right up my usual alley—“but I just can’t.”

“You’re leaving me with him?” She tilted her head toward where Will waited, his arms crossed.

“Something tells me you’ll be just fine.” I smiled. Like I hadn’t seen the sparks between those two. They were more metal-on-metal than kindling-a-fire sparks, but they were there.

Jagger took her place in the open door frame as Morgan looped arms with Paisley to head inside the bar. “Look at you, all grown up and not coming out drinking.”

“Yeah, well, I’d hate for Grayson to have to pull me off another bar.” If he bothered to come looking.

“You sure this is what you want to do?”

The dashboard clock said eleven o’clock. It had been over four hours since Grayson left me. “Yes,” I answered.

“That guy has walls thicker than China.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever really tried to break through them. He deserves someone who will show up with a bulldozer.” And maybe two hundred pounds of C-4, or hell, even a nuke.