Eleanor & Grey(57)

“Don’t, Eleanor.”

“But—”

She looked up to me, with tears in her eyes as she shook her head. “Please. Don’t.”

Brian frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I guess we’ll catch up later, Karla.”

“Probably not,” she said dryly as he hurried away to walk Satan to class.

“Who are they?” I asked, and she grumbled as we continued toward her classroom.

“The ghosts of Karla’s past,” she muttered, not letting me in any more than that.

It was nice to know high school was still hell on Earth.

At least some things never changed.





34





Greyson





“How have you been sleeping?” Claire asked as we sat down for our regular Tuesday lunch date. I didn’t have the desire to meet her every week, but Claire was stubborn that way. If I didn’t meet with her, she’d sit in the office lobby of EastHouse and play Journey songs on full blast. It amazed me how one’s mind could just snap after the third round of hearing “Don’t Stop Believing.”

So, I met her for lunch once a week, even though it was still hard to look at her.

“I’ve been sleeping fine,” I replied, biting into my sandwich.

“You’re lying,” she told me.

She was right, but it didn’t matter.

My eyelids were heavy, and sometimes in meetings I’d doze off. It felt as if my entire system was running on espresso and energy drinks. It was the only thing that kept me going. Healthy? No. Good for my soul? Probably not. But I didn’t really care much as long as I wasn’t sleeping.

She placed her fork down and sat back in her chair, studying me. She was so good at that, too, staring my way and being able to tell when I wasn’t okay. Most people learned to leave me alone and let me be, but she and Landon always kept pushing me to open up, even though I tried my best to keep them at a distance.

“Greyson, it’s not healthy, the way you’re not sleeping. You should really talk to someone about it,” she told me. “Jack and I have been really concerned.” Jack was Claire’s new husband. She’d lost Nicole’s father a few years back, and for a long time, she thought she’d be alone for the rest of her days. But then Jack kind of swept in and changed her mind.

Claire leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “I just worry about you not resting. Especially with the approaching days…”

“I’m fine,” I told her once again, cutting off her thought process.

Still a lie, and still, it didn’t matter.

The truth was, I hadn’t been sleeping. I fought against it tooth and nail each and every night. It appeared that the only time I had a decent night’s sleep was when I curled up in a bed with my daughter, who kicked in her sleep.

“Greyson, I know with the anniversary—”

“How’s work?” I asked, cutting into her sentence once more.

She grimaced but sat back, knowing it was time to change the subject.

She pushed me all the time, but she knew her limits. She knew when pushing wasn’t going to lead to a good result, so she pulled back. Claire had always been so good at reading people, and she knew how to read me inside and out, even without me speaking up on my feelings.

“Work is good,” she told me with a small smile. She went on to talk about anything and everything else that wasn’t me. I was thankful for that because I was too tired to think about me, and I was too heartbroken to think about the days that were approaching.





Three-to-one.

That was how it always went. Their three votes always defeated my one.

The problem with being the only male in your family is that you are often outnumbered when it comes to votes. I wasn’t even sure why my opinion was requested, as it never seemed to matter, but they always asked my thoughts on the topic at hand.

“We had Italian last weekend when we went out,” I argued during our dinner debate. “Plus, we have pasta every Monday. Aren’t you guys tired of pasta?”

“Nope,” Lorelai said, hopping into her car seat. I buckled her in quickly before getting into the driver’s seat.

“Not really.” Karla shrugged.

Why did they never crave steak?

All I really wanted was a big, fat, juicy steak.

“We should go to Palmer’s Italian House!” Karla exclaimed, making me groan even more, because it was over an hour’s drive away, and the rain was hammering down outside. It would take even longer than normal to get there.

I looked over to Nicole and narrowed my eyes. “What do you want?” I asked her.

Please say steak. Please say steak.

She shrugged. “Palmer’s breadsticks do sound amazing. Plus, it is Lorelai’s birthday, so I think she should get to decide.”

“Palmers! Palmers!” she hollered, pounding her hands against her legs.

Welp. There it was.

We started the trek to Palmer’s, which involved a lot of twisty roads and wooded areas.

As I drove, I glanced down at my ringing cell phone to see Rob Turner’s name flashing on the screen. He was an employee of mine, and I knew he was working on things back at EastHouse. Normally, I answered his calls in an instant, but it was Saturday evening, and we had a strict rule in our family: No work on Saturday nights.