Page 32 of Grayson

I now hold the undivided attention of all three of them.

“I was just curious of the details, so I was going to try and look it up.”

“Why don’t you just ask her?” Cooper asks.

“Yeah, hey Skye, how are things? Did you see the landlord finally fixed the light about the outside door? Oh and by the way, tell me about the accident that killed your parents.”

“Well, not like that.” He literally rolls his eyes at me. I consider grabbing the pillow that is now on the floor and holding it over his head until he stops kicking.

“I don’t like talking about how my mom ran out on my dad more than twenty-three years ago. I’m pretty sure talking about a car accident that took the life of the two people that raised you would be a little more difficult. Nothing like killing the mood and kicking off a first date with a question like that.”

“Wait.” Hollywood hurriedly sits up and holds his hands out to shush everyone. He looks around at them and then back to me. The room is now quiet. “Did you just say first date?”

I realize my mistake the moment he speaks the words.

“I feel like I just got hit by a train at lightning speed, you said date,” he repeats.

“You did.” Hayes smiles wide, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, fine.” No reason to lie my way out. “We’re supposed to hang out tomorrow night.”

“Hang out?” Cooper stands and walks toward me, leaning his hip against the desk. “Hang out, hang out?” He bobs his head in a playful manner. “Or hang out?” This time he gets that knowing mischievous look on his face, an added shimmy of his brows.

“Dude, are you twelve?” I ask him, making the other guys chuckle.

“What? I saw her at Ruby’s with Scarlett and,” again he wags his brows, and right then I seriously want to take out his knee.

“Do I normally go on dates with the woman I hang out with?” I match his tone and the wag of his brows to emphasize my point.

“Not usually.”

“Okay then.” Turning back to the computer I give them my back.

“Okay then,” Cooper repeats. “Let’s do a little digging on your girl then. You going on a date is a big deal, we can’t let you go screwing it up.”

With a flip of his wrist the screen starts to load and suddenly there it is. A picture of a mangled piece of metal that once was a car. A pole, against the driver’s side, right where the driver would be.

“Shit,” one of the guys mumbles but I can’t pull my eyes away from the screen to see who. But their tones are a mirror to what I am feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Two local residents die in a head-on collision with an intoxicated trucker,”

I read the words, more to myself as I scan over the article. Flipping through one screen after another I find a picture of Skye, holding a crying Tori, with her head buried against her older sister’s shoulder. Skye is staring ahead, as if lost in thought.

“Fuck,” one of the guys mumbles.

My chest aches to the point of a burning sensation throughout my entire torso. Here I am running from any possible chance of a future and Skye’s was stolen from her.

I wonder what she’d been going to school for.

I wonder what she was like before she had the rug torn out from beneath her feet.

The desire to hold them both and give them back a sense of the security they lost overtakes every other thought. I want to protect them. I want to make sure that neither of them ever feel the kind of pain they did that night and all the ones to follow.

It was all so new, but for once it didn’t scare me.

22

Skye Simmons

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