Page 50 of Grayson

When he simply smiles at me and shakes his head I wonder what I could have said that was humorous.

“No,” he says only the one word that confuses me.

“No?”

“No.” He shakes his head like that one word explains everything.

“Just no?”

“No to the break, no to someone else, and no to the less baggage and no teenager, no to it all,” he clarifies and I stare at him.

“You can’t just say no.” Was he crazy?

“I can and I did. This is bullshit, all of it. You and me,” he waves a finger between us, “we are happening, we aren’t calling it quits. If you want to be mad at me, if Tori wants to keep on planning to kill me in my sleep, fine. But I’m not walking away, you aren’t hiding from me, and we aren’t quitting.”

“It’s not only up to you.”

“I think it is.” He moves closer hooking my waist. “You’re using the excuse that I’ve not let anyone in as a reason to push me away and I don’t accept that. Maybe it’s because there was no one ever worth the effort until you. No one ever gave me the feeling you gave me right from the start.”

“Are you insane? What feeling?”

“Very few people have ever been able to make me feel settled and comforted just by being near them. A peace that surrounds you like a shield and when you’re inside that space everything is exactly as it should be. Scarlett always referred to it as a warm blanket on the coldest night and I never truly got it until I got close enough to you that night at Ruby’s. Instantly it washed over me and I’ll admit it freaked me out. It knocked the air from my lungs.”

“You walked away like your ass was on fire.”

He chuckles at my words. “I walked away to catch my breath. I walked away so that I could regain my footing because it felt like you rocked the floor beneath my feet. You scared me, but I’m not scared anymore.”

“Well, I am scared.” Tears pool in my eyes and I look down to hide them.

Threading his fingers through mine he leads me to the couch, pulling me down on his lap.

“What are you scared of?”

I regret saying the words and I attempt to shy away. Only Grayson doesn’t let me.

“What are you afraid of, Skye?” He urges me, skimming over my jaw with his knuckles. “Tell me so I can chase away those fears.”

“Falling,” I say in a whisper, “it’s been Tori and me against the world. We hold each other up but what I realized over the last couple days is that you don’t just hold the ability to crush me but you have the power to crush her too and I can’t chance that.”

Tears fall and my chest feels so heavy.

“I can’t let you decide one day that this isn’t enough and you break her in the process. Me, I’ll survive, I’ll push through for her. But she’s already lost so much and I have to protect her.”

“You’ve lost too.” He wipes away the tear from my cheek. “What if I want to be the one to protect you and her. What if I want to be the person that keeps you both safe?”

I’d had tonight planned in my head. I knew what I needed to say to end things. I had my mind made up that it was for the best.

Yet now, sitting on Grayson’s lap, him holding me like I mean the world to him while saying everything I never realized I needed to hear, all thoughts I had were being rewritten.

Leaning in I let my body lead and I press a kiss to his lips. Tears gather at our joined lips and he pulls me in closer deepening our kiss. The saltiness doing nothing to stop us.

“From the start, I was falling, Skye. I was falling hard and I was falling fast.”

34

Grayson Hawk

Without breaking our kiss, Skye starts to reposition her body so she is now straddling my lap. With her hands on either side of my face she deepens our kiss and everything starts to realign. Suddenly the anxiety I felt coming over here and the nervous energy I had developed the second she started to push me away was being soothed.

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