Page 60 of Her Pretty Words

He grabs my hand again and it’s so different than when Grayson does it. Everything about Walter is a stark contrast. He tugs me inside and my mom says, “We’ll leave you two to talk.”She turns to my dad, who is quick to open the sliding glass door and leave.

I’m frozen in disbelief. The man I detest is standing in the living room of my grandparent’s home. He is making himself cozy on the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table, not even bothering to remove his shoes. He drapes my grandma’s hand-knit blanket over his legs. “Come sit next to me.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a steady breath. “I have nothing to say. We’re broken up.”

“Sweetheart.” I wince at the endearment. In the beginning, I loved the pet name. Funny how three years later I never want to hear it again. “I know you’re mad about our video call. Ilikeyour small tits, so you don’t need a boob job. I was just annoyed when I said that, okay? Why don’t you start packing and we’ll leave in the morning?”

“Oh my God, you are so vapid!” I grip the back of a chair that’s tucked into the dinner table and say in a voice so calm it unnerves me. “Get out.”

He reels back and stares at me with pure shock. He opens his mouth to speak but then stops. I never peel my gaze away. I just watch him stumble over my rejection and then he finally speaks. “I was trying to be nice before, but you’re clearly on your period. Let me put it to you this way. You’re getting on a plane with me, you’re going to put my ring back on your finger and stop acting like a brat.” He’s off the couch and moving toward me.

“Get away from me,” I say through my teeth.

He doesn’t. His mouth is on mine again and this time I won’t let himhappento me. I take his bottom lip between my teeth and bite down as hard as I can.

“You fucking bitch!” he growls, bringing his finger to his lip to find it dripping scarlet. I almost crack a smile from the shock on his face.

“You need to leave. Right now,” I demand for the third time.

“This isn’t your house.” His lip splits into a sardonic smile, blood staining his teeth. “And your mom invited me to stay.” He sucks his injured lip to appear thoughtful. “I think I’ll go grab my luggage and put it inourroom.”

This house embodies a version of myself I’ve been striving to return to, and it’s in this very moment, standing with Walter in the space, that I realize he turns everything in his vicinity to gloom. I never knew misery until I met him. His pessimism rubbed off on me, and I haven’t been myself in three years. I used to frolic through this very living room as if it were a field of flowers. I danced my way through the day and saw the world for every bit of beauty that it is. The glass was always half full until he taught me to see the emptiness.

This vile man is going to corrupt my corner of heaven, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him, but I can leave.

He goes out front to grab his belongings from the driveway, where the Uber left it. He’s using one ofmysuitcases since he doesn’t leave the five-mile radius of our house to need his own.

I step into my sneakers, not bothering with socks. I knock on Grayson’s door, hoping he’ll answer before Walter sees where I went.

“Well,youaren’t Amazon.” All six wonderful feet of him greet me with dimples and an endearing grin. I glance at my house with unease which is quick to sober his expression. He steps aside for me to enter.

“What’s going on?” he asks in a fleeting voice, like he’s ready to fix whatever it is. His hands are on my face, cupping it tenderly. “Talk to me, Mace.”

I don’t want to. Once I voice it, it becomes real, and I’ll have to accept that everything I’ve been avoiding chased me here.

He stiffens from my silence. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No.” I sigh. “Walter is here with my parents,” I say with dread.

His lethal gazes set on the front door, blue eyes flaming with something terribly cruel. He is furious. I’ve never seen such a strong emotion from him. His pure hatred is aimed at a man he only knows for disrespecting me. Looking at his expression now, I’d never guess he’d have the capability of smiling, let alone possessing dimples.

“Hey,” I say, softly touching his cheek. His burning eyes touch mine and everything on his face melts away until he’smy Graysonagain.

I mean, until he’shimselfagain.

“Are you okay?” he asks, voice so gentle it contrasts the way he looked only a moment ago.

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

He runs his thumb over the seam of my lips, and it feels as if he’s washing away Walter’s kiss. “You bring out a lot in me, Mace, but murderous is a new one.” He lifts me and sets me on the counter, like when he tended to the shards of glass in my skin. But these wounds cut much deeper. “What are we going to do?”

We.

“I told him to get outthreetimes, but he just smiled at me and put his suitcase in my room.” I want to cry. “My mom invited him in. Told us to talk it out. She has no idea how awful he is, and it’s my fau?—”

Grayson cuts me off before I can finish the word. “Don’t you dare say it’s your fault.”

“But she doesn’t have a clue. She thinks I’m being dramatic over a small argument or something.”

---