Page 60 of Those Heartbreak Scars

“Okay?” He smiles softly, his eyes softening for the first time since the car ride.

“Yes.”

He tips his head and brushes his lips over mine. I lean into him, opening to him when his tongue touches my lips. Letting my eyes flutter closed while he explores the soft crevices of my mouth. Tasting the salt of the tears I’ve cried.

I kiss him back while I let Gray go. Maybe it’ll take time to forget about him. Perhaps it will always hurt when I think about him. But I will no longer give in to this miserable hope I’ve had since he showed up here. Everett deserves everything, so that’s what he’ll get from me.

He breaks the kiss. His gaze drinks me in as he rubs his thumb across my lips. I smile for him though I think it’ll be a while before I can smile again without any sadness.

“I’m going to go,” he says. “As much as I’d rather stay, I think Dove might need you. But I’ll call you later, okay?”

I nod.

He starts for the steps without letting go of my hand. The move turns my whole body, and there on the garden path stands Gray.

The rain cascades down around him, but he doesn’t seem to notice that he’s soaked to the bone. Or that it drips from his hair into his eyes.

Which are plastered to me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gray

I’ve made a huge mistake.

I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t getting attached to America. That I didn’t want something real when my heart is still broken.

But that’s not true. Watching America kiss him feels like hell, and a little like heartbreak. Every breath I drag into my lungs hurts with the need to tell her that I was wrong to ask her to pretend to keep seeing him. That I should have kept her close and not given her yet another reason to hate me.

“Hey, Grayson.” Everett drags my attention away from America. “It’s a bit wet to be standing around outside, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt.” I try to temper my jealousy with friendliness. He’s not a bad guy. He might not even be the player I told myself he was to justify my own actions.

And I still need to sign him.

“Just winning my girl back,” Everett says nonchalantly as I join them under the portico. “Can’t have anyone swooping in and trying to steal her away.”

Did she tell him? Am I fucked? No. She must not have because he’s not acting like someone who knows their enemy. A glance in her direction earns the smallest of headshakes.

I still have a job. It only cost me her. My friend. The girl I was fast becoming addicted to. She would have slipped through my fingers anyway. She would have given me up for Indy eventually. So I gave her up first for the things that still matter to me.

I gave her up, and try as I might to blame Indy—I could definitely find multiple ways to lay blame on her for screwing me up—it doesn’t feel right to put this one on her. “No, you can’t. Not this girl. You don’t know how lucky you are to have her.”

“Don’t worry about that.” He grins and lifts their joined hands, kissing her knuckles. “I know she’s out of my league.”

“As long as you know.” I didn’t. I had no clue. All these years I had no inkling that the girl I thought was important to me would break my heart, and the girl that I thought was my friend would be the one who would breathe new life into me.

“What are you doing here, Gray?” America asks as the rain slows to a stop.

I wanted to apologize. I wanted to check in when she wouldn’t answer her phone. Now, I don’t know. “I was in the area.”

Her eyebrows lift.

She probably doesn’t believe me. I don’t believe me. I’m not sure I know who I am anymore.

“Since you’re here, why don’t you and I go grab a pint and talk about our possibly working together,” Everett says.

“Well, actually…” I glance to America. She’s the reason I’m here. Not Mann. Not my job.

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