Page 49 of Always Been Yours

I do my best to avoid seeing or hearing about my ex-fiancé at all costs, but I was thankful that they let me know they had seen him in town recently, hopefully just visiting his parents. After we graduated from UCLA, I have successfully avoided him and Molly, despite the fact their families still live here.

I didn’t ask how or what they knew about Brody and me, but between the sympathetic looks Knox couldn’t hide and the flames burning in Lucas’s eyes, they knewenough.

Just like the rest of this town.

“Where’s Grady?” Knox’s asks his husband.

I’m notavoidingGrady per se, not again. We saw each other a few times at lunch, with Selena, in the break room and we had gone to city hall to get a permit for the pier together earlier in the week, but there’s something different between us.

There’s always been a sort of taut pull toward Grady, a tug that I’ve never been able to ignore, but now it feels like that string between us is on fire. And we could either succumb to whatever it is or let it burn right through that invisible thread holding us together.

I don’t know what to do with that. Not after his birthday a few weeks ago.

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday. I didn’t realize you were coming to the game together.” I try to sound indifferent, but I know from the way Knox’s arm momentarily tightens around me that he knows I’m anything but.

“We can go sit somewhere else… if you want.”

“Don’t be silly.” I wave his suggestion away. “I see him walking up now.”

I watch Grady make his way up the bleachers toward us. Toward me, if the way he won’t look anywhere else is any indication.

He looks warm in his perfectly fitted jeans and High Tides hoodie with a light parka over it. And of course, his Adidas with the green stripes down the side. It still makes me smile to think he hasn’t grown out of his favorite shoes.

He doesn’t only look warm though.

No, Grady looks handsome with his boyish charm most days but when he lets his eyes sweep across my body like a lover’s caress and bites his bottom lip to hide his growing smirk, Grady looks fuckingdelicious.

I want to run my tongue across those smug ass lips untilhis face is heated in the way only I have ever accomplished, and his hair ruffled from my hands rather than the wind.

From the way his eyes darken as he gets closer, I’m sure he can read every filthy thought running through my mind.

I don’t get up when he joins us, mostly for the fact that it’s cold, but also a little bit because I’m too busy clenching my thighs together in hopes that my pulsing center will calm down.

None of my siblings or Lexi get up either, probably not wanting to get booted from the large blanket they’re currently having a silent war over.

Lucas quickly gives a haphazard reason to go sit beside his husband, leaving the seat directly next to me empty. Skeptically, I shoot him and Knox a look, but they pretend to be interested in the game.

Grady sits, and I silently unwrap the blanket from my shoulders and lay it across my lap, offering him half.

“Thanks,” he mumbles. He takes the corner I offer and slides a few inches closer to me. “I forgot that it actually gets kind of cold here.”

That makes me chuckle for some reason. “Yeah, I’ve never been to Phoenix, but I can imagine it’s a shock to your system some days.”

“It is. But it’s nice, too. The only thing Arielle,” he starts as he shoots me a questioning look, unsure if this is an okay topic to breach, “and I agreed on toward the end of our marriage was that the dry heat was far worse than the humidity we were both accustomed to.”

I’ve never allowed myself to ask questions about Grady’s ex-wife after that first dinner at his parents’ house. The mere thought of her has always been a bucket of ice water to my nervous system. Even hearing her name roll off his lips so naturallyis grating my nerves, but I can’t fight the curiosity any longer.

Plus,hebrought it up first.

“Last time, you said she’s not from here?”

“No,” he shakes his head. He doesn’t look sad necessarily but maybe… guilty? Discouraged? “She’s from Manhattan. That’s where she moved back to.”

“Why?” The question flies out of me before I can tamper down the anger I hear in my voice.

Grady’s small smile tells me that he understands what I’m asking. “She was studying theater and English when we first met, and she was able to still graduate on time after finding out that she was pregnant with Stella, but she was never able to use those skills. To chasethatdream.”

‘… but she was just a little girl with a big dream.’

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