Page 48 of Return to Us
“With you . . . tonight. I can . . . I mean . . . we can just . . . sleep.”
Each muscle in my body locks, and I push myself up. “That would be . . .” This time, it’s not my brain that won’t allow the words to come, it’s my heart.
I want to say yes. To feel him hold me tight and chase the dream away, but I kissed him today. Being close to him is messing with my head and all I can hear is my therapist talking about how Grayson and I have unresolved issues.
It would be incredibly stupid to do this.
“Yeah,” Grayson finishes. “You being in here is hard enough. I don’t think I could do it.”
“I tried to switch with Delia.”
“I think they’re trying to fuck with us.”
I softly laugh. “I’m sure of it.”
Grayson clears his throat. “If you need me . . .”
“You’re just down the hall,” I say with a grin. “I swear I’ve heard that before.”
“Hey, I was a gentleman the last time we came here.”
“You were. You gave me this room and said if I wanted you, I just had to come and knock.”
Grayson shakes his head. “I waited up all night, just in case you did.”
“I didn’t even knock once before you opened the door,” I tease him.
“I heard your footsteps.”
It took me two full hours to work up the nerve. It didn’t matter that we’d slept together already, I was nervous. We spent prom weekend here, learning how to love and what it meant to give yourself to another. Then, we went home, where the world—more specifically, his parents—didn’t want us to be together. For weeks, we were both thrown into events, parties, school functions that kept us apart.
We tried to sneak off, but we were so damn tired from running all day that we never made it to the lookout.
Then Grayson and I came back here, but there was a wall that had been erected and we had to break it down.
“I loved you, Gray. I really did.”
He pushes my hair back from my face, cupping my cheek. “I know.”
“Leaving you wasn’t easy.”
“Losing you was harder,” he admits.
My hand wraps around his wrist, holding on when I should be pushing him away. “You found someone else.”
His hand drops, and I feel cold. “I didn’t. I found what my parents wanted me to find.”
“You can talk to me . . . if you want.”
He cracks his neck and there’s a tenseness in his voice. “Yvonne was everything they hoped for. She was wealthy, smart, talented, and selfish beyond measure. Although, I didn’t really care about that. I was angry with you, and being with her was . . . I don’t fucking know, it was just dumb. We met in grad school. I was being groomed to take over the Park Inn and she was singing. My whole goal was to be better than my father. To make more, have a better wife, family, job. It was all I cared about. Yvonne fit because she was like me.”
“How so?”
He turns his head, looking out the window. “She had horrible parents and told me how she wanted to prove them wrong. So, we dated, it was about two years in, and it was time.”
“Time to get married?” I ask.
Grayson’s eyes meet mine, the moonlight making them appear almost gray and hollow. “Yes, but we didn’t have plans, Jess. We didn’t lie in bed, her in my arms as I traced patterns on her back, dreaming of the life we’d have. I didn’t talk about kids and hopes with her. We talked about money and material things she wanted.”
