Page 61 of Play Me
“I meant a mental health expert,” he says, licking a drop of juice from his bottom lip. His eyes are the clearest, most unguarded they’ve been since I’ve known him. “But I’ll handle those appointments. I kind of just make them when I need them.”
Oh.
We watch each other carefully, both of us searching the other’s gaze. I think he’s gauging my response to his admission. I’m just hoping this isn’t what will make him switch intocold Gray modeagain.
I clutch my pen, listening to each breath that fills my lungs. Gray doesn’t look away or frown. He stands in front of me and lets me see …him. It’s almost as if he’s reassuring me that he’s holding true to his promise to make this work between us, and that he wants me to know it. That he’s giving me this one super-personal bit of information as a token of faith.
“Does that surprise you?” he asks, his voice gravelly.
I place my pen on the clipboard and take a breath. “Honestly? Yeah. It does. I mean, a lot of people, men specifically, it seems, have a hard time talking about mental health.” I give him a half grin. “But I think it’s great you have someone to talk to, and I appreciate you telling me that.”
He holds a slice of orange in the air, and I put my palm out.
“You’re probably thinking that if I’d see my therapist more, I’d be less of a dickhead, huh?” he asks, grinning.
I laugh as the tightness in my chest releases. “They’re a therapist, not a magician.”
Gray pops another slice of fruit into his mouth, and his jaw moves as he chews. He eats slowly. Intentionally. It’s as if he’s unbothered with me in his space and is living his best confident, alpha life.
I shiver. “That’s all the questions that I had for you.” I climb off the stool, my skin tingling from the thoughts splashing around in my head—thoughts that have absolutely no business being in my brain. “I better get going.”
“Did you get everything you needed from me?”
Oh, the comments Gianna would make right now.I eat the piece of orange in one bite and then pick up my bag. “I expected to leave here with a couple of answers and a giant headache. So unless you do your famous one-eighty on me, I’ll leave with the answers and no headache. And I’m not mad about that.”
His chuckle is low and deep. He leads me to the door and pulls it open.
“What’s that all about?” I ask.
“It’s hard for me to think that you’re not mad about something,” he says, leaning against the doorframe.
I laugh, stopping beside him. “I’m not out of here yet. You still have time to piss me off.”
Fresh air flows into the house, picking up notes of Gray’s cologne and swirling them around me. The way he looks my way—curiously, but also without the hatred I’m used to—stirs a soft sense of vulnerability inside me. A warmth climbs up my neck and colors my cheeks, and I know he notices.How could he not?
He starts to speak but stops himself and then starts again. “This coming week is a bye week.”
I nod, my tongue too thick to allow words to form.
“I’m probably going to head back to Sugar Creek for the weekend.”
Where’s that water when I need it?“Okay. Do you need me to make your reservations at a hotel or something?”
He smiles. Not a grin and not a smirk. An ear-to-earsmilethat is unlike any I’ve seen from him yet.
“There’s not a hotel in Sugar Creek,” he says with another chuckle. “I’ll stay with my brother at the ranch.”
The ranch?I shake my head and hold up a finger, suddenly sparked back to life.
“Whoa. Hold up a second,” I say. “Your brother has a ranch?”
“Yup. I grew up there. It’s been in our family for over one hundred years.”
I laugh freely, imagining Gray with a cowboy hat and boots. It’s so different from this Gray—the sweatpants-and-T-shirt-wearing athlete in front of me. It’s nearly impossible to see. “Youwere a cowboy?”
He snorts. “Hardly. I got out of as much of that as I could. Thank God that Hartley, my brother, loved that shit. It saved me hours of work.”
“Gray the cowboy,” I tease as I step onto his small porch. His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Did you have stirrups and the whole bit?”
