Page 73 of The Best Wild Idea
“Ryan had called him as a last resort. Knowing if anyone was going to get me back home, it was going to be him. He flew Grant out here to talk some sense into me.”
I narrow my eyes at the depths of water around us, then lie back, my face growing hot beneath the sun.
“I wasn’t sure if he ever told you that.”
“No, he most certainly did not.”
“That’s the only thing he ever kept from you,” he assures me, watching how my face has morphed with this unexpected news.
“How would you know that? He also planned this whole bloody trip right under my nose without me knowing.”
“Because Grant always told me everything. Regardless, it worked. I flew back with him and got to work. For some things, it was already too late. By the time I returned, you wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. Grant and my friendship was hanging by a thread. I don’t think he wanted me around you any more at that point. I wasunpredictable, in his words. And nowI’m aware that he always knew how I—” He stops talking to push a hand through his hair.
“Knew what?” I ask.
Silas lifts his eyes toward mine. He somehow looks apologetic and unapologetic at the same time.
Startled, I watch him until it becomes clear. He doesn’t have to say the words out loud for me to know what he’s thinking.
Neither one of us feels the need to confirm it.
He runs his tongue along his teeth then turns out toward the sea. I don’t press him more, but my heart thumps louder.
“I get why you weren’t okay with me by that point,” he adds.
“I wanted nothing to do with you by then,” I say quietly, feeling gut-punched. “I remember now. It was after that dress shopping weekend I had in New York.”
He glances down at the deck, nodding.
“I deserved everything I had coming,” he says, finally smiling ruefully.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, shaking my head. “I didn’t know what loss felt like back then. I had no idea how much it could change you. Like the actual DNA of who you are before and after can morph into something you don’t even recognize in yourself.”
“The whole time I was out here, the only thing I wanted to get back to was you—”
“And Grant,” I finish for him, not allowing that sentiment to stand alone. Even for one second.
He laughs gently. “And Grant,” he agrees, nodding.
“So, you came back.”
“And the first thing I did was give Grant that building, hoping it would show you guys how much I’d changed. That, and I was trying to help.”
“The Smithfield.” I exhale the word.
“When you told me that you thought it could have had something to do with his illness—”
“But it didn’t,” I interrupt. “I’m glad I know the truth, but I do regret bringing it up like I did.”
“It could have been the biggest fuck up of my entire life, Jules.”
“It wasn’t though. I wish we hadn’t lost so much time to stupid mistakes and assumptions. We were so close,” I say, sadly, wishing I could take back all those years we drifted apart over something, in hindsight, he had such little control over. Something I shouldn’t have blamed him for at all. “I was too hard-headed to give you another chance,” I admit. But then I add, “Until now.”
He grins, looking like years of stress is finally draining out of him.
“Right,” he agrees, leaning back so the sun washes over him. “Until now.”
Chapter 33
