Page 58 of Seeking Two Lovers

“My shift manager offered me to switch on Thursday, and of course, I said yes. Then he walked in—”

“Lily.”

She cut off abruptly at Grey’s gentle interruption.

“Let B speak.”

“Sorry.” She nipped at her lower lip. “I tend to talk too much when I’m nervous.”

“It’s okay, but I’d like to hear how he felt the first time he saw you.”

Big brown eyes turned toward me without an ounce of annoyance over Grey’s ending her word vomit I’d been enjoying.

I opened my mouth, and my answer spewed out. “Hot. Insecure. Overwhelmed. Dry mouth. Jittery insides.”

Lily’s smile shone over the garden in my heart, bursting new life from darkness.

“She asked me to dinner, so I wasn’t the one who made the first move,” I said, holding her gaze.

“But you suggested the late lunch instead,” she murmured.

I nodded. “The words just spilled. I didn’t think first, or I never would have asked you out.”

Lily’s eyes softened with understanding.

My heart stuttered in my chest as that bubble seemed to wrap around us again.

“And?” Grey prompted after a few long seconds of her and I staring at one another.

Clearing my throat, I gave him my attention. His focus flitted between me and Lily, his expression unguarded and open.

Not the façade he usually put on with hookups, the one ingrained from childhood. Fake and pleasant, suave and smooth to attain whatever he wanted. For the first time with a woman between us, he was Grey. The boy I knew like the back of my hand, the man who didn’t hide shit from me.

He feels the same as I do.

My breaths shortened at the thought, a strange ache spreading over my chest at his desire for honesty—and more than a one-night stand with Lily.

“We talked,” I finally answered after swallowing hard. “Connected.”

Lily threaded her fingers through mine, clasping my hand on her thigh again.

“Somewhat similar upbringings made conversation easy,” I told Grey what I’d already shared before Lily had shown up.

Grey studied my face as though wondering just how much I’d told her. Still, no jealousy showed in his eyes over the fact that another person had made me comfortable enough to talk about some of the shit of my past.

He was the only one outside the compound who knew what I’d experienced.

“We went back to her place and kissed,” I said, shrugging and trailing off.

“And that’s it?” Grey pushed.

I nodded.

“You didn’t want more?” Grey asked Lily.

“I did,” she answered quietly, “but Blaine seemed…unsure.” She squeezed my hand. “Not ready.”

I could feel Grey’s stare.

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