by LJ Evans
I turned, and our lips were almost touching. “Succeeding at what?”
“Making Mayson jealous. Making him regret whatever it is that went wrong between the two of you.”
“There’s nothing between us,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.
Dalton smiled. “Sure, sweetheart. So, if I were to kiss you, you’d let me, and he wouldn’t try to kick my ass?”
“If you kiss me, you’re gonna get this pool stick shoved up your—”
I was interrupted by his lips on mine.
They were there for all of two seconds before large hands pulled me from behind with such force I stumbled back into the male body tugging at me. Into Mayson who’d always been muscle and mass and heavenly scent.
“We’re done here,” Mayson said, and the barely controlled anger in his voice made me cheer. I wanted him angry. I wanted him angry because it was at least a different emotion than the sweet pleas he’d been giving me for months. The sweet pleas had felt like they were lacking the passion I wanted him to have on the subject of us.
Dalton extended to his full height, matching Mayson muscle for muscle.
“Aw, damn, Cuz. You’re ruining all my fun.”
“Go find fun somewhere else. This one is off-limits.”
I pushed away from him, growling, “You don’t have any right—”
But my boots were not keeping up with my drunk, and I was slipping, falling backward, and Mayson caught me again. Holding me tight up against his chest, steadying me, and, at the same time, making my pulse rocket into such a ferocious beat I was sure it was going to fail altogether.
“Stop!” Mayson growled at me. “Just stop. Before you end up hurting yourself, or me, or someone else.”
I pushed against him, but he didn’t let me go.
“Why do you give a shit?” I asked. It was muffled in the button-down shirt he was wearing. As if he had dressed up for me, because Mayson was rarely in anything but a T-shirt and beat-up jeans.
“Everything okay here?” a sweet voice asked, and I turned my head to see Edie, with her enormous pregnant belly, standing beside us. She was exchanging looks with Dalton and Mayson like she was going to start pulling them by their ears and tucking them into corners for a time-out.
Dalton laughed. “I was just fixing things, Eds. That’s all.”
“Kissing Grace is not a way to fix anything. It’s a way to end up in an early grave,” Mayson continued his growl.
Edie put a hand on Mayson’s arm. “Calm down.”
“We’re leaving,” Mayson said, turning to Edie. “Do you think you could give us a ride?”
“Sure,” Edie said just as I said, “I’m not leaving. I still have at least a half a drink left.”
I turned and found Dalton downing the rest of my rum and Coke. It had been my fourth or fifth one in less than two hours. I really was drunk.
“That was mine,” I complained, and Dalton grinned at me.
“I think you’d better leave with my cousin, darlin’, before he explodes.” He was winking and swaggering. The most goddamn cliché of a rodeo man there ever was. Mayson and I would have argued over him for hours if he’d been in a movie we were watching. I would have said the writer was lazy for giving in to all the stereotypes of cowboys. And yet, here one was, living and breathing that exact label.
I blew out a breath of frustration, pushing again at the muscled arm that had secured me to a chest that was causing my body to ignite. “Fine, but let me go. I can walk.”
Mayson did as I’d asked, but when I turned to retrieve my bag from the bar, I wobbled again. Mayson was there in a heartbeat, wrapping his arm around my waist, and then picking me up and carrying me like I was some sort of child.
“Put me down!” I demanded, and he didn’t even look at me. I could see his jaw ticking away in anger. His teeth grinding together.
“Edie, will you grab her bag? I’ll meet you at your car.”
Then, he was taking long strides through the bar with his cousins and sibling catcalling and hollering after us. It was fucking embarrassing. It was fucking pissing me off.
My stomach lurched. I was afraid I was going to throw up.
The cool air hit me, instantly sending chills over my bare back exposed in my midriff blouse. Mayson set me down next to a huge SUV that belonged in a military movie.
Edie came hurrying over, her baby weight not getting in the way of her graceful movements. She’d always been tied in my head with a dancer. I tried to remember if that was because she’d been one. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t keep tabs on Mayson’s family.
I heard the doors unlock, and I turned to get in, holding back a wave of nausea that hit me. Before I could hike myself into the tall vehicle, Mayson lifted me and put me in the seat. He grabbed the seat belt and buckled me in, looking into my eyes as he went by, stilling, eyes going to my lips and then back to my eyes.
Kiss me, my body screamed, but my blurry head was still objecting.
“Are you going to puke?” he asked.
I wanted to laugh at his unromantic words—so not anything that would be in the romance movie my girly heart was aching for.
I shrugged because, in truth, my stomach was still rolling.
“Here.” Edie was shoving a plastic grocery bag in our direction. Mayson put it in my lap and then climbed around to the other side, sitting next to me.
Edie started the SUV, and the motion made my stomach loll to one side.
“Can you take me to the hotel?” I asked and then leaned my head against the window so I wouldn’t be tempted to use Mayson’s shoulder as a resting place.
There was silence, but I could feel the exchange going on between the two of them. Words spoken with only looks.
Then I fell asleep.
I woke to Mayson carrying me again. It wasn’t that late, maybe seven or eight, but as the drunk left me, the tiredness kicked in. My body was tired of being on high alert for days. My body was tired from the alcohol. From the stress. From missing―with all my heart―the man who was carrying me now.
From being wounded.
For years, I’d ignored the attraction between Mayson and me. I’d ignored it while I dated other guys and felt not even an ounce of the pulse in my veins that I felt when he and I were in a room together. But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t ruin what the three of us had. The friendship. The magic we built in words together. And then, a random reach for sheet music had turned into a tentative kiss that had let to pure passion and sin and dismantled our world.
Then, he’d left me naked in his bed and forgotten to call for a week.
The pain hit me again. Him leaving. Him not calling. Cole telling me he wasn’t coming back. Damn tears leaked out of my eyes. Tears I didn’t want to cry.
When he put me down, I was on a bed. His bed. Blue-and-white plaid in a room that was all male. I wiped at my eyes when he turned away, but he caught the movement anyway, and I saw the tick of his jaw again as he struggled with emotions.
He sat down on the bed next to me without a word, his hand journeying to the zipper on my right boot. It was mid-thigh, meaning his hand grazed the bottom of my miniskirt and made my entire body jump to attention with how close he was to my core. It remembered what it felt like for his hands to be there, teasing me, stroking me, making me moan his damn name.
But he didn’t touch me. He just slowly undid the zipper and pulled the boot off before repeating the motion with the other one. He placed them on the floor and then got up, digging in a dresser and returning with a long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Here,” he said.
I shook my head. Too tired, too strung up, and yet, too alive to move.
“Stop being stubborn. You’ll be uncomfortable sleeping in that,” he said.
“Fine.” I pulled the crop top off and threw it at him. He pulled it away and then held his breath as he took in my black lace bra. I shimmied out of the leather skirt and threw that at him,
too. This one, he just let hit the floor.
He came closer, sitting down again, swallowing as he tugged the T-shirt over my head, covering up my lace and skin, but I caught the tremble in his hand as he guided it over my breasts and down.
“I hate you,” I said. Because I did. I hated him for agreeing to my “tennis” terms. I hated him for leaving. I hated him for being so gorgeous that my body couldn’t stop being attracted to him. I hated he was a gentleman when I just wanted him to tear my clothes off and make love to me like we had that one night. Like we were both wild animals fueled by an uncontrollable need to join ourselves together.
“I know,” he said, and there was sadness and longing in his voice.
He pulled the covers out from underneath me, tucked my feet in, and made sure the pillow was under my head. Then, his hand slid to my mouth, running a finger along the seam, slowly, tantalizing.
“I’m going to have to remove the scent of him from those lips,” he said. “But not tonight. Not while you’re drunk. Not when you can use that as an excuse for us making love. But I need you to know, I will be removing every little taste of him from you.”
He stared into my eyes as he made the promise.
I turned, curling away from him. He sat there for a long time before he got up, removed his jeans and his shirt, and joined me in his bed in nothing but his briefs. He lay on his side so we were facing each other.
It hurt too much to stare into his gorgeous blue-gray eyes. Eyes so much paler than mine, but still blue. Eyes that were still angry but also held another emotion I was afraid to name because the last time I thought I’d named it, he’d left. So, I closed my eyes against the image and let the alcohol drag me under into a deep sleep I hadn’t had since he left.
♫ ♫ ♫
When I woke, my head was pounding, and Mayson’s hand was on my waist where the T-shirt he’d given me had risen up to expose my skin. God. I was in bed with Mayson. After I’d promised myself that we wouldn’t end like this. That we would remain frenemies for the rest of our days, and then I’d let him pull some He-Man bullshit and literally sweep me off my feet and into his bed.
I moved quietly and slowly so I wouldn’t wake him, easing into his bathroom and shutting the door. I used the facilities, reassembled the mass of curls that had escaped my hair band, and washed my face before staring at myself in the mirror.
The makeup was gone, and all that was left was me. The Grace without her armor and shields. The Grace who cared about the man lying in the bed on the other side of the wall.
I sat down on the toilet and pulled up my phone, scrolling through the messages I had never replied to.
ASSHOLE: I miss you.
ASSHOLE: I’m sorry I didn’t call.
ASSHOLE: Please pick up.
ASSHOLE: It’s one thirty in the morning and we just ended a show in….God if I know where. The entire month has been a blur. Uncle Derek needs me to stay, but Grace, I miss you. I miss you so much it actually feels like my heart is being torn from my chest. I know you’d punch my shoulder for using such clichéd words. You’d never let me get away with that in our writing.
I skipped forward several months in the texts he’d never stopped sending.
ASSHOLE: It’s been four months, Grace. Why won’t you let me apologize to you? It was the shittiest thing I could have done, walking out on you like that. Leaving you after we’d just made love. It wasn’t just tennis. It wasn’t just sex. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change any moment except the one where I left without saying goodbye. Instead, I’d drag your beautiful ass out of my bed and force you to come with me.
ASSHOLE: “Everything is different.”
ASSHOLE: You’re not going to help me out with the next line? Fine, I’ll do it myself.
ASSHOLE: “Everything is different, and you've changed that. And you can't change back. I want more. I want the fairy tale.”
The Pretty Woman lines had haunted me for days after he’d sent them.
He wanted more.
He wanted the fairy tale, but he’d been the one to walk away, and my heart was terrified that if his family called, he’d run again. He’d drop me―us―and follow where they led. I’d screwed this up as much as he had, because I’d told him it was just sex and then ghosted him for six months while he tried to prove it wasn’t. I was afraid of much more than just his family needing him. I was afraid of losing myself. Of becoming the stereotype of a woman who put everything she had into a relationship only to have the man walk away, taking everything. Her love, her words, her screenplays.
I didn’t have a reason to fear it. I had over-the-top good examples of loving relationships in my life. My parents, Uncle Justice and Aunt Liv, Locke and Keith. They were there for each other every damn day.
It was only my own relationships that had been bad examples because I’d never let any of the men in my life completely inside my heart. I’d kept a piece of it locked away, and if I wanted to have what my parents had, then I would have to unlock the chest and let someone in. Let Mayson in.
I just hoped I had the strength to do it without wrecking us both.
Mayson
ONLY YOU
“All I needed was the love you gave
All I needed for another day.”
Performed by Kylie Minogue w/ James Corden
Written by Vince Clarke
I’d watched Grace fall asleep. I’d watched as peace took over her face instead of anger and hurt. I wanted it to remain that way for the rest of her life. Soft. Calm. Happy. I was such an idiot to have not seen that she was everything I wanted from the very first moment she’d joined us at UCLA and argued with me over The Lord of the Rings.
I hated to think of all the time I’d wasted.
I stared at her until my eyes refused to stay open and closed of their own accord. But I promised I wouldn’t waste any more time when we woke.
When my eyes finally opened again, the sun was streaming into my room, and Grace was gone. I jumped up, pulling on a T-shirt and reaching for my jeans just as the bathroom door opened. Relief filled me as she came back into the bedroom. I dropped my jeans, and her glance went from my hands, to my underwear, back to my eyes.
She’d washed her face. There was no more eyeliner or lipstick. It was just Grace. Fresh, pink-skinned, gorgeous.
“Goddamn you’re beautiful,” I said, meaning it.
She didn’t react. She just stood, staring at me.
I took three steps, bringing me almost within arm’s length. She tilted her head, looking up at me, but she didn’t move away. She also wasn’t yelling or calling me Asshole, and if I had to name the emotion in her eyes, I’d say it was anticipation. Longing.
“I didn’t realize what it meant when you threw the ‘Let's have sex like we're playing tennis’ line at me,” I told her, sorrow in my voice. “I should have known, but I didn’t. You really meant the end of the movie when Dylan chases her down, pours his heart out, and kisses her in order to make her happily-ever-after moment come true.”
She fidgeted with my T-shirt before saying, “I didn’t. At least, I hadn’t thought I meant it, but when you didn’t call, it hurt like hell. And then it hurt even more when you chose to stay with them instead of coming back to us…to me.”
When she said the words with her shield down, displaying a Grace she didn’t show anyone, one who was soft and tender and vulnerable, it shot hope through my veins.
“I’d like to say and mean Justin Timberlake’s words at the end of the movie: ‘I can live without ever having sex with you again. It'd be really hard, but hey, I want my best friend back, because I'm in love with her,’ but if I said those words, they wouldn’t be true. I do want my friend back, and I do feel like I can’t live without you, but I also can’t live without touching you, kissing you, being inside you. It’s all I’ve thought about for six months. Having all of you and being able to call it mine. Your heart. Your mind. Your body. Your
soul.”
She stepped toward me this time, and now there were only inches between us. It was a tentative offer to move forward, and I took it. Last night, I’d promised I would kiss away any leftover scent of my dumbass cousin’s lips on her, and I meant it. I put my hand under her chin and placed my lips on hers. Then, I was crushing her to me and kissing her with a ferocity that demanded a return, which was granted. She wrapped her hands around my neck, tugged at my hair, and ran her tongue along the seam of my mouth.
I picked her up, and her legs went around my waist. I pushed her up against the wall and explored, with my lips, my tongue, and my hands, the pieces of her I’d been longing to explore for six goddamn months. Tortuous months. Months on the road with my uncles and their band. I didn’t want that. Any of it. I wanted this. Grace. Me. Our words and our music blending together.
She flung her head back, and I devoured her neck and tugged at my T-shirt she was wearing, running my hands under it to find she’d removed her bra somewhere along the way. My fingers were free to roam across the pebbled, tender nipples, and she moaned again.
“You’re going to be the end of me,” I muttered against her skin.
She gasped before pushing at me, pulling my face from her skin. She grabbed my chin and stared into my eyes. We were both breathing hard, our bodies aching to be joined, and she was stopping us.
“Grace,” I said her name as a plea, with longing inside it.
“Mayson.” Her voice was full of as much desire as mine. “You left,” she said, hurt echoing through the words.
“I did,” I said, meeting her pained gaze with my own.
“You can’t do that again,” she told me honestly.
“I won’t,” I replied, meaning it with every single part of me.
“What if your family needs you?” she asked.
“I promise, you’ll come first. I promise we’ll make any decisions together. I promise their need will not come before you. Before us.”
It wasn’t something I said lightly. Uncle Derek had taught me everything I knew. He’d helped me become the musician I was, and it had been impossible to say no when he’d asked me to take over for Mitch. I’d thought it would have been temporary, but it wasn’t. After Mitch recovered, he decided he was done. He wanted to spend time with his family and his grandkids. I’d been stuck when I’d never intended to be stuck.