“I don’t know. Kyle and Grayson got into a fight, and I think Grayson broke up with me,” I answered.
Julia arched an eyebrow. “Why did they get into a fight?”
“Because of me.” I frowned, trying to recall the details from the night before. My mind was still fuzzy with exhaustion. “Because Kyle told Grayson that I deserve more than the scraps he throws at me.”
Julia whistled, her eyebrows rising to her hairline. “Well, that’s…intense.”
I sighed. “I need to go talk to Grayson. Can I borrow your car?”
“Yes…but you’ll have to wait.” Julia looked as if she was about to deliver bad news. “Kyle’s on the porch.”
“Tell him to go away,” I grumbled, trying to pull my blanket up over my face. I definitely didn’t want to see Kyle at the moment.
“He has something to tell you and it’s kind of a big deal,” Julia argued, standing up. “But wash your makeup off first. And brush your teeth…and maybe comb your hair. You know what? Just hop in the shower. I’ll tell Kyle to wait.”
“I’m really not in the mood,” I warned her. “Please just tell him to go away.”
“How about I tell him you’ll be down in a bit, and you go shower! Because you’re going to want to shower anyway, to go see Grayson.”
I sighed. Julia was right. I did need to go see Grayson, to find out what was going on. I showered quickly, dressing even quicker. I came down the stairs, my hair still wet on the back of my neck. Kyle was in the living room, but he wasn’t alone. Marcus and Cam were sitting with him, all of them waiting for me.
I looked from each of their faces, wondering what the reason for their visit was. I folded my arms protectively across my chest. My gaze came to rest on Kyle’s split lip. It had scabbed over since yesterday, but it still looked tender. I felt bad.
“What brings you guys here?” I demanded, cutting to the chase. The quicker I got this little pow-wow over, the quicker I could get to Grayson’s. Suddenly, it occurred to me that they could be here to tell me they no longer wanted me in the band. Before I could freak out about it, the three of them were standing up and Marcus was talking.
“I got a phone call from Reece Miller and he wants us to come in on Monday to sign with the recording label.”
I blinked stupidly at Marcus. “What did you say?” I asked. Julia moved by the kitchen doorway, watching my reaction.
“We have a meeting with a recording label to sign with them!” Kyle clarified, stepping towards me with excitement. I stared at him, speechless with astonishment. I opened my mouth, shaking my head as I struggled to think of an appropriate response.
“Oh my god,” I said slowly, my eyes wide on Kyle’s wired face. I glanced at Marcus and Cam, my expression still one of disbelief. “HOLY SHIT,” I all but screamed as the gravity of his words hit me.
Kyle threw his arms around my neck and hugged me, lifting me up in a celebratory spin. He put me down a moment later, and the rest of the band advanced, throwing their arms around me.
“I told you that you wanted to get out of bed for that!” Julia laughed with delight, stepping up to hug me. “I can’t believe it…this is crazy. My little sister is going to be a rock star!”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I frowned, my heart still beating frantically with excitement. I looked back at Marcus. “When is the meeting?”
“Monday morning at nine. We’ll all go together.” Marcus grinned. I nodded, completely taken aback.
They lingered for twenty minutes after sharing the news, talking about how crazy it was with Julia. I listened in, but barely absorbed any of the things that they said. I was still stunned about it.
Each moment that passed, I couldn’t help but think about getting to Grayson. I was excited about the recording label, but I wanted to share that excitement with him. I couldn’t do that until I found out what was going on with him. And with me.
I grabbed Julia’s keys off her, tossing a thank you over my shoulder as I slammed the door behind me. I raced down the driveway to Julia’s car, intent on getting to Grayson’s as quickly as I could. I wanted to sort this out so I didn’t have to worry and agonize about it anymore.
I slid the key into the ignition and the car clunked to life. Surprised, I glanced around. Julia’s car had transformed completely. It was spotless and the smell of stale McDonald’s was gone. The seats and floors were recently vacuumed, and the drink console no longer had caked-on coffee pooled at the bottom.
I shrugged, putting the car into reverse and backing out of the driveway cautiously. I drove to Grayson’s as quickly as I could, barely even enjoying the music on the radio. I didn’t often get the car to myself, and when I did I usually took my time. I couldn’t slow down though; I couldn’t relax. I just felt like I had to get to Grayson’s.
I parked and ran up the steps to Grayson’s loft, knocking quickly on the door. I stood in front of it, waiting. My heart was racing, both from the running and the anxiety as I recalled Grayson’s damaged expression the night before.
The two minutes it took Grayson to answer the door made my anxiety skyrocket. I knew he was around; I had parked Julia’s car beside his truck.
The door swung open, revealing Grayson’s scowling face. He was just wearing unbuttoned jeans—the front of his boxers were exposed like he had thrown the jeans on in a hurry. His face changed when he saw me. He went from scowling, to surprised, to uneasy.
Before he could ask me what I was doing there, and before I could tell him, I heard a voice from behind him. “Who’s that, babe?”
Grayson said nothing. His eyes widened and he grappled, absorbing the hurt and shock on my face like a physical blow.
Wordlessly, I pushed the door open. Katrina sat on the end of Grayson’s bed. Her blue hair was tangled and her black lipstick was mussed. She was wearing her signature miniskirt and thigh high boots, as well as a corset. She looked like a model for Suicide Girls, and she was sitting on my boyfriend’s bed.
I couldn’t speak. The pain was shattering my heart into fragments. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I shook my head at Grayson, looking for an explanation as to why he was half dressed and why she was on his bed.
“Katrina, get the fuck out,” Grayson ordered, his voice hard with hatred as he glared at her. Katrina grinned, enjoying the broken look on my face as she slowly stood up. She walked over, sliding into her long jacket.
“Remember what I told you,” she whispered loudly in his ear, making sure that I caught every word. I stood aside, my eyes glued to the ground as Katrina breezed past me and started her descent down the stairs.
Grayson stepped aside, holding the door open for me.
“Seriously?” I shook my head with stunned disbelief. “You’re going to literally kick a girl out of your apartment and invite another one in? Smooth. I caught you.”
“What do you think you caught?” Grayson demanded, catching my arm before I could turn around and leave.
“What do I think I caught?” I repeated, raising my brows at him. “Katrina, on your bed. Looking freshly screwed. You, at the door, barely dressed. I know I’m not a rocket scientist, but I think I can put two and two together.”
Grayson released my arm as if it burned him to touch me. He studied my face, his expression torn between hurt and shock. “You think that I was hooking up with her?”
“Tell me, Grayson, what would you have thought if you came over to my place and saw me half dressed with some other guy in my fucking bed? Lord already knows what you did when another guy tried to dance with me.” I didn’t often swear; only when I was beyond hurt and angry.
Grayson’s jaw clenched and he nodded slowly, accepting my answer. “Fair enough. But Everly, that’s not what happened.” His voice was sincere and his eyes were honest. I had no reason to not believe him, but what I saw and what he was telling me just didn’t match up.
“Then tell me what happened,” I pleaded, begging this to not be what it looked like.
“She dropped
by without an invitation or a warning. She wanted to tell me something, so I let her in.”
“Oh and your clothes just happened to fall off?” I frowned, crossing my arms.
“I was in my boxers. I put jeans on before I answered the door. I wasn’t exactly expecting company,” he retorted, his eyes narrowing. “But if you’re not going to listen, why should I bother trying to explain it?” he added, approaching me with long strides. “You’ve already made up your mind on what happened, haven’t you? You’ve just been waiting for this.”
“No.” I glared, frowning even deeper. “I haven’t. What did she want to tell you?”
I could tell Grayson wasn’t going to answer that question, and the sense of dread rose higher. “Never mind that. She told me what she had to say, and I told her to go. Then she kissed me.”
“Did you kiss her back?” I asked. Grayson’s honesty was cutting the jagged edges of my broken heart into sharper, tinier pieces.
For several long minutes, Grayson didn’t answer. He didn’t look at me either. The pain in my heart was so strong, I felt like crumpling in to myself.
“For a moment, but only for a moment.” It broke him to admit it, just as the words broke me to hear them. He wanted to say more, but was silenced by the look on my face.
“So you kissed her back.” I drew in a shaky breath, nodding as I tried to keep my heartbreak from spilling out.
“It wasn’t like that,” he argued, stepping toward me. I stepped back, afraid that his touch would shatter my ability to stand.
“It doesn’t matter how it was,” I choked out, my eyes searching his. “You kissed her back. You admitted that.”
Grayson was silent for several minutes, surveying the damage that I desperately fought to keep him from seeing. I had promised him that he wouldn’t break me, and there I was…feeling very, very broken. I didn’t want to dump that on him because it was my reaction to bear, not his.
“It was only a matter of time,” Grayson said almost to himself.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded. “It was only a matter of time before you cheated?”
“I didn’t cheat, Everly. I pushed her off of me. I just didn’t stop it right away because my head is all fucked up. It takes me a minute to process things.”
I took a deep breath, accepting that. I knew what it was like to have someone constantly push the boundaries.
“What did you mean then, by it’s only a matter of time?” I asked, trying to get to the root of this problem.
Grayson’s intense reaction last night, his multiple disappearances, Katrina’s presence in his apartment—it was all connected somehow. It had to be. I just prayed the answer wasn’t the one my heart feared: that despite what he was telling me, he was lying and there was something between the two of them.
“I can’t be what you need!” he answered, his voice tortured with longing and regret. He stared at me with a helpless expression on his handsome face. “It’s just like he said. You deserve so much more than the scraps I throw at you.”
Tears blurred my vision. “But you are. You’re everything that I want and need.”
Grayson shook his head, unable to accept what I was trying to tell him. He ran his fingers through his hair, pacing back and forth. “You don’t know me like you think you do. You wouldn’t like what’s inside of me.” His eyes searched mine, willing me to understand. “You were repulsed last night…and that’s not even close to what I’m capable of.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, angry through the haze of tears. He turned away, his back facing me as he tried to collect himself. Yes, his anger had shocked me, but he had reacted because he cared about me—because he was fighting for me. “What if I know you better than you know yourself, Grayson?”
“That’s presumptuous,” he said, his back still to me. His broad shoulders were shaking as he laughed darkly. “We’re like fire and gasoline,” Grayson said hopelessly. My mouth felt like cotton balls: dry and scratchy. I couldn’t find my voice for several long, tantalizing minutes.
Every excuse that Grayson had ever given me came rushing back, and I started to realize with cold certainty that Alicia had been right. I cared more for him than he did for me. When you want something, when you care about someone, you fight for it and for them. You don’t throw a punch and walk away. You don’t back down. Grayson wasn’t fighting; he was pushing. After all this time, after everything that had happened between us…after everything I had given him, he was still trying to push me away.
“Maybe you’re right then,” I said. He turned around quickly, surprise marring his features as I took a menacing step toward him. My finger was pointed directly at his chest, and my hand trembled with anger. “You keep blabbering on and on about how you’re going to ‘ruin’ me, how you’re ‘no good’ for me…and I don’t buy that for one minute. But maybe you aren’t the guy that I need. I need someone who isn’t afraid to fall, who won’t give up because he’s afraid.”
I took a deep, steadying breath, my eyes never leaving his face. “I know you’re hurting, Grayson. I don’t know all the reasons why, but I get it. I do. I’ve tried to be here for you for the last few years and you’ve never let me in. I’ve fallen so deeply for you that the thought of being with anyone else is unfathomable. I’ve given you every piece of me, opened myself up to you in every way possible…and you don’t let me in. I don’t need a lot, but I need someone who’s willing to at least try to be on the same page as me. I deserve that.”
Grayson stared at me, his jaw tense as he absorbed my words. I held my breath, waiting for him to tell me that he would be that guy—that he would fight for us. The seconds stretched on. I could tell the moment he reached a decision. He nodded, looking away from my face. The finality of it was like a swift kick to the guts.
“You deserve that and so much more, Everly. And I’m sorry, but I can’t give it to you.” He turned his back on me again, resuming his brooding pose by the window.
“This is it, then?” I felt cold, as if I had plunged into icy Arctic waters. He nodded stiffly, not even bothering to look back at me.
Every fiber in my body was telling me to go to him, but pride stopped me. I needed to preserve what was left of my shattered heart.
I needed to get off this confusing roller coaster. I needed to find me—the me that I’d lost long before I ever really found her. I turned around, my hand trembling as I reached for the door. I looked back at him once more, my hand still on the cold doorknob. “I love you, Grayson.”
His shoulders lifted and tensed, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to make me stay.
I was never the kind of person who could easily shove down emotion to deal with later. I walked back to my sister’s car, my shoulders shaking as I cried.
I had gone to Grayson’s house to find out what was going on with him and with us, and I had. Only instead of the romantic declaration I had hoped for, I was leaving him with my heart left in fragmented pieces, and only myself to blame.
After all, he had warned me.
Grayson and Everly’s story is continued in
Reckless Abandon
Coming early 2016!
About the Author
J.C. Hannigan lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband, their two sons and two dogs.
She writes contemporary new adult romance and suspense. Her novels focus on relationships, mental health, social issues, and other life challenges.
Website: http://jchannigan.com
Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/jcahannigan
Facebook Group: http://tinyurl.com/fannigans
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jcahannigan
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r, with her heart still stuck on Iain. But it’s so hard with him gone. And she’s been aching since they last touched. Two whole years of silent wondering; of desperate sleepless longing.
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