Manhattan Sugar (From Manhattan Book 1)

by V. Theia

  Gray smiled, and my belly rolled over.

  “That’s easy. I don’t want you to walk out of the door. Not in anger. Not with anything else and you should know by now I’m not a regular guy. So again, tell me why you’re so angry.”

  “You keep pushing me!” I burst out. My hands shoved his steadfast chest. “Pushing me like I’m your little red cart going up a hill.”

  Head descended. His eyes in my vision. “And what’s in my red cart, India?”

  I blinked not understanding the fucking question at first because his whole body was distracting me. The heat of him burned me through two layers of our clothes.

  It was me who panted. “Say what?”

  “In this red cart of mine I’m pushing. Does it have all your problems you continue to carry around with you, holding you back, tying you down until you want to scream?”

  Oh. Fucking. Hell.

  My chest caved in. Just made an irreparable sink hole down to my soul.

  His serious brows and warm eyes and his full mouth focused only on me and this time I didn’t try to move out from under his weight. I sort of sagged into the wall. But Gray wouldn’t let me fall. He was a goddamn hero, wasn’t he? Forever picking me up. Anticipating my moods and swerving me away from the darkness.

  “Stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop trying to fix me. To change me.”

  Gray leaned in and kissed my forehead as though he thought I was a five-year-old with a boo-boo.

  “I would never want to change you. But I do want to make things better for you.”

  All my emotions in a constant flux of not knowing where we were.

  It was no big secret now that Gray Ellison, international shoe man and altogether sexy as hell orgasm giver was one heck of a man. No denying that fact. But the way he continuously tried to delve into my secrets pissed me off.

  And why did it piss me off?

  Because for the first split second before I could engage any kind of defense my whole body and brain wanted to put them in his hands and let him help me.

  Wouldn’t that just make me as weak as my mom? Waiting and relying on one man her whole life and where was she now? Stuck in a time warp, waiting for the scumbag who abandoned us to walk back through the door.

  Not me.

  Never me. I couldn’t be that person.

  “Haven’t you learned yet? You’re beautiful and perfect as you are. Be brave, baby-girl, and let me inside.”

  The timber of his voice, soft and coaxing scratched over my nerves and I emitted a frustrated cry.

  “Oh, my god, don’t you get it? I don’t need rescuing, Gray! I’m not a china fucking doll that’s broken. If you need a project, go pick some other bitch up off the street to make you whole if you’re so fucking bored.”

  I knew every word flung out of my mouth was a hurtful lie. That I was lashing out at him because he was right, so right, and in his rightness, I felt gaped open desperately trying to stop my guts from falling on the floor.

  “You can’t fight all my battles for me.”

  “Watch me.”

  His protectiveness stirred things in my sad heart.

  Please help me, please hold me, please just be there. I wanted to cry.

  Vulnerability was my own worst enemy.

  I’d never been so candid with a boyfriend about how my past had fucked me up for any normal connection.

  I still grieved Jacky.

  I hated the depression holding my mom.

  I hated that my father walked out and hadn’t even tried to be in my life.

  Was I so forgettable? Was I a horrible … unlovable person?

  But in my anger, in my despair for Gray calling me out on my bullshit I backed myself into a corner like a trapped animal, claws displayed, teeth bared, ready to fight. I fired my last bullet. “Being a decent fuck doesn’t mean you get to dictate what I tell you, Gray. Back the hell off me now.”

  He made a disturbed sound that had my eyes flying up to look at his face.

  “You’re mean when you want to be.”

  I forced a smirk, dying inside, as he stepped back to let me slip out from him. I slid into my shoes and ignored the feet of space he placed between us. Hands tucked into his pants pockets, if I dared move my eyes up I was afraid I’d see something other than lust on his face. I was afraid I’d see hate.

  “Maybe you’ll start to listen to what I say. This is me. Bitch at your service, Grayson.”

  My hand on the door handle, my name had me halting.

  “I never said bitch. I said mean.”

  Didn’t it amount to the same? Gray appeared at my back before I could move to open the door and make my escape, to find fresh air and get myself calm.

  “And your mean is worth shit, India.” My neck snapped to look at him. There was no hate on his face. My eyes narrowed. The cheek of this guy. “Me and my decent fuck know all about you, and both of us like you. So, you deal the fuck with that. Now.” He stepped forward and I braced. For what I didn’t know. Only he kissed me on the forehead, grabbed my jacket off the console table where I’d dumped it last night. “Go sit in the living room and I’ll find this fucking purse, so we can get to your mom’s.”

  Who the hell was this guy, really?

  God, he was annoying. I deflated emotion like a leaky faucet all over the floor and glared at him.

  I cared so greatly for him. So much.

  “You’re annoying.” I told him. “Why can’t you yell back?”

  He smiled. He smiled with his whole gorgeous face from the lift of his lips to the raise of his brows and a sexy twinkle in his eyes, and I turned soft inside.

  “When I have something to yell about I will, baby-girl. Promise.”

  Ugh. He was so damn nice. I didn’t deserve him.

  “I’m sorry.” I told him in the elevator. “You’re such a good guy and this isn’t what you signed up for.”

  A hand came around my neck and I was instantly comforted, realizing that’s what I’d wanted. I went into Gray’s chest as the doors pinged open. “I want to be where you are, baby. So, if it’s at home, a picnic, or at your moms. No more apologies. We’ll stop and grab her a few things.”

  My heart magnified with his compassion. It didn’t lessen the guilt and second guessing once again about what were we doing, really? I’d lived a fairytale life all week. Re-organizing Gray’s apartment which now looked spectacular. We went out to eat. We cooked together. He took me into work and I helped with next year’s fall range of shoes. It felt like we’d become this instant team and I’d loved every moment of it.

  But that’s not reality … is it?

  It’s a dream within a dream.

  Walking up my mom’s porch steps, that’s my reality.

  The tight knot in my belly hesitant to open the door and to see which mom was inside, that’s my reality.

  Fearing she wouldn’t get any better than this, was my reality.

  Fooling myself for days that mom was okay because she’s had no blow ups, that’s the reality I lived with.

  I was afraid to be happy in case it all disappeared one day.

  Her and I hadn’t done anything to help each other heal for a long time, before I got her to agree to therapy.

  My mom went into her own depression for long periods of time and because she wasn’t manic or screaming I didn’t do a thing to help her. I needed that solitude to grieve in my own way. I wasn’t strong enough to sustain the grief for us both and that’s how we went on for years.

  In the beginning I’d stop by almost daily just to make sure she was out of bed and she’d eaten. I’d mow the lawn, pay the bills, carry home sacks of fresh fruit and vegetables I’d have to batch-cook meals to store in the freezer. And as each month went by, keeping us in a time capsule of sorrow where we’d not only lost my brother, but my dad walked out on us too, it became clear in a cathartic kind of a way, morbid really, that somewhere in the lost space this was my life now.

  I was
a city girl who partied far too much, had one-night stands and didn’t allow myself to grow true feelings for anyone because in those feelings came with it chances of loss and risking emotions I couldn’t afford.

  Each time I opened the front door and saw my mom sitting in that same chair with her hair casually brushed back from her shoulders and the same photo album on her lap, it was like walking back in time and allowing her depression to mold who I let myself be in the here and now.

  Whatever my version of love was I had it for my mom. I’d do anything for her, but I couldn’t crawl in her sadness with her.

  I closed off a long time ago, but I still held hope she’d be okay again one day.

  Some sadness’s didn’t afford you a minute to breathe and think of what could be. Sorrow was a powerful drug—somewhere along the way from grief to the present day my mom and I existed just because we existed.

  She was unhappy, and I’d overcompensated my emptiness by filling it with as much of a fake high as I could.

  Did I want to end up like her? Living in the pages of a worn-out photo album? Living for days of ‘remember when?’ Waiting for something that would never happen.

  I couldn’t exist like that. It was fucking depressing to watch.

  Only now I wasn’t alone.

  Before I walked inside, Gray took my hand. “One day you’ll trust me, India, that I’m here, and not going anywhere.”

  He squeezed my fingers and gave me an epic smile and a kiss on my lips. Lending me strength, I hadn’t confided needing. He nudged me forward with a hand on my butt.

  I smiled at him holding two sacks from Wholefoods. Gray chose flowers for mom. “Careful, rock star, the neighbors around here like to twitch their curtains.”

  He hummed, a sexy noise to boil my blood and placed his lips on mine again. “Then we better give them something to talk about.”

  It was clear mom was agitated when we went inside and was trying to appear calm because I’d brought Gray.

  The sweetheart man that he was he didn’t even make a big deal out of anything mom said or did in the next few hours. “I hope you like pecan ice cream, Linda. Our girl brought three pints.” He took the groceries through to the kitchen, giving me a minute to talk to mom.

  “Are days always like this?” He asked sitting on the stoop with me later.

  “This is a good day,” I told him truthfully. “Once we get over these next few weeks she’ll calm down again. It’s the month Jacky went missing.”

  “You never talk about your brother.”

  Lifting a shoulder, I avoided his eyes knowing only sympathy would shine back. He’d listened as I’d hugged mom in the other room while she cried, and I talked her down off her emotional ladder. She’d been watching Jack’s home movies again.

  It was the very reason I never, ever watched them.

  “It’s difficult,” I confessed. “I don’t really talk to anyone about him.”

  Gray kissed the top of my head as I rested an arm on his thigh. “Tell me about him?”

  If I concentrated I could almost see Jack riding up and down the street on his new bike, the Christmas he turned ten. He loved that thing and cried when it was time to come inside. As Gray’s fingers stroked my inner wrist hanging between his legs, the sounds of the neighborhood shrouded me. I saw him everywhere when I was here. The stop sign, where he knew never to go beyond. The drop off for the school bus. The boy he played with four doors down. The kid no longer lived there, but I could still see them water wrestling in the yard laughing as Jacky squealed with his fair hair plastered to his skull and two teeth missing.

  God, the ache in my chest never went away. Not really.

  I learned to mask it well. To drown it out by always being busy, climbing the work ladder, burning candles at both ends. Never giving myself a minute to truly accept the loss.

  “I think my actions got him killed.” I murmured to myself.

  “Oh, baby. I don’t know the details yet and I can already tell you, that you didn’t.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  “Jacky was such a good baby. I was four when he was born, and I told everyone he was my baby.” I crawled into Gray’s lap needing … him. He palmed my hip, kissed my forehead and waited for me to go on.

  “He was starved of oxygen in delivery which meant he had some mental disabilities. The doctors said he wouldn’t walk or talk. But he did, Gray. He just took his time. He was four when he walked and five when he said my name. He called me Inda. I was his best friend in the whole world, he’d tell me.”

  My voice cracked. God, I missed that little boy so much.

  If I could go back and do one thing differently with my life I’d change that day.

  “Tell me a good memory of you and Jack.” Gray urged quietly. His touch grounded me to the moment, so I didn’t lose myself to anxiety.

  I smiled knowing exactly which memory to share. It was one of my favorites. “Every weekend before my parents woke, Jack and I would get up and eat bowls and bowls of cereal in front of the cartoons. I’d deliberately give myself a milk moustache to make him roll around laughing.”

  Gray breathed against my temple. “That’s why you like cereal now?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, silly really.” I heard him inhale and I turned my head up to look at him. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Gray. I couldn’t take that.”

  He kissed me, just once on the lips. “I won’t, baby. Do you want to tell me what happened to him?”

  It didn’t matter that it’d been seven years now. Seven years felt like seven minutes at times. Grief didn’t have a statute of limitation for when it stopped hurting. I knew it would hurt until I took my last breath.

  Though I didn’t meet Gray’s eyes, my own focused somewhere across the street in a neighbors front yard, I fingered the hair at his nape.

  “His learning difficulties never made him grumpy. If anything, he was more determined to learn how to do things like all his friends, no matter if it took him weeks. Everyone loved him and his constant happiness. Dad spent six months teaching him how to ride his first bike when he was ten. We couldn’t get him inside after that. He was a big kid for fifteen, he towered over me, but mentally he would have always been around eight years old. The sweetest kid, Gray. I wish you could have met him, he would have begged you to teach him the guitar and ride in your fancy car.”

  Gray pulled me in closer.

  “I’d been at college for nearly a year by then, I loved the freedom, though I hate saying it now. It’s like I’m saying I loved being away from him. I guess in a way I did. I was my own person again, but I’d come home as often as I could. I was his best friend.” Some regret couldn’t ever be fixed. “I loved him so much, but he was clingy and hard work sometimes, he liked things in order and his own way, and he hated me being away so much, he didn’t understand why I had to go to school and couldn’t stay home, eat cereal and watch his cartoons with him.”

  “I think I’d be the same, but then I feel greedy with you too,” smiled Gray against my cheek. His day-old stubble scratched and comforted. I smiled down at him, admired his lovely face. How gentle his eyes as he watched me.

  I’d fallen into a relationship and it didn’t suck.

  But my track record of unease it was anyone’s guess how long we’d last for.

  For what it was worth I was hoping for a while.

  I liked this man.

  Liked how calm he made me feel. How he made me feel a lot of things.

  If anyone asked I’d tell them Gray Ellison was the greatest man alive.

  Laying my head on his shoulder I went on.

  “Jack wasn’t allowed past a certain point on his bike. End of the street and back, unless he was with one of us. He got mad because I was supposed to come home that weekend and I stayed at school for a party. A fucking football party. Instead of not breaking my promise for a movie and burger night, I chose frivolous fun over him. It was two hours before mom realized he wasn’t riding on the street.”

>   Horrible memories of getting her frantic phone call replayed in my head.

  If I’d been home, he would have been fine. That much we all knew.

  He never would have gotten angry and rode off to go where?

  We would never know.

  I always suspected he was trying to find me at school.

  I inhaled a shuddering breath, swallowed around the lump of emotion trying to block my airways.

  “He was missing for three days and two nights. We searched with the police, the whole neighborhood helped. I kept thinking he was just hiding somewhere. He loved hide and go seek.” A hand coasted up my back, held around my nape when my voice broke, and my vision temporarily blanked out with water. “I prayed so hard he was hiding. I swore if he was just found safe I’d be a better sister. I wouldn’t get irritated that I wanted to have the whole college life on my own.”

  My life back then seemed shallow and self-absorbed. No matter Jacky’s age and size he always would be a little boy and I was his best friend who abandoned him, so I could drink, party and screw around at fucking football frat houses.

  The guilt would never wane.

  “What happened next?” Gray encouraged, skimming his lips over my temple, I leaned into him as if he had the power to hold my shaking molecules together with just his bare hands.

  I’d look back and know this was the moment I loved Gray.

  “He was found three days later, half hidden in shrubbery along a side road near a highway underpass. He’d been knocked off his bike, hidden from sight. We’ll never know if the guy stopped to help him. Jacky could have been saved if someone had only seen him there.”

  Torture. Agonized torture of what ifs.

  A minute.

  Two.

  Gray held me close, brushing kisses on my forehead, my cheek, my temple.

  “I should have been at home, Gray.”

  “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “I was his best friend and I let him down.” I knocked away tears before they even dared to fall. And I tried to pull away from him.

  Angry and ashamed.