Beyond What is Given

by Rebecca Yarros

  “Grayson!” Dad shouted at the top of his lungs as I made it to Joey.

  “Stop! He’s right!” Parker shrieked. “All of you, stop! Dad, Grayson couldn’t have prevented what happened.”

  “How would you even know, Parker?” I fired back, turning around. She chose now to stand up for me?

  “Because…” She took gulping breaths. “Because I was there. We lost control and cut them off so close I thought we’d take out his bumper. If Gray hadn’t swerved, Owen’s truck bed would have gone right through Grace’s windshield. They would have died instantly. I…I was in the truck.”

  My eyes narrowed, and I stepped toward her.

  “No, you weren’t,” Joey said. “I’m the one who called you to tell you about the accident. I picked you up that night from Gray’s party.”

  “I walked back after the accident,” she mumbled. “I lied to you.”

  “I told her to go,” Owen added. “She was so young. I didn’t want her caught up in it. The minute the car went over…I thought you guys were dead, Gray, and I was too drunk to do anything about it. I will never forgive myself. And I never would have told that stupid racing lie if I’d realized you were going to live.”

  I didn’t even bother looking at Owen. My eyes locked onto Parker, and the way she’d huddled in on herself, rocking on the bench. I remember…seeing him flip us off with a grin, his finger pressed up against the window. Grace’s words roared in my ears.

  “You drove drunk with my little girl in the car?” Dad asked.

  “Sir, there’s no excuse for what happened that night,” Owen recited that fucking line, the one he’d always used.

  “You drove drunk with my little girl in the car!” Dad roared.

  “No, he didn’t. He wasn’t driving,” I said softly, but everyone stopped and looked my way. I kept my gaze on Parker. “You were, weren’t you, Parker? You drove. Otherwise Grace couldn’t have seen Owen against the passenger-side window as you passed us.”

  “Gray—” she pled.

  I shook my head. “I’m right, aren’t I? That’s why you’ve been on my ass about Grace, about me not moving on. Why you constantly harp on me about moving home? Why you showed up in Alabama and did everything in your power to make Sam run.”

  “I was trying to fix what I broke,” she whispered. “You belong with Grace.”

  “It had nothing to do with Grace! It was your own guilt! Maybe I ruined my relationship with Sam, but you sure as hell put the crack there and then exploited it. It wasn’t enough to run us off the road, you had to ruin the woman I love now?”

  “I was trying to make it right! I didn’t go away to college, I stayed here while Owen was in jail. I took care of Grace when I could. When she woke up, I embraced the miracle, and thought you would, too. You are perfect together.”

  “As friends. I’m in love with Samantha.”

  “Y-you were driving?” Dad stuttered.

  Parker nodded her head. “You wouldn’t let me get my license.”

  “You were reckless,” Dad answered.

  “Owen was drunk, and I knew he couldn’t drive, so I talked him into letting me drive.”

  “I tried that,” I countered.

  “Yeah, well, you don’t have boobs.”

  I stepped closer to Owen who threw his arms up. “I’ve never touched your sister, I swear to God.”

  “You went to jail for her?” Joey asked, coming up beside me. “You could have told the truth and not spent four years in prison.”

  “Parker was like my little sister. I couldn’t turn her in. Not when she’d only been driving because I was drunk.”

  “It was an accident, Gray. I was going too fast. Just an accident.”

  Owen looked at me. “You have always been a brother to me, and you know I love Grace. For every second you’ve spent cursing the moment you didn’t wrestle me to the ground and take my keys that night, I’ve spent two wishing I had let you. I live with that every day.”

  Too much. It was too much to absorb. To feel. To take in.

  “You know what?” I threw my hands on my head and backed away. “I’m done. Everyone keeps telling me to get my shit together. But you guys take the cake. I’m done with every. Single. One of you.” I pointed to Owen, Parker, and Dad, kissed Joey’s cheek, and walked into the parking lot.

  I grabbed my phone to check in for my flight, and I had three missed texts.

  My Samantha: I think about you every time I breathe.

  My Samantha: Doesn’t change anything, though, but I wish it did.

  My Samantha: I don’t mind psycho stalker-texts as long as they’re from you.

  My Samantha: Colorado is really pretty this time of year.

  Grayson: So is North Carolina.

  My Samantha: That, I don’t doubt, especially if you’re there.

  Less than a month to graduation. I had way too much to do to waste another moment on hesitation.

  Or North Carolina.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Grayson

  The rip of packing tape echoed in my steadily emptying room. Another box down, and only a few more to go.

  “You ready?” Jagger asked, leaning on my doorframe. “Are you seriously packing? In dress blues?”

  I put down the tape gun. “Yeah, well, I figured I had a minute. You guys ready?”

  “Yeah, the girls are finally ready to go. Bummer about Grace.”

  I adjusted my suspenders over the white dress shirt before pulling on my dress blue jacket. “She said she’ll make it in for graduation tomorrow. I honestly thought about skipping this thing.”

  “You can’t skip the graduation ball. You’re the fucking class leader.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Damn, I didn’t want to sit there while they told Jagger he was the distinguished honor graduate, first in the class. Not that he didn’t deserve it, I just…wanted it. Wanted to wave it in front of my dad and tell him to fuck right off.

  I’d worked my ass off, my every second consumed with studying, the gym, flying, or thinking about Sam. Planning a point-by-point plan to get her back, to force her to see that she was it for me.

  Once my jacket was buttoned, we headed downstairs. “Your parents are coming?” Jagger asked.

  “Mom’s here with Mia. Parker and I are still working things out, and both Joey and Connie are needed at home. You?”

  Jagger snorted as we hit the first floor. “Yeah, so he can hold a press conference and I can smile like a puppet? No thanks.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I am a lucky man,” Jagger said as he wrapped his arm around Paisley, who was wearing a long green dress. “Not that Josh isn’t, too,” he said to Ember as she came out of the bathroom in a long black one.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ember waved him off and stuck her arm out for Josh to help her with a bracelet.

  “Everybody to the car!” Jagger called out, then stopped once the three others were already out. “Crap, I forgot Paisley’s wings. Masters, will you wait here?”

  “Sure.” I leaned back against the wall and listened to him curse from the next room.

  “Fuck!” A drawer slammed.

  “Can’t find them?” I asked.

  “Apparently not!”

  I swallowed the lump that gathered in my throat. “You can give her the set I bought.” For Sam.

  His head popped out of the doorframe. “No, man, I know those were supposed to be hers. I couldn’t ask you for that.”

  “Paisley’s feelings will be butchered because you’re a moron, and I’m not going to let that happen,” I said, heading up the stairs. They were in my nightstand, where they’d been ever since I bought them. I flicked open the velvet box. The dainty, platinum aviation wings hung from a platinum chain, slight but strong. Just like Sam. They should have been hers, hung in that perfect spot under her collarbone, but I’d never worked up the damn courage to ask her to come back for this. Or to pin me like she’d promised so long ago.

  She was happy in Colorado
, finding her footing.

  I was headed to North Carolina next week before Christmas.

  Turns out that whole “set your love free and it will come back?” Yeah, that’s all bullshit. My eyes closed as I took a deep breath, then snapped the box shut and left my room.

  “Here,” I said, thrusting the box into Jagger’s hands at the bottom of the steps.

  “I can’t—”

  “You can. Shut up and get in the car. You’re making us late.” I walked past him and into the cold December air. It had a bite to it, but was still pretty damn mellow.

  “There’s room!” Paisley called out from the passenger side of Jagger’s Defender.

  The fifth wheel.

  “I think I’ll drive, but thank you, Paisley.” I didn’t wait for her reaction, or to listen to them tell me it was okay to ride with them. That it was okay to miss her. Okay to spend time with my best friend. If one more person told me everything was okay, I was going postal.

  Everything was not fucking okay.

  I drove to the Landing, where our ball was being held, and parked a little ways away. All the guys with dates needed the closer spots and it wasn’t like I had to make the hike in heels.

  “Thank you for saving my ass,” Jagger said as I met him in the lobby.

  I nodded my head. At least if someone was going to wear Sam’s wings, it was Paisley.

  “I think they have us sitting by class. We found our nameplates, but Josh and Carter are across the floor.”

  “Who did Carter bring?” I asked, not really caring.

  “Morgan.” Jagger grinned. “As friends, of course.”

  “Right,” I drawled.

  The ballroom was packed as we descended the steps, every seat filled with ball gowns and dress blues. We made our way to our table where Paisley, Patterson, and Wallace from our class, and their wives waited.

  Grace’s setting was still there. “I forgot to tell them she wasn’t coming,” I muttered.

  Jagger threw Paisley a nervous glance as he sat on her other side. What the hell did the guy have to be nervous about? The other pilots introduced us to their wives, and I nodded politely.

  “Honey, this is Masters. He’s the lucky bastard that got Fort Bragg,” Patterson said.

  “Oh, that’s where my family is,” his wife said. “You’ll love it.”

  The pit in my stomach formed like it did every time I thought about it. But I’d made my choice, and I’d report after the New Year.

  “You’ll love Colorado,” Jagger offered. “I went to college there, and it’s gorgeous.”

  Paisley shot me a look that told me that’s where I should have chosen. No shit. But there was nothing I could do about it.

  “And you guys are headed for Fort Campbell, right?” Wallace asked.

  “We are,” Paisley replied as Jagger kissed the back of her hand.

  As the waitress took our drink orders, I motioned to the setting next to me. “Actually we won’t be needing—”

  “Oh, but we will,” Paisley said with a smile to the waitress, who then moved on.

  “You want to explain?”

  She full-on grinned. “I may have called in a favor with a friend when I knew Grace couldn’t make it.”

  My jaw clenched. God love well-intentioned Southern ladies. “I’m not sure tonight was really the night to set me up on a blind date, Paisley, though I’m sure your friend is lovely.”

  “Oh, hell yeah, she is,” Jagger said, looking over my shoulder.

  My muscles tensed one by one. This was bad enough without Grace, but a stranger?

  “She came a long way, Grayson, so play nice.” Paisley gave me her serious face, and then tilted her chin to motion toward the door behind me.

  I turned in my seat slowly to see her walking down the stairs.

  My breath rushed from my lungs, and my jaw dropped more than the self-respecting amount. Her hair was up off her neck, and her strapless blue dress hugged every curve, accentuating her tiny waist before it fell to the floor. She was so damn beautiful. My Samantha.

  I’d damn-near sprinted to her before I realized I’d even gotten out of my chair. She paused halfway down the staircase with a wide smile but wary eyes. She’s afraid you don’t want her here.

  By standing a few steps beneath her, we were almost equal in height. “Samantha.”

  “Stop.” She put her hand out. “This is a Cinderella thing.”

  One of my eyebrows drifted higher. “As in you came in a pumpkin, or you’ll be losing a shoe? Because either way, I can deal.”

  The smile that spread across her face cracked open my chest, and my heart started to pound. “As in I’m only here until tomorrow afternoon. I have to leave after graduation.”

  “You’re here for graduation?” Holy shit, I sounded like a five-year-old who just found his Christmas presents.

  Her fingers swept down my cheek. “I promised I’d pin you, right?”

  My mouth dropped open again. She remembered.

  “I mean, if you made other plans, I totally understand—”

  Not giving a fuck about her lipstick, I surged forward, took her face in my hands and kissed her. In public. In public. In public. My brain chanted to remind me to keep my tongue in my mouth and my hands on the outside of her incredible dress. “You’re perfect,” I managed to say.

  “No sex.”

  I froze. “You’re seeing someone?”

  She shook her head. “Of course not. I just need you to promise me.”

  “Can I kiss you? Was that okay?” She’d been in the same room for less than five minutes, and I’d already mauled her when I had zero rights to her body.

  “Hell yes. Kiss me all you want, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  Fear streaked across her eyes, and I nodded slowly. “No sex.”

  “No matter how loudly I beg,” she whispered.

  Holy shit, I was about to embarrass myself in the middle of this ballroom if I didn’t get my dick under control.

  “Grayson, swear it. On your honor, or I walk out this door.”

  “I want you for more than your body, Sam. I don’t care if we play Scrabble all night. Not having sex is fine.” It fucking sucked, but if that was the price for having her with me, I’d be celibate for the rest of my life.

  “I never said I was spending the night with you,” she rebuked, but her grin was back. “I’m staying at Morgan’s house.”

  “I will sleep on the damn doorstep if that’s as close as I can get to you.” We both paused, words from an earlier vow running through our heads. “I’d sleep on the floor to get closer to you.” Six months, and nothing had changed.

  Everything had changed.

  Dinner was signaled, and I led her to our seats. The meal was a blur, and honestly, all I could think about was getting my mouth back on Sam. She kept her hand in mine while we ate, only breaking apart to cut our food. I couldn’t stop touching her.

  “If I can have your attention?” Major Davidson called from the podium.

  We all turned in our seats to where he spoke from across the empty dance floor. “We’re very lucky to have General Donovan with us tonight. He has some special interest in this class, and he’d like to address you before we announce the distinguished honor graduates.”

  Paisley’s father took the podium. His remarks on loyalty, bravery, and accomplishment were short, and I heard next to none of them over the steady pounding in my heart. It didn’t matter. First in my class or not, I’d gotten my duty station. The actual class ranking shouldn’t matter to me.

  Except it did.

  Major Davidson announced the Chinook class first, and we all clapped. Then the Blackhawk class.

  “It’s cool Josh is graduating with you guys,” Sam whispered.

  “Yeah, they should have been done a while ago, but they needed the aircraft during the tornado relief and it set them back long enough to coincide with us. I’m not complaining.” There was a sense of poetry to going out together.

&n
bsp; “Distinguished honor graduate from Blackhawk class 1509 is Second Lieutenant William Carter.”

  I clapped a little harder and toasted my water charger when he smiled over at me. Not second-choice Carter anymore. Maybe Sam had made me soft, but even that ass had grown on me.

  Sam took hold of my hand and wove her fingers through mine until they fit in that perfect space of familiarity. Here we go.

  “Distinguished honor graduate from Apache class 1506 is Second Lieutenant”—Jagger Bateman—“Grayson Masters.”

  My breath stalled.

  Sam kissed my cheek as the crowd applauded again. “You did it. I’m so proud of you!”

  Jagger clapped me on the back. “Congratulations, man!”

  “It should have been you.”

  He shook his head. “You kept up with me test for test academically. Trust me, I paid attention. And in the cockpit, you’re a better pilot. Take the fucking accolade, Grayson. You earned it.”

  I pulled Sam under my arm and kissed her forehead and then her lips, putting all my joy, incredulousness, and hope into it. This moment was perfect.

  “Now, soon-to-be aviators. We all know that you didn’t get here alone. In Army Aviation, we have a tradition. You ladies put up with late nights, early mornings, absent spouses, irritated, worried, over-stressed spouses, and I’d bet that more than a few of you know the 5&9s as well as they do.” Laughter rolled over the small crowd. “So, gentlemen, invite your ladies to stand, and pin them. They’ve earned it.”

  Fuck. What was I going—My velvet box appeared in front of me. “You didn’t think I’d actually lose Paisley’s wings, did you?”

  “You knew. Asshole.” I was too relieved to have her wings to actually be angry.

  He had the audacity to wink as we stood. I offered my hand to Sam, and she stood slowly, unsure of herself. “I’m not your wife.”

  “Not yet.” I grinned at the way her jaw dropped. My fingers fumbled with the chain, finally working the tiny clasp and securing it around her neck. The wings rested exactly where I knew they would, in gorgeous contrast to her perfect skin. “I wouldn’t have made it through without you.”

  She laughed. “That’s not true. If anything I was a deterrent when I was here, and I’ve been gone over two months. This one is all you.”