“It’s okay, Mom. I don’t feel pressured no matter how much you talk about grandchildren. Just so long as you know it’s not going to happen.” Gray leaned up and patted her shoulder.
“Jill Henderson is going to be a grandmother in two months. Jeremy is a year younger than you.”
“Good for Jeremy. I’m happy for him and Mrs. Henderson.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if your sister would cooperate. I just don’t know where we went wrong. I don’t know why you both seem to reject the idea of marriage and family so much. Were we bad parents?”
“No. You are the best parents anyone could ever have. You set the bar too high for Iz and me. We’re never going to be as good as you, so why even bother?”
“Don’t think for one minute I’m buying that.” She shook her head making Gray snort a laugh and Mr. Hollinger smile.
Alyssa was enthralled with his family already.
* * * *
Gray relaxed as soon as Alyssa survived the hug. He knew everything would be fine.
“So what’s really going on?” his dad asked when Alyssa and his mother were laughing in the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” Gray tried to evade the question, but he knew it was futile with his father. He was too observant.
“The girl. She doesn’t look like a call girl you hired to make it look like you had a girlfriend.”
Gray laughed with his father who had obviously been joking.
“She’s not a call girl.”
“Then what is she?”
“Does it matter?” Gray asked.
“It matters if the reason you’re not telling me is because you don’t know.”
“I do know.”
“Fine.” He put up his hands. “That’s all that matters.”
Gray took a moment. His father was letting him off the hook. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be off the hook yet.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted quietly, glancing toward the door. “We agreed we weren’t in a relationship. We are both busy with work.”
“And have too many excuses,” his father interrupted, his eyebrows mashed together.
“Maybe. We’re happy with whatever we are. We talked about it a little bit on the way here.”
“Just keep an open mind. I’d hate to see you miss out on a good thing because you were too stubborn to change your initial plan.”
Gray wasn’t worried as much about his open mind. He was more concerned about his open heart. For the first time in his life he wasn’t worried about being hurt by someone cheating on him. His concerns now were that he would be hurt because the woman he cared about didn’t return his feelings.
“We’ll see what happens,” he told his father as they went back to the kitchen to check on the women.
“Isn’t she the cutest thing?” his mom crooned when they stepped through the doorway. “I love her to pieces, Grayson. You’d better not mess this up for me.” He could tell his mother was only half joking.
After a quiet dinner at home, they played cards and went to his room.
“So how much do you want to run away right now?” he asked Alyssa as she slid into bed next to him.
“I don’t. I had a lot of fun. Your dad was so cheating at cards.”
“I know.” They laughed together.
“I think your mother expects something.”
“Let her.” He shrugged it off.
“Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re very welcome. I’m glad you’re here.”
Late the next morning, Izabelle arrived. For the next two hours, Alyssa was grilled with questions disguised as get-to-know-you conversation while they got ready for the picnic.
The guests started arriving at noon, which meant Alyssa was released from his mother and sister so they could interrogate the new arrivals.
“Let’s go hide,” Grayson suggested as he tugged her off to the far corners of the backyard.
“You have a huge family.”
“Yeah. I know my aunts and uncles and first cousins. When we get to their kids, I’m not a hundred percent sure who belongs to whom.”
“I don’t even have a cousin.” She shrugged.
“Wow.” He wasn’t sure if he felt bad or envied her. “I have plenty. Help yourself.” He held his hands out wide, indicating she could have her pick.
“What about your sister? I always wanted a sister.”
“You want Iz? I don’t know. She kind of keeps my head on straight.”
“Because she’s a psychiatrist?”
“No, because she’s my big sister.”
“…and Grayson and his girlfriend are here.” Gray could see his mother scanning the crowd. “Grayson!” she called when they were spotted.
“It was good while it lasted.” He leaned down and pecked her lips. “I guess we need to mingle.”
At some point during the picnic, Gray and Alyssa became separated. She seemed to be doing all right on her own as she laughed with his aunt, so Gray stayed clear of the women. Instead he went back inside to get another helping of potato salad and a brownie.
“She doesn’t seem that bad,” Izzy said, sneaking up behind him.
“She isn’t.”
“I expected her to be a train wreck.” She stole the brownie off his plate.
“Sorry to disappoint.” He frowned, taking the brownie back and shoving it in his mouth so she couldn’t have it. It was a timeless strategy.
“I guess so.” She pouted. “What are you going to do about the other issue?”
“What issue?” he mumbled with his mouth full of brownie.
“The guy in prison,” she said flatly, implying he was dense.
“I don’t see how there’s anything I can do. I can’t make the guy tell the truth, especially when the State of New York already failed.”
“Maybe time has helped him remember the facts more clearly.”
“Have you ever known anyone to remember something better over time?”
“It happens. I’m just saying she might not be able to move on with you if she never ends things with him. That would be a shame because I like her.”
Gray looked down at his plate of potato salad and found it suddenly unappealing.
“I’m going to go save Alyssa from Dad and his friends.”
He left his sister—and her prophecy of doom—to stand next to Uncle Jack. His dad was finishing the story of how he caught a marlin off the coast of Cabo–a story that became more riveting every time he told it, as fish stories often do.
“Wow. That is very cool, Mr. Hollinger,” Alyssa said with wide eyes as she passed back his phone with the photo. “It’s huge.”
His father smiled at Alyssa. “Please call me Holly. At least until you start calling me Dad.”
Gray’s heart stopped for a second as he waited for Alyssa’s response. He didn’t know how she might react. Would she make a scene, denouncing him loudly so everyone knew they were only pretending to be in a relationship? Or would she walk away upset?
She didn’t do any of those things.
Her eyes widened in surprise and then happiness beamed out of her like the light from the sun when it crests the horizon. She swallowed and gave him a little nod as if it was not a big deal, but Gray could see the way it had affected her.
She’d never had a father before, and the thought of one day being able to call someone Dad seemed to make her happy. Gray found himself liking the idea of sharing his father with Alyssa, on some level anyway.
They hung out with his family all day. When it was dark, and the crowd had dispersed, Alyssa helped them clean up.
“Do you want to get out of here for a while?” Gray asked as he tugged on the bottom of her shirt to get her attention. It was a little after ten.
“Sure.”
T
hey hopped in his mother’s car and he pulled out heading down the road without a route planned. He just turned from street to street, occasionally mentioning a landmark here and there.
“And this is where my sack-of-shit, ex-best friend lives with my whore of an ex-girlfriend and their spawn,” he said, pointing to a small house with a fence around the property. He may have sounded a little bitter.
“Wait, they’re still together?” Alyssa asked.
“Yeah. Maybe I didn’t tell you the whole story.” He knew he hadn’t. He hated the ending.
“Maybe you didn’t.”
“I told you I only found out about them when I was a junior in college.”
“Right.”
“The way I found out was rather upsetting.” He took a breath and went for it. “When I came home at spring break in March she was about five months pregnant. I hadn’t been home since August.”
Alyssa’s eyes went wide.
“Was she showing?”
“Yep.” The memory of that betrayal caught in his throat for a second until he was able to choke it down.
“And then she told you whose it was?”
“Yes.”
“And then what did you do?” she asked, as riveted by the story as if it had a marlin in it.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“What was I supposed to do? Beat him up? He was going to be a dad. I couldn’t beat up someone’s dad,” he said while shaking his head at the absurdity.
“And they’re still married?” She looked over her shoulder at their house as he continued on slowly down the street. They moved out of the residential area and were passing a strip mall.
“Yeah. From what I’ve heard, they’re both miserable. I’m not going to lie; it amuses me. It seems fitting, I guess.”
“But you never got to be angry at them.”
He shrugged. He’d been plenty angry. He just never yelled at them. He’d played it cool, like he didn’t even care. But he’d cared.
“What’s the point?” he said, shrugging it off.
“Pull into the parking lot here. I need to get something.” Alyssa pointed at the grocery store in the strip mall.
Gray did as she asked and she jumped out of the car before he even put it in park.
“I’ll be right back. Wait here.”
Chapter 19
Grayson had planned to go in with her, but since she seemed to be in a hurry, he stayed in the car.
He hadn’t thought about the betrayal in a while. He was over it. Or, he wanted to be over it.
The memory of Mandy telling him it was his fault because he went to school so far away made his blood boil all over again. And the way John avoided him and never so much as apologized or came up with an excuse made Gray squeeze his eyes shut. So maybe he wasn’t quite as over it as he’d hoped.
The passenger door opened and Alyssa slid in with a smile on her face.
“Drive back to their house,” she ordered while she settled the bag between her feet.
“Why?” He didn’t understand.
“Just do it. Park two blocks from their house.”
As he pulled out and headed back toward the house of doom, Alyssa opened a bag of beef jerky and held a piece out to him.
“Beef jerky?” he said with a laugh.
“It’s the snack of criminals.”
His brows creased, but he continued driving and chewing until he was parked a block and a half from their dark house. No doubt they were asleep as normal people would be at this hour.
“Come on,” she said as she pulled a carton of eggs from the bag at her feet.
“What the hell are you doing with those?”
“We’re going to throw them at their house. It’s summer. They will stink and be a bugger to wash off, but as long as you don’t wing them at anything breakable, they won’t cause any real damage. Just enough to make us feel better.”
“We’re not fourteen, Liss.”
“Let’s be fourteen for a little while.”
“This is crazy.” He shook his head and looked out the window at the tiny house.
“Are you chicken?” she challenged—and that was all it took. He snatched the carton from her fingers and walked up the sidewalk.
Alyssa giggled as she glanced around quickly, apparently taking on the role of lookout.
Gray pulled the first egg out of the carton and weighed it in his palm before snapping it across the yard. It broke against the porch post, spraying slime all over the front door.
He smiled widely as he pulled out the second egg.
Alyssa only got the chance to throw three eggs and one of them didn’t make it to the house, instead it landed on the grass and bounced onto the sidewalk where it broke and oozed its innards out into a puddle.
Gray was almost disappointed when he realized the carton was empty.
“Let’s go,” Alyssa hissed as she tugged him back to safety. They ran down the sidewalk full speed and jumped in the car. They were laughing hysterically as he sped away.
“I can’t believe we just did that.” He was still laughing when he pulled into the parking lot of the gas station. He let his head rest back against the seat so he could look at her.
Alyssa’s green eyes blazed in the glow of the street light.
“Thank you for that, Liss. I know it was only eggs, but I feel somewhat vindicated.”
“Good. Nothing says screw you like eggs that will most likely be stinking by morning.”
“Remind me to never piss you off.”
“You deserved better than what they did to you.”
“Thanks.” He leaned closer, enthralled by the way she spoke while still out of breath from running. He wanted to kiss her more than air.
His lips touched hers like they had many times over the last few months. It shouldn’t have felt any different, but something flared between them.
Alyssa must have felt it too, because her eyes popped open for a second before she pulled him back to her lips. Giving into the flames completely, he found himself gasping for air again. They needed to go somewhere they could be alone.
“Come on. I know a place,” he whispered.
* * * *
Without questioning him, Alyssa nodded and put her hand on his.
It was only six minutes to the lake, but Gray found it difficult to drive with his pants constricting him as they now were.
At the lake, he circled around to see if anyone else was there before he found a spot by the dock. As Alyssa got out and looked around, Gray got two blankets out of the trunk of his mother’s car along with a bag of towels. She was always ready for an impromptu picnic.
Alyssa kicked off her sandals while Gray arranged the blankets on the worn wooden boards that were still holding the sun’s warmth from the hot day. He looked up at Alyssa and was speechless.
The moonlight was shining through her golden hair, which hung down her bare back. She was beautiful.
Of course he shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d known this since the second he met her, but sometimes he was still caught off guard by just how perfect she was when she wasn’t even trying.
“Swim?” she asked with her head tilted to the side.
He nodded and smiled at her as she kicked off her shorts and jumped in the water nude.
“Come in. The water’s warm,” she said as she raised herself out of the water enough for him to see her amazing breasts, her nipples peaked from coolness of the air.
“You look like a mermaid, luring me into the depths,” he mused as he unbuttoned his shorts and let them slide down.
“I’m sure I can lure you into some depths if that’s what you’re after,” she joked. He jumped in recklessly, letting his entry throw water all over her.
After her squeal of protest she lau
ghed. The sound echoed over the surface of the water, making them seem so much more alone. The water wasn’t deep. Standing flatfooted on the sandy bottom, the water came to his shoulders.
“So who’s the guy with the hockey mask and the chainsaw?” she said in mock horror as she pointed over his shoulder.
“Very funny.” He swam after her, grabbing her and pulling her against him. Her wet arms slid around behind his neck and her legs eagerly wrapped around his waist.
“You’re right where I want you now,” she said with an evil laugh.
“Well, maybe you’re right where I want you too.”
“Hmm. Convenient,” she allowed with a little giggle before she pressed her lips to his. Like before in the car, something flared again. Only this time, it engulfed him. He didn’t fear it, he embraced it, wanted it. He wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted anyone.
Not just for the sexual release, but to be as close to her as humanly possible. To be connected to her on the deepest level.
She pulled back slightly to look into his eyes. Did she feel it too? Her eyes glowed silver in the moonlight, but he could still see something there. Surprise, maybe?
“Gray,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He knew what she wanted. He moved them back to the dock and assisted her up onto the blanket before flinging himself over the edge of the dock to join her there.
They kissed again and again, and each time she lured him closer and closer. Just like a mermaid.
He reached for his shorts and slid them over so he could get to his wallet in the back pocket. As he opened the wallet, it occurred to him that he had just done this same thing a few days ago. The evening he came home and took Alyssa in the kitchen.
The absence of the foil pack reminded him he’d never replaced it.
“Liss? Do you have a condom in your bag?”
“I don’t have my bag.”
“Shit!”
“We don’t have a condom?”
“No. I used it and never put another one in here.” He rolled back over to her and stroked her face. “I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot.”
Getting Down to Business Page 18