Rumor (A Renegades Novella)
Page 13
“Because the truth is, she’s working at this strip club because you didn’t step up, shithead. She’s doing what she needs to do to pay the crazy bills, because this is her mother we’re talking about. A mother who has always treated you like her own son. A mother who’s treated you better than your own fucking mother—”
“Okay,” Beck yelled, throwing his arms out and pacing again. “Jesus, dude, the horse is fucking dead already.”
Josh shut up. Watching Beck pace as he absorbed everything he’d denied until now but had to accept. And in the silence, Josh had to find his own resolution to the realization that Grace had been right all along—love alone wasn’t enough. They also needed trust. And not only hadn’t she trusted Josh’s commitment to her, but she’d tried to keep Beck’s visit a secret.
Now, Josh had to accept the fact that Grace might not be 150 percent committed to their relationship. And without that, Josh couldn’t envision how they could make things work between them.
“Do you love her?” Beck’s question yanked Josh back from the painful realization. “I mean really love her.”
That was an ironic question coming from the self-centered Beck. Then Grace’s words came back to him. “In his own way, he did his best.” And despite the discrepancies between Grace’s and Beck’s reality, Josh believed that, in his own way, Beck had truly loved Grace.
“Yes,” he said for the second time in two days. “I really love her. But even if things don’t work out with us, you have to let go, dude. Let her find someone who can really give her what she wants and needs.”
All the confrontation drained from Beck’s muscles. With his gaze locked on the asphalt, he nodded. “Yeah…” he said, his voice dripping with resignation. “Man… This fuckin’ blows.”
That was a mild way to put it, but Josh was suddenly experiencing the same sense of loss.
“All right.” Beck straightened and pulled himself together the way Josh had seen him do hundreds of times in the field. “There’s only one thing left to do, I guess.”
Josh wished he knew what to do at this point. He was fucking lost and felt like he was bleeding out.
“Incoming.”
Beck’s strange warning drew Josh’s gaze from the ground a split second before Beck’s fist slammed into Josh’s face. His head jerked to the side, the pain following as he stumbled and hit a nearby Dumpster. Pain blasted through his head, burning across his skin and cutting into his eye. Josh braced himself for a second attack.
“You motherfucker,” he said, squinting toward Beck. When he found his former teammate doing nothing more than standing there, shaking out his hand, Josh relaxed. “That was a cheap shot, you fuckin’ ass wipe.”
“Believe me, you’ll appreciate it,” he said. “Grace freaks over every little scrape. You’ll get more attention than you know what to do with.”
He pulled his hand away and found it covered in blood. “You are such a prick.” Josh turned toward the building and knocked on the door. “Jasmine, it’s Josh.”
“God. Out of commission for a year, and you’re a grade-A pussy,” Beck muttered.
“I’ve been out of commission for a year and my priorities are a hundred and eighty degrees different. Grace has had enough drama for a lifetime,” Josh said as Jasmine opened the door. “I’ll be right back. Stay out here so you don’t freak the entire club.”
“Are you okay?” Jasmine asked, her eyes pulling down at the corners with her frown. “Do you want me to have Theo drive you to the ER?”
“No, no,” he said, turning toward the studio and the bathroom alongside. “I’ll be right out. He’s calmed down. Everything’s going to be fine.”
But when Josh braced his hands on the counter, watching blood drip, drip, drip into the white sink, he was having serious doubts about Grace’s true feelings toward him, and whether or not they could really make this work.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells…” Tammy sang from the table in the kitchen where she sat decorating cookies with Harriet, “Jingle all the way…”
“Oh, what fun it is to have a fresh rumor on a sleigh—” Carolyn cut in as she rolled out sugar cookie dough on a floured board atop the kitchen counter.
Grace laughed and turned the dough. “Somehow, that’s not the way I remember the song going.”
She’d spent the last few months preparing herself for a failed attempt at their holiday tradition. But, not only had the morning been a grand success, Grace had to admit this might just be the very best Christmas day ever.
“Remember the rule,” Tammy said. “No talk of rumors today, Carolyn. Here, Harriet,” she set another sugar cookie in front of the older woman, “dress up this reindeer, and let’s try…” She started singing, “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer…”
A ping sounded through the house, signaling the front door had opened.
Josh’s “Just me” mixed with Tammy’s, Harriet’s, and Carolyn’s “Had a very shine-y nose…”
Grace’s heart swelled with love and gratitude. She still didn’t know how they were going to make a relationship work with the two-hour drive between LA and San Diego, but she’d promised Josh to let go of the worry today.
Josh came around the corner into the kitchen, came up behind Grace, and set the premixed icing on the counter. “I got two.” He pressed his body into Grace’s from behind, kissed her neck, and whispered, “Just in case.”
“Josh,” Carolyn said. “I heard a new rumor…”
“Carolyn,” Tammy scolded.
Grace turned her head and kissed Josh. “Good thinking.” They’d obliterated an entire can the night before in wickedly decadent ways that made her sex tingle with the thought. “Is that what took you so long? Deciding on one can or two?”
“No.” He slipped one arm around her waist and set a small box on the counter with his other hand. “This is what took me so long.”
“Oooo,” Carolyn said. “That’s my rumor. Josh is bringing Grace a special present.”
Grace’s shoulders went soft, and she smiled at him. “We agreed, no presents.”
He shrugged. “I had two of the three before we made that deal.”
“Carolyn,” Tammy said, standing from the table and taking Grace’s mother’s arm, “let’s go into the living room and open one of your own.”
With Harriet on one arm and Carolyn on the other, Tammy exited the kitchen, and silence filled the space.
Grace slipped her arms around his waist. “This is the best Christmas I’ve had in decades.”
“For me too.” He combed his fingers through her hair, something that had become a familiar, soothing gesture. “Ready to open?”
She exhaled, feeling guilty she hadn’t gotten him anything. But she hadn’t had any time. Still, as she picked up the box, small and square, a giddy excitement bubbled in her chest.
She tugged one end of the red bow and slid the ribbon off, then darted a look at his face before she lifted the top. He was smiling but tense. A little edgy.
She lifted the top and found three keys lying on a bed of cotton. Two looked like standard house keys, and one was a decorative, old-fashioned key that looked like a true antique, with a heart at the top of the finger hold.
She smiled up at him. “Okay…” She drew out the word. “Am I supposed to guess?”
“That might take a while, and…yeah,” he said, his nervous excitement growing. “I can’t wait that long. Pick a key, and I’ll tell you what it’s for.”
She set the box down, deliberated on the different keys, and finally picked up the simple silver key on the right, holding it up to him.
“Good start,” he said. “So, remember when I told you I made a deal with Dean to remodel the back room at the club?”
She lifted her brows. “Yes.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, I traded the cost of my labor for a year’s lease of the space. The studio is your very own, to use as you choose—for girls at the club, for other dancers to come take lessons, or having your c
heerleaders come there. Hell, you can teach pole-dancing fitness to Alzheimer’s patients if you want.”
That visual made Grace bust out laughing.
“And…” he said, “the payment the girls at Allure make to Dean for your house-mom services now will come straight to you without any cut for a middleman starting January first.”
Her mouth hung open. Her heart filled. Her narrow view of the future opened into a vast array of possibilities. “How did you get him to agree to that?”
“Baby, the man knows you’re bringing in clients and money for him hand over fist. Once I convinced him to let me do the renovation instead of giving the job to his alcoholic brother-in-law, the rest was cake.”
She stared down at the key. “My own studio?”
“Your very own.”
Her heart swelled with more joy than she knew what to do with, and she simply threw herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and clinging tight. Josh rocked back at the force of her hug and laughed.
“That’s the most perfect gift I’ve ever gotten in my whole life.” She pulled back, cupped his face, and kissed him. “I love you so much.”
“I love you more.” He’d stolen her line, and now they shared it. “Pick another one.”
Now, overwhelmed, she turned to the box again. This time she picked up the simple gold key on the left, turned it over and over between her fingers, took a breath, and held it up.
He licked his lips, cleared his throat again, and shifted on his feet. “Okay, so…remember when I found out you were living in that bad part of town, and I was angry that you didn’t call me for help? Well,” he went on without waiting for her to answer, “that was because I never sold my townhome near yours and Beck’s.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “The market was down last year, so I held on to it, and I’ve been renting it out. The couple who’d been living there moved out two months ago, and I’ve been meaning to get down here and do a few fixes, talk to someone about putting it on the market again, but work’s been pulling me in every direction, and I haven’t had the time.”
A shadow of unease pushed her hand toward him. “I can’t take that, and I can’t afford—”
He pressed his fingers to her lips. “I’m not giving it to you. At least, not just you.” He slid his fingers along her lips and leaned in to kiss her. “I want you to live there with me.”
She didn’t understand what he was saying. “But…you don’t live there.”
“I do now. There is no way in hell I’m going back to LA. I’m not going anywhere without you, and I know Carolyn belongs right where she is.”
“But your work—”
“Can be done anywhere. Yes, I will need to travel. Yes, I may be gone for a few days at a time, occasionally a week, but I’ve already decided I’m not leaving, Grace, and I want you with me.”
She curled her fingers around the key and pulled it to her chest. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“You don’t want to just, I don’t know, date for a while and see how it goes first?”
He laughed, head thrown back. “Baby, I know everything I need to know. And I know I don’t want to be without you one minute longer than I have to.”
“Oh, wow…” she breathed, wide-eyed and choking on emotion. “I’ve never…I don’t…”
He cupped her face, and the nerves returned to his eyes. “I love you, Grace. Please say yes.”
He had a way of wiping out all her reservations. “Yes.”
He kissed her and wrapped her in his arms, whispering, “That’s the best present you could give me.”
When he released her again, she picked up the last key and studied it, her memories sliding back to those days of team get-togethers and family visits. “This looks like one of the keys you had mounted in that shadow box hanging in your kitchen.”
“Good memory.”
“Your grandmother’s…or something?”
He nodded.
“This was the key that started her collection. My grandfather gave it to her the day he told her he loved her, explaining it was the key to his heart. And I’m giving it to you as the key to mine.”
She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They spilled over her lashes and tickled her cheeks. Josh pulled something from his pocket and took the key from her. He threaded an antiqued silver chain through the heart, moved behind her, and fastened it around her neck. The key fell directly against her own heart.
He turned her in his arms and traced one finger down the chain with a soft smile. “Perfect.”
“I couldn’t love you any more than I do right now, Josh Marx.” Grace linked her arms around his neck, and pressed her forehead to his. “I promise to take very good care of your heart.” She kissed him gently, then whispered, “And that’s no rumor.”
About the Author
Skye Jordan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of red-hot romance. She also writes bestselling romantic suspense as Joan Swan.
Joan/Skye lives in magnificent wine country on the central coast of California with her husband and two daughters.
Visit her on the web as Skye in the following locations:
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Visit her on the web as Joan in the following locations:
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