“I already texted Lyra to check on her earlier,” Sloane states out of nowhere, and I catch her peering over my shoulder, neck elongated and chin jutting out as she nosily reads what I’m typing out.
“You know anyone else would probably kill you for invading their privacy like that,” I teasingly admonish. She shrugs.
“How else was I supposed to find out if it was Trina-the-wanton-waitress that you were texting?”
I bark out a laugh at her creative terminology.
“And is that jealousy speaking or are you just looking out for a friend?” I inquire. Her brow furrows and she licks her lips, beginning to speak but hesitating as if trying out the words inside her head before actually voicing them.
“Can’t it be both?” she asks, just as we reach the jeep. Can it be both? That’s a good question. An easy one to answer, if I’m thinking in an admirable way, using my morals. However, lately I’ve not been the pillar of moral standards I once was.
And you need to be.
“I think we both know it can’t be both,” I answer softly, watching a wave of hurt pass across her lovely face before focusing back to an expression of impassivity more quickly than I knew it was possible. Her ability to mask her emotions is impressive.
Loading up the items, and then climbing inside the Wrangler, we head to our lunch destination. Suddenly, I’m second guessing if this is a good idea, or if I’m just setting myself up for failure.
Chapter Seventeen
Valley
As we drive toward wherever it is that he’s taking us (I can’t be sure because he refuses to answer me each time I ask), I can’t deny the sting of his words. The messed up part is that I know he’s right, and still, I’m irritated at being chastised for my natural feelings. And, I know he experienced jealousy over Miles, too. At least, I’m pretty sure.
We turn onto our shared driveway, and I look inquisitively at him, completely perplexed. Still, he remains silent until we get to the fork in the road.
“First, before we eat, we’re going to check on the puppy,” he informs me. Making quick work of checking on her and confirming that she still has everything she needs, we let her out to use the bathroom, and then replace her back in her caged area and return to the Jeep.
“There’s somewhere on the property I want to show you,” he says ambiguously. And that’s all I get. Closed off again. Such a thrill to be around.
He cuts toward the Knightley residence, but instead of pulling in, Gray keeps going straight. The off-road pathway is well-worn, a clear sign of being used quite frequently yet, not frequently enough to cause someone to gravel or pave it. The quiet ride is the opposite of solidarity, the air crackling with a chafing disharmony.
After about a minute of driving off road, we run parallel to a creek, and I roll down my window to take in nature at its finest. The natural rush of the water instantly soothing me as my negative attitude ebbs. It’s funny I never even knew this was so close by. If I had, it would have been my go-to spot for reading or writing in my journal when I needed time alone.
Gray parks beneath the shade of a large, old tree and retreats to the back of the jeep. He still hasn’t said a word since telling me he wanted to show me this place on the property. This has gone way beyond that of a mere uncomfortable silence, even if he is taking the time to straighten out his thoughts.
What if he’s thinking of hurting me? He could be unloading a shovel, gas, rope, anything! And Mom thinks I’m with Lyra today. No one would know where my body was.
Okay, so I know Gray wouldn’t harm me, but I still toy with the idea because of his wishy-washy attitude and how frustrating he is. I trust Gray. I feel safe with him. But my overactive imagination stirs a memory.
XoXo
“Valley, we can’t misplace our trust in anyone. Your father has more connections than I even know of. He gains more every year, with each favor. He’s impractical. Violent. And his business policies are the same. I pity those who have set out to partake in a business deal with him, and weren’t able to hold up their end of the bargain. You need to be aware of his true nature so you make the best decisions for your safety. Especially if anything were to ever happen to me.”
XoXo
Gray appears at my window, out of thin air, and I scream, completely startled. He opens the door with a puzzled look.
“Are you okay?” he asks, looking unsure about my sanity.
Damn embarrassing.
I nod my head, placing my hand over my heart.
“Are you sure?” he raises his eyebrows.
I clear my throat. Get it together, my mind shouts. “Yes. Mind telling me what we’re doing here now?”
He grins, lopsided and damn near perfectly.
This back and forth personality is about to give me whiplash.
“Why, we’re going to eat our festival-fare of course, Miss,” he replies with a mock English accent as he offers his hand and helps me down out of his monster of a Jeep. Annoyed as I am, I can’t help but smile in return.
In the time it has taken me to dream my violent daydreams, Gray has already set us up a place in the grass next to the water, complete with a blanket, plastic-ware, cooler, and beverages. It’s the quintessential, swoon-worthy, romance movie set-up package. That is, if he hadn’t have made it very clear it’s just a picnic between friends. My heart doesn’t know the difference, even when my head does.
As I walk towards the set-up, Gray refuses to break the contact he made upon helping me out of the vehicle, his hand sliding out of mine and making its way up to like elbows, as if escorting a lady (me being the lady in question). For extra effect, he throws in “Your birthday picnic awaits, your majesty,” as he bows slightly with an arm extended in front of him. I whole-heartedly giggle.
“Thanks Gray, I’m moved. Truly. This is very sweet.” I’m in awe as an army of Monarch’s take flight in stomach, worsening when he smirks, his eyes half-lidded and smoldering. “And out comes the signature, cocky-assed smirk. The I’m-sexy-and-I-damn-well-know-it one. I’m relieved, I was beginning to think your sister had gotten you sick,” I voice, once it appears.
Please let his moodiness be over for the day.
“Yeah, what can I say. I am pretty nice to look at, but what’s more important are my other commendable abilities,” he quips, waggling his eyebrows.
Whoa, is that a sexual suggestion?
He helps me lower myself onto the blanket, before sitting across from me, my heart increasing its already erratic rhythm.
We pull out all the food we bought at the Fall Festival, and divide it between ourselves, ending up with about six different things to try. I’m guessing this is where our silent eating commences, but Gray proves me wrong.
“Tell me about some of the places you lived,” he more so commands, than asks.
“Um, well let me think,” I don’t even hesitate, a nasty habit I’m beginning to form with him, “Michigan was my favorite place we lived, Florida, two places in Kentucky, Washington, Nevada. Just to name a few that is.”
He raises his eyebrows, clearly impressed by my having lived more places than he realized. “Where were you originally from?” he continues his probing.
“New Jersey,” I answer honestly. I can’t even stop myself, it’s like I’ve been injected with truth serum. For every question he asks, I’m awarding an honest answer, not caring about what the consequences may be.
Can I even tell him a lie today?
“So, you’re a Jersey girl, I’d never have guessed,” he grins.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Should I be offended?”
He leans closer to me, and I get a whiff of his cologne. The woodsy-spicy scent is nothing like what you’d expect a country boy to wear, instead it screams name-brand luxury, encouraging me to move closer so I can breathe in all of him. He lowers his voice, and it comes out smoother than before, like silk. “Well, for one, you don’t really have to typical Jersey accent.”
“And just what type of ac
cent would you say I have?”
“A neutral one, one that I wouldn’t even be able to guess where you’re from, had you have not just told me.” He’s pretty accurate there, and I did have a slight Jersey accent when I was a little girl, but my mother made me go through rigorous exercises, making me practice proper annunciations and word forms, in order to diminish it.
“Plus, the way you carry yourself and your personality, doesn’t really scream party girl or involvement in mob activities,” he teases.
That’s where he’s wrong. My Dad was about as close to mobster without actually being associated with the Italians, as you can get.
“Now you’re just listing out stereotypical bullcrap.”
“You mean to tell me that all those movies about the mob, and popular TV shows like say, Jersey Shore, are incorrect?” he asks, pretending to be shocked.
I laugh. “A lot of it, yeah.”
“Well forget all that, I’m more curious about you,” he replies, all teasing gone.
“What do you want to know?” The intense look on his face, his burning eyes, his closeness… I have to fight myself from jumping him like I did this morning. Instead, I squeeze my thighs together in attempt to alleviate the throbbing between them, momentarily closing my eyes for escape.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asks, voice hushed. My eyes flutter open again, surprised by such a run-of-the-mill question.
He’s still close. Way too close. I could do something as little as twitch my eye, and I have no doubt he’d catch it. He’s like a CIA agent who’s questioning a suspect, watching for any tell-tell signs of dishonesty. I stare into his caramel eyes and blurt the first thing that comes to mind.
“My favorite eye color is pale-brown. Butterscotch. Caramel. Whatever you want to call it,” I rush out, apparently lacking the filter most people have between their brain and mouth.
He cocks his head, narrowing his eyes at me as one of his dimples pop out for a brief second.
“That’s very specific. I was asking about your favorite color. In general,” he explains.
“In that case, red, but a very specific shade of red,” I answer quickly in hopes it will distract him. “I can only think to describe it as the color of old-timey red velvet, like the fabric. What about you? What’s your favorite color?”
He looks away for a few moments, pretending to be deep in thought as if he’s been asked a question his life depends on. “That’s easy,” he declares before answering, “gray, but not just any color of gray. A bright, clear gray that’s sometimes moonlit and silver. The kind of color that draws you in, making you forget what you’re doing and sometimes who you even are,” he replies, as he stares deeply again, into my eyes. His appraisal makes me blush, and I give him a small smile before looking away.
Never missing a beat, he asks, “what kinds of things are you interested in, like what are your hobbies, and what makes you happy?”
You make me happy, I think to myself, but I exude restraint this time by not voicing the sentiment.
“Mmm, I’m not sure I can answer that,” I tease, “that’s delving into some pretty deep territory.” He keeps looking at me expectantly, until I put all joking aside and give in. I huff. “I like to read, I like to write, I love music. I have a penchant for food and cooking, and as you’ve already witnessed, I cook way more than is humanly possible for me and mom to consume. And… I’d say that’s about it.”
“What do you write?” He seems genuinely intrigued over this fact.
“Nothing too specific. Mostly just in my journal, and sometimes I dabble in poetry but have no real desire for it to be viewed by anyone other than myself,” I state for the record. “That’s one thing I hate, when someone attempts to pry into my private thoughts. Mom tried that one time— reading my journal, my poetry—and needless to say, it didn’t go over too well. We had a disagreement of epic proportions. She hasn’t, to my knowledge, tried it since that particular incident.”
“I can respect that, and believe it or not, I get where you’re coming from,” he discloses, “I also keep a journal, although it contains a lot more of my personal drawings, and a lot less of actual writing. Still, it portrays my private thoughts.”
I gasp aloud at the tidbit of information. Looking at Gray, you wouldn’t think that he’d be the type to keep a journal. He’s all male. Tall and muscular, and involved in typical masculine activities. Just that first day here, I witnessed him working on their tractor. A few weeks ago, he re-roofed the entire barn, singlehandedly and in just a day. When I think of the type of guy I’d picture keeping a journal, or a journal of drawings for that matter, it’s definitely not a man of Gray’s caliber I envision, but a nerdy guy with glasses. Not saying nerdy guys with glasses aren’t sexy, because they are, but Gray is sturdy, chiseled, resilient, the opposite of “nerd” in every way.
“You’ve surprised me again,” I tell him, his brows knitting together in response to my comment.
“How’s that?”
“You just don’t strike me as the typical Journal-guy,” I joke, rehashing his reference to my not being a typical “Jersey girl.” Get it? Yeah, I’m pretty clever like that. He throws his head back, roaring with laughter for a moment, before zeroing back in on me.
“And what would you consider to be a typical ‘Journal-guy’?”
“Definitely not you. Although it has nothing to do with what I think of your intelligence, because I find you to be very intelligent,” I ramble, “I just don’t envision someone who’s the complete essence of a manly-man and ruggedly sexy like yourself, to be someone who keeps a journal, or drawing to express his feelings. Now,” I glance over to make sure he’s still with me, “if you were some science-nerd or academic scholar who knew a bunch or useless information but couldn’t change his own tire, I might be able to believe it. That just goes to show the saying’s true.”
“Which saying?” he asks.
“You can’t judge a book by its cover, silly.”
He reaches out, catching strands of my hair between his fingers, as the blow in the breeze. Rubbing it through his fingers as if to memorize the texture, and studying them intently, he simply says, “yeah, I guess that’s true.” He turns his gaze back to my face, studying me. “What was your first impression of me that day in the hallway,” he asks before adding, “in all honesty. No bullshit.”
“I’ll tell you, but only under one condition,” I stipulate.
“Okay, anything,” he agrees almost too easily.
“You have to answer the same for me, and another two questions of my choosing.” He shrugs in agreement. I take a deep breath before beginning.
“My very first impression, when I turned around to face you, was how intimidating you were. It was like my body reacted to you, and I had no control over what it was doing. My mind blanked. That’s never happened to me before, I’ve always been in control of my emotions and my outward reactions.
“Mom’s vetted me to show as little emotion as possible. Basically, to put on a plausible act. With you though, all that went out the window, like walking into a scenario you have no experience in and being blindsided. Which, now that I think of it, is exactly what happened.”
I glance up from my hands, which have been anxiously twisting the hem of my shirt. He’s drinking in every word, noting every move I make. Somehow, something in his eyes gives me the courage to continue.
“And then you had to open that rude mouth of yours, and I realized how you must have seen me, as the inconsequential and naïve girl I was. You made me so mad! I was convinced I hated your guts for the whole eight seconds it took for me to realize, once again, how handsome you were. Which in turn made me realize, that if I made a lasting bad impression on you, it wouldn’t be good, and I’d have made the worst enemy possible. I vividly fantasized that all the women in town fawned over you, following your every whim like royalty.”
A nervous laugh bubbles up as I brace for it—the fact that I’ve likely just pissed him
off. Or, that he’ll be put off by just how honest I was, true to my word. Instead, he surprises me by reaching out and clasping our hands together, as if to comfort me. I glance down where they’re connected for a moment before prompting, “Now, it’s your turn.” He rubs the back of his neck, and unguarded gesture as he inhales, then exhales slowly, keeping our hands clasped as he begins.
“I was handling something in the front office so I decided just to walk Lyra to class since I was there already, and to take the opportunity to try and find out why she hated school so much. I’m so thankful you’re in her life now, by the way. She’s happier now, more confident. Anyways, I had just walked her to class, and I’d witnessed the snickers and rude stares certain girls were sending her way. One of them even tripped her.
“Being a guy, I can’t really do too much. I was leaning there, overcome with helplessness. You know, just pausing to assess what I’d observed her go through. Then, you came around the corner, and we know the rest…” he pauses, then huffs, “I have to admit I was irritated, the whole not paying attention thing and falling. When you turned around, the first thing I think I noticed were your curves,” he shrugs apologetically, eyes flickering down to said breasts as if to point out the fact he’s a man.
“Then, your eyes. You have expressive eyes. It took me a minute to even catch on to the fact you were wearing a backpack and were a student. I knew immediately after that, you were the new girl in town, simply because I’d never seen you before. I’d have remembered if I had, trust me.” He reaches over and plucks a wild flower growing beside us, sliding it behind my ear.
“You were so open with your attraction to me, you wore it on your face, made it clear your actions, like it was something you didn’t know how to hide. And here’s the part where I’m brutally honest and I’m hoping it doesn’t hurt your feelings… I was having the same damn reaction to you. But knowing I was standing in the middle of a high-school and you were ‘the new student’ there, I was frustrated. I didn’t know how to deal with that, because it was highly inappropriate. So, I began goading you, being rude, trying my best to be off-putting.”
Love on the Run Page 19