Page 123

Story: All I Have Left

Moving his hand from my cheek, he traces a finger down my jawline, and then my collarbone. A warm, soothing ache seeps into my chest and spreads through my entire body. Stepping back, Grayson suggestively smirks and pushes away from me, and gets into the car.
Shit, I think I’m sweating. I sigh softly. I might not have got the first hug, but goddamn, I got the first kiss, and the first dirty smirk. That’s enough for me. I stand there for a moment, breathing in deeply, comforted by the sensations he evokes in me, and that we still have that, even if the kiss had been momentary.
In the car, I look over at him and though he’s tense, as if he’s not sure what happens now, he’s still my everything. He makes me feel so alive and whole, and desired. An emotion I thought I’d lost in the bed of his truck that night.
The drive is relatively quiet. We stop by the pharmacy, get supper to go, and he eats his first hamburger, which he practically inhales, and I enjoy a milkshake for the first time in months.
An hour outside Pinckard after a forty-five-minute nap, he touches his hand to my thigh once and says, “You haven’t been eating much, have you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
He nods, his eyes on the road, his hand leaving my thigh.
And then comes the question I thought maybe I wouldn’t hear from him. “Where is he?”
Fear jolts my chest. “Who?”
His head lolls to the side, away from me. “You know who,” he says, his words holding a certain edge I hadn’t expected.
I nod, my bottom lip between my teeth. In the darkness, I can’t see his facial expression, and I think maybe that’s why he chose now to ask. Up until now, Grayson hasn’t asked about how he ended up in the hospital, though he was told by me, and the police, that Shane hit him in the head with a bat.
He didn’t ask for details, and I didn’t give them.
“He’s in jail,” I tell him.
I notice his body tense at my words, his silence deafening. He doesn’t respond. I can see the muscles in his jaw clenching as he shakes his head, an internal conflict festering and I think I have an idea why.
I had hopes that today would be the day our happy ever after started. As I watch him sleep, I’m beginning to understand that sometimes those happy-ever-after endings don’t exist. At least it feels that way. They take a lot of freaking work to make happen.
57
EVIE
When we reach Pinckard, I pull in behind Julia’s car. Grayson’s stare lingers on his truck parked in the driveway with a tarp over it. Wyatt wanted to take it to the junk yard but didn’t have it in him to do it. The way he saw it, it’s Grayson’s truck. He should be able to decide what happens to it.
To me, I can’t look at it. Every time I do, it sends a revolting wave of nausea through me. I can’t imagine what he thinks until he stops at it. “Why is this here?”
“Wyatt wasn’t sure what to do with it.”
“Fucking burn it,” he mumbles, tearing his eyes from it and then walking away.
Inside the house, Grayson makes it about twenty minutes before he excuses himself to his room. We hadn’t talked about what would happen now that we were home. Standing in the kitchen, I fill a glass of water for his medications.
Frankie comes in behind me, reaching beside me for a beer. “How is he?”
Frustration digs through my chest that I have no idea. “I don’t know. He barely talks.”
“That’s normal.” Frankie rubs my shoulder, the strap of my tank top falling in the process. She fixes the strap and smiles. “Iwanted to say something earlier, for the last three weeks, but I can’t possibly contain myself anymore.”
I tilt my head toward hers, the glass of water in my hand set down. “What?”
Her cheeks flush as she draws in a breath and touches her hand to her stomach. “I’m… pregnant,” she whispers, and then rushes to add, “We found out the night he proposed at the lake, but didn’t want to say anything. I’m twelve weeks.”
I stare at her, absorbing the words and then the smile forms and I yank her to my chest. “Oh my God, really?”
“Yes,” she gasps, wrapping her arms around me. “I’ve wanted to tell you so many times, but it seemed so silly to bring it up with everything going on.”
I pull out of the hug. “Ethan knows?”