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Greyson cleared his throat and his footfalls closed in on me. I looked up and my fucking heart tripped at the sight of him.

Greyson was wearingjeans. To work. On a Wednesday.

He looked disheveled, unsettled,vulnerable.

“Hey,” he said, his voice quiet and heavy.

I’d seen Greyson thousands of times in hundreds of settings over the years, but the solemn mood clinging to him had unnamed emotions knotting in my chest.

If his jeans weren’t enough proof, stubble darkened his jaw, telling me he’d left the house in a rush. Greyson shaped up his goatee and shaved his beard every morning. But not today…

My eyes stayed fixed on his face too long. But then I moved my gaze to his mouth and mine ran dry.

What the hell was wrong with me? What had I come in here for again?

I looked at the boxes. And back at him. Then back at the boxes. Looking at the boxes was safer.

“Uh, what are these? Do I need to build something?” I cleared the catch in my throat, waiting for his reply.

“True ordered an office chair and sent it here because her address doesn’t come up on Amazon.”

Oh. Made sense.

“The other stuff is for Duchess. So we can take her home. I got two different litter boxes, a cat tree and a new bed.”

My poor heart was getting a workout because now it was back to stuttering in my chest. Eyes trained on Greyson, I didn’t fight my smile.

“Say that again. Duchess is coming home with us?”

My best friend ran a finger over his brow, rubbing aimlessly.

I stepped closer to him, invading his space so he had no choice but to look at me.

“Say you swear.”

“Noah—”

His warning faltered when his eyes dipped to my mouth and I was suddenly conscious of the way I licked them. He followed the path of my tongue over my lips and then stared in my eyes for longer than he ever had.

Maybe I imagined it, but his head dipped like he wanted to be closer to me, and that alone snapped me out of my stupor.

My excitement over Duchess was quickly snuffed out by the memories of my morning with True.

“Why’d you leave us this morning?”

One minute, I was awake and Greyson was standing at the foot of the bed. The next minute, I was waking up and the house was silent.

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“So you left? What if I wasn’t there? You would’ve left her then too?”

Greyson scoffed like I’d lost my mind. “No. She had you. She didn’t need me. There was no reason to be there.”

If it wasn’t for the hurt in his voice, anger would have had a tighter hold on me. But I shook it away, trying to understand where he was coming from.

“What you mean, she didn’tneedyou?”

“Exactly what I said. I don’t know how to fucking be there for her. You knew how to comfort her and I just stood there.” He kissed his teeth and walked back to his desk. “I hate that feeling.”