Page 45 of Second Position (Astor Hill #2)

Grant

The past few days have been full of missed calls, texts left on read, and excuses for why we can’t seem to make time for each other.

We’ve been tip-toeing around the crack this fight put in our carefully constructed world.

The world where only her and I exist and we can hide away from all those reasons we thought we’d never work out.

It’s obvious they’ve been there this entire time, a steady pressure pushing and pushing against our little orbit and tonight will determine if it breaks us in half.

Every year Andy’s frat, Sigma Chi, throws this massive Halloween party and Gen and I decided to go together, publicly. I swear it was like I was standing directly in the sun, like us choosing one another brightened all of my memories, the idea that everything I’ve gone through led to her.

Gen ordered us masks inspired by Cleopatra and Marc Antony and I glance at mine on the dresser, gilded with gold, rolling my lips together.

I should be elated right now, all of the pieces finally clicking together, but instead there’s this familiar sense of dread wedged deep in my gut, the feeling I used to get before seeing my mom.

I don’t know why I care so much about this lie.

Gen’s right—it really is none of our business.

Yet it’s shading everything I thought I knew about her.

Like if it was so easy to keep this secret for Will, one that would surely devastate someone, what else would she do for him?

It would have been different if she seemed remorseful, but no—she defended him.

Made it yet another thing I’d never understand about their fucked up relationship.

It’s that she can’t stop protecting him—from us, from reality, from the consequences of his actions—that seems to tear at the already frayed edges of this amorphous thing we have together.

I try to shake the thought of her, throwing on a hoodie and walking into the too bright kitchen, squinting at the morning sun streaming through the open blinds. The culprit is sitting at the counter, scarfing down a cream cheese and lox bagel that seemingly has a half pound of red onion on top.

“Have I ever told you that you remind me of the Grinch?” I say, rubbing the five o’clock shadow covering my jaw. I make a mental note to shave.

“Everyday,” Sloane replies, a wide smile spreading across her face, her half chewed bagel on full display, and I cringe.

“Gross, Sloane.” Sloane holds the bagel up, taking a proud second bite. She swallows and takes a large gulp of her coffee.

I sigh, taking in my destroyed kitchen. For whatever reason, Sloane needed every ingredient in my fridge to make one bagel. I know I’m being passive aggressive as I slink toward the ingredients, gathering them and putting them in their correct spots .

“ Stop . I was going to clean that up!” she says, jumping to her feet to wrench the items out of my hands.

“Sure you were,” I say, a little grumpier than I mean to.

She frowns observing me for a second before rolling her eyes, putting away the rest of the items and sitting back down to finish her meal.

“What?” Now I am annoyed, because where I’m passive aggressive, Sloane is just aggressive and that eye roll was designed to land like a punch.

She looks at me and raises her eyebrows as if to ask if I really want to know what she thinks.

“ What Sloane? Just say what you want to say.” I feel exhausted and not entirely sure I actually want to know what she has to say, but I'd rather hear it now than whatever inappropriate moment she chooses.

“You’re being cranky to me because of your fight with Gen,” she shrugs, as if it’s obvious and maybe it is obvious. I assume Gen’s already told her everything, they're basically attached at the hip, and from the way Sloane’s looking at me I know she’s already made up her mind that I’m the bad guy.

“Is there more?” I ask, feeling my voice becoming more frustrated.

“You should apologize to her.”

“Apologize for what? Asking her to tell the truth?”

She moves to the sink, clearing her plate.

“It’s not her truth to tell,” she mumbles under her breath, but I know she intended for me to hear it.

“What do you mean?” I ask incredulously.

“You’re telling me she should just keep this huge secret, one that would shake up Olivia’s life completely, for Will ?

” I spit his name, venom dripping from my voice.

“The same Will who's been shitty to basically every person I’ve cared about since I’ve known him? ”

“Sort of!” Sloane spits back and I can see the fire that takes my sister over start to light, the one that’s gotten her in trouble so many times before.

I gape at her, shocked that she of all people would be on his side and not mine.

“Look, I have to go. I’m going to be late.

” She grabs her keys off the counter, bending over to put on her boots.

“Late for what?” I ask, too much suspicion in my voice but I’m angry, and not only is she not in school right now, she’s also unemployed. She freezes for a split second as if she wishes she didn’t say anything. I splay my hands on the counter, frustration coursing through me.

“Late for what , Sloane?” I say again, already expecting the worst. She shuts her eyes and pulls in a deep breath standing up straight.

“I have a thing…with Mom.”

I feel my jaw lock, my thumbs hitching under the counter that I’m now squeezing, my knuckles turning bleach white. I want to scream, to run—I want to stop my sister from the chaos that will follow when she allows this woman back into her life.

“Why?” I say through gritted teeth.

“You know what Grant—” she starts, that flame now fully ablaze, as she grabs her coat.

“Not all of us are constantly holding people to an entirely impossible standard. Normal people can’t just decide if someone is good or bad like that .

” She snaps her fingers in front of my face.

“People change Grant, people have reasons they do things. Maybe they don’t want to share those things with the gatekeeper of morality . ” She gestures, staring daggers at me.

“People like Will, people like Connie…” Anger seizes through me burning its way up my throat.

“They don’t just change Sloane. They don’t get to use their issues as an excuse for fucking up someone’s life.

” I feel the volume of my voice before I register it, my throat aching with the outburst, but Sloane does not back down.

Just like always, she squares her shoulders and stares me down.

Surprisingly though, her voice has a softer tone than it did before, as if she’s worried I might break—and I might.

“Sometimes things are morally grey, Grant. Do I think Gen should be protecting Will? No. Absolutely not.” I feel my shoulders droop, slightly relieved.

“But—” Sloane starts and I instantly feel myself tense again.

“Will was Gen’s person for a really, really long time.

That was her best friend, so maybe she thinks protecting him is more important than the truth.

Maybe there’s a whole lot of pain under that secret that she knows he’s not ready to face.

” I shake my head and I see the frustration flaring in her eyes.

“What makes Will less worthy of empathy, Grant? Just because he’s fucked up?

What about mom? Why is she okay to abandon and we aren’t? ” Tears bloom behind my sister's eyes.

“She was our mom , Sloane.” I know she can hear the betrayal in my voice, the anger and pain bubbling under the surface.

Sloane’s jaw hardens. “She is our mom.”

“This is a mistake. Don’t let her in.” I drop my voice to a softer level, wanting to protect that innocence, that way my sister has always gotten to look at the world and I never have.

“Don’t let her in.” She lets out a sardonic laugh.

“That’s your advice? To just keep pushing her away?

” She squeezes her eyes shut and I’m a bit surprised by how angry she is.

“Grant, you can’t just keep everyone at arm's length and expect things to get better for you.” Her fingers clasp around the bag strap hanging on her shoulder.

I feel my defenses climb back up, aware that my sister is taking everyone's side but mine .

“I let people in. I let you in—I let my friends in. For fuck’s sake this entire argument is because I let Gen in.” Anger flows between the two of us and Sloane grabs her keys from the counter.

“This entire argument is because you refuse to let anyone in.” Her voice is calm but angry as she shifts past me heading to the front door. “Apologize to Gen, Grant,” she says without a goodbye, throwing the door closed behind her.

The masquerade mask is almost suffocating as Gen walks down the steps of her apartment.

The slits of her long silky white skirt expose her toned, tanned legs as she walks toward me, and what looks like a white scarf is expertly wrapped around her chest in a way that leaves slivers of her soft brown skin exposed.

It isn’t lost on me that, even just seeing her from several yards away, the weight that’s been on my chest all day feels a little bit lighter. My fight with Sloane has been on repeat in my mind but now, it feels farther away, her words dimming with every step Gen takes.

“Hi,” she smiles up at me, the same shy smile she had that first night standing outside my apartment and it’s like every detail of the past few months comes rushing back to me, the Roman armor that Sloane somehow convinced Andy to snag from the theater department constricting as I suck in a breath.

“You...” I let out a low whistle that has a pink flush surging where Gen’s mask meets her cheeks. I look into those dark brown eyes, and lose myself. “You’re everything.” That realization opens something inside me that I thought I had healed long ago. Losing her would ruin me.

I pull her arms around my neck and feel her melt a little, the hesitance she had a second ago washing away. “You ready?”

Her smile barrels through me and here I am again, standing in her light. Goodness pours through me and all I can see is the girl in front of me and the life we could build together, but then I feel it. The hope morphing into worry, pain, uncertainty.

“You okay?” she asks, recoiling slightly, biting her lip as insecurity racks her own features and I know she feels that shadow of doubt, too, hears the distant rattle of skeletons, threatening to escape the closets we've stuffed them into.

“I’m fine, just a long day.” I smile but I know it doesn’t reach my eyes. The weight is back, sitting square in the middle of my chest. I open the door for her, not meeting her eyes.

“Hey—” Her voice coaxes me to look at her and I can see the worry, much more present now, the sides of her mouth turned slightly down.

The urge to pull away from her, to run and hide, is so strong I’m sure she can see it written all over my face.

It was easy to fall in love with Gen when I didn’t realize how much she meant to me.

When I didn’t realize what it would do to me if I lost her.

“You sure you’re okay?” Her fingers brush mine, her voice quiet, shy, and so unlike her.

I finally really look at her and even with the mask I see her there.

All of her. The insecurity, the worry, but overpowering all of it, the belief that this will work.

Her cards are all laid on the table, and her eyes beg me to play my hand.

And that— that scares the absolute shit out of me.

“Maybe we keep us,” I gesture between myself and her, “ just us for one more night.” I swallow, seeing the rejection and hurt slip across Gen’s face—a flicker, barely there and already gone.

She rolls her lips together, trying to hide the pain I caused her.

I don’t know why I’m doing it but before I can take it back, she nods.

“Yeah…maybe we should.”