Page 17

CHAPTER 16

JILL

I waited until I heard the voices die down, pressing myself against the wall as if whoever it was might come check the locker room for someone else. I knew the timbre of my brother’s voice, and it wasn’t him, thank god. But when it finally went silent I changed out of my wet suit and slipped out the back door. I’d parked between the dumpsters just in case Joey had come by on his stupid patrol. The town didn’t contract with him to do it, he just liked to. The man loved his job a little too much.

It felt awkward not saying goodbye to Grady. But it also felt like it would have been just as awkward to say goodbye to Grady. My cheeks grew hot just thinking about what had happened in that pool.

I knew Adam wasn’t a great lover. And I’d only had a few other experiences before him. But nothing compared to what had happened with Grady. It had to be the forbidden nature of it all. That was my only explanation. Well, either that or the decade or more I’d pined for the man. But Grady Holloway had done exactly what I’d always feared; ruined me for other men.

And he hadn’t even fucked me.

Which was why two days later I was forced to wear a blazer at our next event; I needed to cover the sweaty pits that were going to be a given now any time I was around the man. Stupid nervous system.

“We’re so grateful you chose our hospital for one of your readings, Mr. Holloway. The kids in this ward are all undergoing extensive treatments, so they don’t get out much and it can be a bit boring for them.”

The hospital director was beaming up at Grady, the sincerity in her smile warm enough to melt through the apprehension that was still trickling through my veins.

“It’s our pleasure, really,” he said, glancing over at me with a proud grin.

He was looking especially good that morning, his clean-shaven jaw so sharp you could cut your hand on it. The crisp white collar of his button down was open at the top, giving him a relaxed look, even if the rest of his suit was nothing but polished. We’d never discussed wardrobe for these things, and every time he’d shown up in something slightly different, but today’s get-up was downright mouthwatering.

Part of me wondered if that was on purpose.

We hadn’t seen each other since the pool, and our texts had been minimal and professional. But when I pulled up to his house that morning, he was waiting for me at the door and I could have sworn he’d blushed, just a little.

“We’ve got a group just down that hall waiting for you,” she went on. “And then, if you have time, some of the older kids are upstairs, and they’d love it if you could pop in to say hi.”

Grady nodded enthusiastically. “Whatever you like, I’ve got no place else to be today but here, so just show me the way and I’m in.”

“Wonderful,” she muttered, looking back at me. “Isn’t he just wonderful?”

It was easy to agree with her, nodding as I followed them down the corridor. It was harder to ignore the way Grady’s gaze kept slashing to me, a mix of heat and uncertainty in his eyes that made my heart race.

No one had ever held me like that before, touched me like that. The intensity of that night had played over and over in my head. It was nothing like the sweet, sugary fantasies I’d built up as a kid. It was so much better.

“Do you have the book?” Grady asked me, his voice low as he was being introduced.

I pulled a copy from my tote and handed it to him. “Of course.”

He looked down at the cover, his mouth peeling into a surprised smile. “Is this a new one?” His eyes flicked up to meet mine, a sparkle in them that confirmed I’d made the right call in swapping the book for today’s reading.

“Yeah. I thought you might like it.” The cover had a little penguin holding a hockey stick, a gathering of forest animals on a frozen pond about to play a game.

Grady tilted his head, regarding me appreciatively for a second before he nodded and then turned to head to the front of the room. It wasn’t a big deal. It was just a book. But as he said hello to the kids and held it up for them to see, he glanced my way once more, gratitude in his eyes.

When my phone vibrated with a text from LeAnn, I stepped out of the room.

LeAnn: Hey, have you talked to Adam lately?

My heart rate spiked, the mere sight of Adam’s name in print made me feel sick.

Jill: No. Why?

My sister-in-law knew everything about my relationship with Adam, and the aftermath. She’d been one of the people to sit with me in the waiting room for my therapist, taking turns with the rest of my family to make sure I went to my appointments. She would never mention him unless she had a damn good reason.

LeAnn: I think I just saw him in town.

Jill: You think or you know?

LeAnn: It was him.

I stared at my phone, my blood running cold. What was he doing back? I hadn’t seen him in over a year. Not since the night he broke my heart and walked out. I thought I’d never have to see him again.

I wanted to be unaffected by this, to feel like I’d grown and shed that version of myself that would spiral if I ran into him. But given the thrumming of my temples, the dryness of my throat, it appeared I still wasn’t over everything. Over him. And that only made me feel worse.

LeAnn: Are you okay? Where are you?

Jill: I’m at the hospital.

LeAnn: OMG are you alright? Do you need me to come? What’s wrong?

Her rapid-fire questions made me laugh. For the tough, spit fire she was, my brother’s wife had a heart the size of Texas. I quickly typed back before she ran to her car.

Jill: I’m fine. It’s a reading for the program.

LeAnn: Oh, thank god. I was about to call Joey.

Jill: Please don’t. And please don’t tell him about

My fingers froze, hovering over the letters for a split second before I could go on.

Jill: Adam. I don’t need anyone making more of this than it is. I’m fine.

LeAnn: You’re sure you’re ok?

Jill: Yes. You won’t tell him?

If Joey got wind of Adam being back there was no way he wouldn’t give him a hard time. Hell, even Cash might show up at his doorstep just to stare at him. Neither of my brothers were equipped to let this go without making a scene, so I had to hope they didn’t catch sight of him themselves. The bubbles popped up and disappeared a couple of times before she finally replied.

LeAnn: I won’t. But only if you check in with me every day. And if you talk to him, you have to tell me right away. I don’t want you alone with all of that.

Jill: Okay.

I didn’t need her to coddle me. I was a big girl. But given what had happened before, how quickly I’d gone into the dark, desperate places in my mind, I could sympathize with her concern.

LeAnn: Okay. Good. Love you Jilly.

Jill: Love you too

After splashing some cool water on my face I went back into the room Grady was reading in. Only he wasn’t reading any more. The children were all gathered around where he now sat on the floor among them, and two had climbed onto his back. A quick glance around the room at the smiling faces of the nurses and parents told me no one else saw a problem with this. Grady was laughing and playing along, but when one of the boys leapt onto his bad shoulder and he angled awkwardly to catch him I couldn’t watch any more.

“Okay, kids,” I said, stepping gingerly through the pile toward Grady. “No jumping on the hockey player, he’s not a jungle gym.”

As if my intervention snapped them out of their daze, the nurses quickly worked to gather their patients and the room cleared with lots of high fives and hugs, every one of their faces beaming up at Grady like he’d hung the moon.

“Are you okay?” I asked when they’d all left.

He gave his arm a rotation, testing it out with his eyes on me. “Feels okay. I didn’t mean for them to get so rough.”

“I know.” I nodded, grabbing the book off the floor. “But I’m pretty sure the Brawlers would frown upon you getting reinjured doing a silly reading program.”

The smile on Grady’s face stopped me in my tracks. “It’s not silly.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping as he studied my expression. “And you just said ‘Brawlers’ without throwing up even a little bit.”

My eyes floated closed as I let out an exasperated sigh. “Let’s go meet with the older patients before I decide to let the kids back in here to maul you.”

We’d managed to get through the whole morning without any mention of the pool incident, and I was starting to think we’d both wordlessly agreed to never speak of it again. But as we got into Grady’s car to head back to his place a fresh tension filled the air.

I’d never want to get between Grady and Joey. As obnoxious as it might be to me that my brother would be upset, the fact was that he would be. And they’d been friends too long for something stupid to cost them a relationship they both needed.

At the same time, I’d lost count of the number of times I’d been knocked sideways by the tiniest sliver of memory from that night. Grady’s hands on me, his mouth on me, the ache in his voice when he finally stopped holding himself back. It had me curling my toes and shutting my eyes while at work in the library, and doing much more hands-on coping when I was home alone, if you know what I mean. Whatever that had been between us had been building for a while, and I wasn’t sure we’d exhausted the spark enough to keep it from reigniting.

Just how much I wanted it to reignite was what scared me. Because it was a lot.

Once he was on the road, Grady began shifting in his seat, like he couldn’t get comfortable in the ridiculously supple leather of his overpriced luxury sedan.

With my nerves already fried from thinking about Adam being back, I finally couldn’t take it anymore and twisted to face him. “What? Whatever it is just spit it out, please.”

Grady sagged into his seat, not even looking in my direction. “That was really sweet of you to protect me back there.”

“It was a dozen six-year-olds, it’s not like I got you out of Alcatraz.”

He huffed out a laugh, but his scowl remained firmly in place. “I just . . . I don’t want what happened the other night to change anything.” He glanced my way nervously. “Between us.”

It had been a bad idea to turn his direction, giving me nothing else to look at but his conflicted expression, so I rotated back to the windshield again. “Nothing has changed.” Not even I believed myself, but I was hoping Grady would just let it drop.

He scraped a hand down his face, tugging at his collar as if the button wasn’t already wide open. “I mean, of course, it changed some things. How could it not? But what I mean is, it can’t happen again. And I don’t want that to change things. You know?”

I did know. But that didn’t make the disappointment that curled into a fist in my stomach any better. “Yeah. Agreed. We’ve got a lot of summer left, so we’ll just go back to the way things were.”

Grady sighed, flicking his eyes my way. “Okay. Good.”

“Good.”

After a beat he asked, “Why did you change up the book today?”

My eyes closed as I remembered the tiny flicker of hope that had me plucking the hockey book from the rack instead of the one we’d originally gone with about polar bears. “I just figured you’d like it.”

“I did. But since when does my opinion matter?”

He wasn’t being snippy or sarcastic, and it only made it harder to admit the truth.

“It just seemed like the best way for you to reach those kids was to read a book about the thing you’re the most passionate about. They’re going through something really scary and hard, and you light up when you talk about hockey. I guess I wanted to let them see you like that, so they could feel just as inspired.”

If I hadn’t sounded like my teenage self with a crush before, I sure as shit did now. My cheeks were hot and I forced my eyes on the road ahead of us even when I saw Grady turn to look at me.

“Jill.” He released my name on a long, slow exhale, but I still didn’t look his way. “Thank you,” he said into the too quiet car. I hummed in response, giving him a quick nod, and thanking him in my head for not making any more of it. I’d already made too much of everything. But I wouldn’t do it again.