Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
ABBY
I wipe my hands surreptitiously against the worn cotton of my yoga pants, ridding them of the dampness that always seems to happen when I’m around Grayson, then take a swig from my water bottle in an attempt to counteract the dehydration. When will my body adjust to being around him?
Then again, I’m not used to such concentrated doses. Usually, I get a fleeting encounter two or three times a year. Seeing him for the third time in as many days is an overload to my system.
“You good?” he asks, sidling closer to me as we continue our hike down the winding forest trail.
I nod, hyper aware of him next to me. It would be a romantic scene with the dappled sunlight coming through the trees overhead and the far-off gentle burble of water from a nearby stream, if not for the overexcited seven-year-olds ahead of us.
“The left side of the path is mine,” Jamie whines to his sister. “Stay on your own side.”
“I am,” Jenny insists. “You’re the one who’s going too far over.”
“Jesus, it’s constant with these two,” Grayson mutters under his breath. “How does Kristen do it? For that matter, how does Eli?”
Before I have a chance to respond, he quickens his pace until he’s in between the two of them. Stooping, he wraps his left arm around Jamie, then does the same to Jenny with his right. He spins around, the kids’ annoyance with each other transforming into shrieks of delight.
“Faster, Uncle Grayson,” Jenny yells, her braided hair flying out around her.
“Too dizzy,” Grayson says, slowing and placing each kid back on the ground.
“No, please. Again.” Jenny hangs on his arm, giving him puppy dog eyes.
From this angle behind the trio, I can’t fully see Grayson’s face, but I still glimpse the affection there as he returns his niece’s gaze.
“You’ll have to give me a few minutes. I might accidentally—”
He makes an overdramatic lurching motion, as if he’s going to vomit on them, and I chuckle as the twins squeal with a mixture of disgust and amusement.
“Why don’t you pick some flowers?” I ask, gesturing to the field to our left with an array of wildflowers in bloom. “I can help you make one of those flower crowns I was telling you about.”
“Ooh,” Jenny exclaims. “Yeah, come on.”
She drags her brother off into the field, and I shout after them, “Find ones with long stems.”
“Good idea,” Grayson comments, keeping an eye on the kids as they keep pace with the group while also ripping flowers out of the ground with a little too much gusto. “Keep them occupied so they’ll stop bickering.”
A zing pops through my chest at his praise. “You did good, too. Breaking up their argument like that.” I twirl my finger around the same way he spun the kids. “You’re great with them.”
He gives a half-chuckle, half-snort. “I’m just the fun uncle. I don’t think they’d actually take me seriously about anything.”
That’s true. Every time I’ve seen him with them over the years, he’s been the novelty goofy entertainment.
“Yeah, but they need some silliness in their lives. You know Kristen isn’t exactly… silly.”
A grin spreads over his mouth. “No, she isn’t.”
There’s another zing knowing I made him smile like that, but it slowly fades as the conversation stalls. Up ahead, everyone else in our hiking party is grouped in pairs along the narrow trail—Owen and Harper leading the pack, Elena and Kelly behind them glancing around wide-eyed at the beautiful scenery, then Kristen and Eli, holding hands as they follow the others. There’s a gap where Jenny and Jamie had been, then me and Grayson bringing up the rear. Cheryl didn’t come on the hike, citing her bad knees.
We continue on in silence, discomfort growing in my chest the longer it lasts. This is the perfect opportunity to talk to him. How am I ever going to get him to like—
Nope. Don’t go getting your hopes up, Abby. But still…
“Do you want kids?” I blurt out, saying the first thing that comes to mind that’s somewhat related to our previous conversation.
He squints at me suspiciously. “Did Mom tell you to ask that?”
A chuckle escapes me. “You think I’m a double agent now?”
He strokes the stubble on his jaw. “Can’t say for sure. You’re surprisingly sneakier than I thought you’d be.”
“You just don’t know me that well,” I respond without thinking.
Wait, I shouldn’t have said that. I should be playing up our connection, not the distance.
“I’m coming to see that,” he says slowly, his gaze lingering on me.
A full-body flush overtakes me, and I duck my head, hating my body’s overeager response to any kind of interest from him.
Not that it was even interest. He was only looking at me as he responded. Like a normal human does.
“I guess we’ve never gotten to know each other as adults. We should hang out more when I’m in town.”
I smile, unsure how sincere it looks. His offer feels like a throwaway invite, one of those things you say you’ll do that you’ll never actually make good on.
“So, are you going to answer my question?” I ask, getting back to the topic at hand. “No double crossing, I swear.”
He laughs, then blows out a breath. “I don’t know. The right woman would have to come first. And that still hasn’t happened yet, so I’m not worrying about something that may never happen anyway.”
Up ahead, Kristen calls out to Jenny to be careful as she does a cartwheel out in the field and loses half the flowers stuffed in her hand.
“Have you seriously dated anyone?”
Grayson’s never brought a woman with him to Crescent Pass as far as I know, but that’s not to say he hasn’t dated. How could he not? He’s handsome, funny, smart, financially stable… Okay, no need to rehash all his good qualities. But how could someone not have snatched him up by now?
He shrugs. “A few weeks here and there. Nothing ever really pans out, though.”
Why , I desperately want to ask. What’s the problem?
“How about you?” he asks. “Kristen’s never mentioned anything, but I assume you’re not seriously seeing anyone if you agreed to this asinine plan.”
I nearly snort. “Me? No. All the guys in town…”
They’re not you.
I obviously can’t say that, though.
“There was a guy in college,” I add. “But it didn’t work out.”
“He the one who got away?”
“Oh, no. No. I was the one who ended it.” Peter had proposed after only four months of dating, which had derailed everything. Turns out he was way more into me than I was into him. “But, you know, it’s fine. I like my life. I have a great job, a great house, a great cat.” Okay, that sounded pathetic. “I would rather be single than be with someone I don’t care about.”
He nods. “I need you to write that down so I can memorize it and say it to my mom. Maybe that’ll get her off my back.”
We both chuckle and he looks over at Jenny and Jamie in the field of wildflowers, then ahead, one of the mountains that surrounds our town rising in the distance.
“I forgot how pretty it is here in spring. I’ve only visited during Thanksgiving and Christmas the last few years.”
“It’s not nice in Seattle?”
“No, it is. Just different. I guess I don’t go outdoors much.”
There’s a plaintive note in his voice, something I haven’t heard before.
“You and Owen used to practically live in the forest as kids.”
A small smile touches his lips. “Yeah, we did.” He gestures toward the front of our line of hikers. “He seems really happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen him.”
Up ahead, Harper says something to Owen, using her hands to animatedly make a point, and Owen grins, the smile transforming his face from his usual stoic expression into one filled with life. Even from this distance, it’s obvious how much he loves her.
“They’re great together,” I tell Grayson. “And head over heels for each other.”
He nods distractedly. “He called me last year, after she left to go back to Chicago.” He pauses, seeming to collect his thoughts. “I thought he was going to start sobbing. I didn’t know he could even feel that strongly.”
My brow furrows, confused. “Owen can feel.”
Owen and I aren’t the closest, and yes, he’s reserved, but he’s expressive enough when he needs to be. Especially when Harper’s around.
“No, I know. I just… Maybe I mean that I don’t think I… I could feel that strongly.”
He’s staring ahead at his siblings, but it’s more like he’s looking through them.
“I guess the right person will do that to you,” I murmur.
Have I felt like that about Grayson? Like there’s a hole in my heart when he’s not here?
No, but we’ve never shared the kind of experiences Owen and Harper have. I’ve never opened up to him, put myself out there. I’ve never truly thought he’d be interested in me in return. And how could he be if I keep myself hidden?
“Do you feel like you’re missing out?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a bit before responding. “I didn’t before this trip,” he finally says. “But yesterday at dinner, everyone was talking about things that had happened without me. I swear Jamie and Jenny are a foot taller than the last time I saw them. And now looking at Owen with Harper, and Kristen with Eli…” He trails off for a moment. “Sometimes I think of Crescent Pass as a time capsule. Everything should stay the same as I left it. But it doesn’t. Everyone’s moving on without me.”
I reach for his hand, emboldened by the way he held my hand at the restaurant last night, even if it was for his mom’s benefit. “I know the feeling,” I tell him, unsure what else to say. Everything he said is true. His family is moving on, and it wouldn’t help matters to remind him it was his choice to move away.
He squeezes my hand in return, then lets go as Jenny rushes toward us, her brother on her heels, both of their arms filled with long-stemmed wildflowers.
“We got the stuff,” Jenny says breathlessly.
Grayson calls ahead to the others to pause, and we find a nearby fallen log to sit on. Elena, Kelly, and Harper all ask if they can make flower crowns once they realize what we’re doing, and thankfully, the twins have gathered more than enough flowers for all of us.
Surprisingly, Grayson stays for my demonstration as I show them how to braid three stems together, then add in a new flower every inch or so until the chain is long enough to wrap around your head. My fingers make quick work of it, used to the actions from all the paper folding I do, and tuck the ends into the start so it’s a circle. I place the finished product on Jenny’s head, who immediately runs to her mom to ask her to take a picture so she can see what it looks like.
As Jenny exclaims in delight at her appearance, Harper and her friends select their flowers and begin braiding them together.
“Did you want to make one, too?” I ask Grayson, motioning toward the leftover flowers.
I’m only joking, so I’m a little taken aback when he grabs three flowers from the pile and holds them in his lap.
“I watched you do it, but your fingers were moving too fast to make sense of it.”
“Oh, you just braid it.”
He grins sheepishly at me. “I’ve never braided anything in my life.”
A laugh escapes me. I guess there aren’t many opportunities for a grown man to practice braiding. “Think of it as crossing strings over each other in a pattern. Start with the right one and cross it over the middle one.”
He does as I say.
“Then the one on the left goes over the middle one.”
“The original middle one or the new middle one?”
“The new one.”
He does it, but without holding onto the ends, it all unravels. “Hey,” he exclaims.
“You have to keep tension on it,” I explain, “especially since these stems are thick and naturally want to stay straight. Here.”
Our fingers brush as I show him what to do, and I quietly enjoy the tingles that race up my arms. Is it pathetic that I get this much pleasure from this little contact? Probably. Am I going to stop? Hell, no.
The girls are done faster than him, but spend so much time taking selfies afterward that it evens out. I help him tuck in the ends, then realize the crown is too small.
“Wait, you need to add more flowers to fit your head.”
“No, I made it for you.”
He takes it from me and places it atop my head. There’s something solemn about the way he does it, and when I look up at him, his expression is more serious than I was expecting.
“It looks good on you.”
Heat floods my face, but I don’t duck my head like I instinctively want to, afraid the crown will fall.
“Thank you,” I whisper, warmth also filling my chest. “That’s really thoughtful.”
His gaze roams my face, but I’m not sure what he sees. Or what I want him to see.
“Aw, that’s so sweet.” Kelly’s high-pitched voice interrupts whatever kind of moment was happening. “He made her a flower crown.”
Grayson clears his throat and stands, stepping away from the log and remainder of flowers strewn everywhere. “We ready to keep hiking?” he asks, looking over at the rest of the group hanging out on the side of the trail. Deliberately not looking at me.
I stand, too, brushing petals and bits of stems off my lap as a heaviness fills my stomach. I can’t explain why, but something seemed to shift.
And I don’t know if it was for the better.