Chapter 17
Carly
Ten Weeks
Avoiding Grayson Sparkks in his own house is, apparently, harder than it should be when the house is the size of a small hotel. He somehow still manages to feel like he’s everywhere.
After we get back from campus, I keep things clipped and simple.
I help Penelope with a craft. I make her lunch.
I answer her ten thousand questions about whether penguins have knees and whether her dad could beat a bear in a race.
And I do not, under any circumstances, look at Grayson unless I absolutely have to.
He doesn’t push while Penelope is around. He’s quiet through dinner, far more than usual. He’s still good with Penelope, still beams at her like everything is fine, but he doesn’t talk to me and I don’t talk to him.
The kiss keeps replaying anyway. Not the first one, no, that one’s pretty much been eclipsed by today’s.
I can’t stop thinking about the hard, irritated pressure of his mouth on mine, the way he’d grabbed my face in a singular hand, the way it felt less like romance and more like he was furious with the whole world and my lips would somehow fix it.
And then there was that utterly stupid, angering look on his face after, as if he had no idea why he’d done it either.
By the time Penelope is bathed, in pajamas, read to, and finally asleep, I’m wound tight enough to snap. I leave her room quietly, pulling the door almost closed behind me, and walk back toward my own room, hoping I can slip in without having to face him again tonight.
But luck is not on my side and god is not forgiving.
Across from my room, standing just outside his office with one hand braced on the doorframe like he’s been waiting for me, Grayson stands like he’s trying to take up space.
My pulse jumps so hard it gives me a palpitation.
For one idiotic second, I think maybe he’s going to apologize, maybe he’s going to man up and realize that his head is clearly all over the place.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he rasps, turning just enough to look me dead on.
I stop. Right, okay. This must be how I lose my job and the roof over my head. But if he thinks I won’t go down swinging, he’s entirely incorrect. “My problem?”
“Yes, your problem.” He pushes fully off the frame, eyes locked on mine. “You’ve been acting like I slaughter puppies in my spare time since the field.”
I laugh, short and disbelieving. “Are you serious right now?"
He folds his arms over his chest. Fuck. His biceps flex and my brain, apparently deeply unaware that he’s being an asshole, notices immediately.
“Very.”
I stare at him, hoping it’ll sink in for him, hoping he isn’t nearly as thick as he seems right now. “You kissed me, Grayson.”
His jaw ticks. “I’m aware.”
“Oh, good. Amazing. I just wanted to make sure we were working with the same incredibly deranged fact.”
He exhales hard through his nose, like my tone is the real issue here. “It was a kiss.”
I blink at him in utter befuddlement. “You do hear yourself, right?”
He says nothing, so I keep going, because now I’m angry enough to stop being careful.
“It was not just a kiss, Grayson. It was you losing your fucking mind on a football field because some college boys were flirty with me, after you’ve already kissed me once before, and after you were the one who said we need to keep things professional.
Twice.” I step forward and jab a finger toward his chest. “You do not get to act like I’m somehow the problem just because I’m confused and rattled by your constant Jekyll-and-Hyde bullshit. ”
Something flickers in his face, but I can’t quite make it out. Irritation, maybe, or guilt, or both. He pushes a hand through his hair, clearly trying to shake it. “You were being too friendly with them.”
“Excuse me?”
He takes a step toward me, voice dropping lower. “You heard me.”
“You’re right, I heard the words. I’m just trying to figure out how your brain decided that was something you could say out loud without embarrassment.”
His eyes narrow.
I can feel my own temper climbing, pulsing through my veins like hot oil.
“I was answering questions about clothes I designed. I was doing my job. I was talking in public the way I thought you might want me to as an employee. So sorry I didn’t get the memo that I needed to act like a nun in front of the people who buy your products. ”
He purses his lips. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“It is exactly what you’re saying.”
“No.” He takes another step toward me, bending my finger back with his chest until I take it away. “I’m saying you’re like that with everyone else.”
My brows knit, my brain spinning a hundred different versions of what he could possibly mean. “Like what?”
“Open. Easy. Friendly.” He laughs, short and humorless, like he’s the one who has any right to be angry. “With me, you’re standoffish as hell.”
That catches me off guard enough that I go still. “What?”
He gestures between us, frustrated now, like I’m missing something obvious. “You smiled at them. You talked to them. You relaxed around them. But with me? You get tight, careful, curling in on yourself like you’re one wrong move away from biting me.”
I gape at him. “Have you considered that maybe that’s because you are wildly inconsistent?”
“Have you considered that maybe I don’t know what to do with you when you act like every other man gets the easy version and I get the one that looks like she’s bracing for impact?”
The hallway goes dead quiet. My heart pounds against my chest, but I lift my chin, refusing to back down. “Maybe you get that version because you keep kissing me and then acting like it was a clerical error.”
His eyes widen. “I kissed you because you were laughing with a bunch of idiot college kids and I wanted to drag you out of there before one of them tried his luck,” he rasps.
My pulse pounds hard behind my eyes, in my neck. What the fuck. “That’s insane,” I say. “You don’t own me.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
His jaw clenches. “Carly—”
“No. You don’t get to snap at boys for talking to me, grab my face and kiss me on the field, then come home and act like I’m somehow the one with an attitude problem!”
His nostrils flare as he takes a final step toward me. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Apparently, you don’t!”
We’re too close now. That always seems to be the problem with us.
He’s breathing heavy, his chest rising and falling just a couple of inches from mine, his jaw flexing like he’s grinding his teeth.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters.
“What?”
He shakes his head, looking back toward his office. “Nothing I say right now is going to improve this.”
“That’s shockingly mature of you.”
His gaze snaps back to mine, all fiery anger and irritation wrapped in green, but his pupils dilate just enough that I catch it.
“Fuck you,” he mutters, taking a step back before he turns fully into his office, slamming the door hard enough to make me jump. Thank god Pen is a heavy sleeper.
I stand there alone for half a second, breathing hard, my thoughts too fast to even properly make out anything useful. My body feels stiff and glued in place, but I force myself to move, force my legs to work one at a time to carry me the few steps to my room opposite the office.
I slam my door, too, just to make a point.
My heart beats so hard that I can feel it like a lump in my throat. I pace back and forth in front of the door, trying to get my thoughts to slow enough that I can actually understand them.
But it’s all just one sentence, stuck in my head and replaying on a brutal little loop.
Maybe I don’t know what to do with you when you act like every other man gets the easy version and I get the one that looks like she’s bracing for impact.
He’s right. Obviously he’s right. It shouldn’t hurt, but it does, because he was throwing the one thing I’m trying to control back in my face like an insult.
I wanted to drag you out of there before one of them tried his luck.
My stomach flips, my cheeks heating as it fully settles. Yes, he was being insane and possessive, but the why didn’t fully sink in when he said that.
He was jealous. Violently, irrationally, badly jealous.
Was Zoe right?
I stare at my bedroom door, wondering how tonight would have gone if that argument hadn’t ended with a fuck you and a slammed door.
I want to know. I shouldn’t, but god, I want to.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I yank open the door, half prepared to give him my two cents and half not knowing what the hell I’ll say to him.
I stop dead the moment I see him.
He’s standing there across the hall, one hand still on the handle of his office door like he had the exact same idea at the exact same time.
The air between us hangs heavy. I don’t yell, don’t move, don’t know what to say or how to act or what to do when he’s standing there wearing fucking pajamas that fit like they were made for him, when he looks so damn attractive that I can’t fault myself for having a crush on him for four years, when he’s looking at me like that.
There’s at least five feet of space between us, but I can see the slight adjustment to his gaze, the way it drops to my lips as he exhales.
I open my mouth. “What the fuck are we—”
He lets go of the handle, crosses the hall in three quick strides, and cups my face in the same second that his mouth meets mine.
There’s shockingly no anger in it this time, but he comes at me with enough force to make me stumble back half a step into my room. His body follows mine, his free hand sliding around the back of my waist to, what I can only imagine, keep me from pulling away for a third time.
He kicks the door shut behind him without looking. My back hits the wall, hard enough to make me gasp against his lips. He takes the opportunity and deepens the kiss, his tongue gliding against mine, a hint of the wine he’d had with dinner still lingering in his mouth.
I should tell him to stop, I should ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, but I can’t bring myself to do it.