Chapter 22 #2
I rest my arms up on the edge beside Cole, my gaze snagging on Grayson as he takes a seat with Wade and Jackson, the three of them on loungers near the edge of the pool.
Gray's got a drink in hand, his jacket gone, his dark sweater stretched over broad shoulders, looking unfairly good in the glow from the deck lights.
His gaze drops over me once, taking in the top of the dark green one-piece and the bare sweep of my back, and then he looks away like it cost him something.
The conversation starts easily after that, loosened by drinks and steam and the weird intimacy of sitting outside half submerged in warm water while snow clings to the edges of the mountains around us.
Wade tells me about one of Jackson’s earliest visits to the resort, back when he was apparently determined to prove he could ski anything with enough confidence and absolutely no patience.
“I was good,” Jackson says.
“You skied directly into a fence,” Wade replies.
“It was a low fence!”
Cole looks at me. “Wait until you hear about Grayson trying to shotgun a beer off the back of a party bus while it was moving.”
I turn fast enough that water ripples around my shoulders. “No way.”
“Jesus Christ,” Grayson mutters, his head tipping back like he doesn't have the patience for this.
Wade leans forward, delighted already. “Oh, I need this story.”
Cole is grinning now in that way he gets when he knows he has something good. “Bronco's fundraiser after-party. Gray was already drunk off his ass and somebody dared him to do it while hanging off the ladder at the back of the bus.”
“I was not hanging.”
“You were!”
“I had one foot on the bumper. I was clinging, if anything.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“He got halfway through the beer,” Cole says, “hit a pothole, and sprayed Bud Light all over the coach, me, and a handful of donors.”
Wade slaps his knee. Jackson folds forward laughing. Even Dana is snorting now.
I clap a hand over my mouth. “No.”
“Yes,” Cole says.
I look at Grayson. “Please tell me that’s not true.”
He takes a slow sip of his whiskey before answering. “It was Coors.”
That only makes everyone laugh harder.
Another story rolls right into that one, then another.
Mandy tells one about Jackson drunkenly raging about losing pinball so badly that he got kicked out.
Wade tells one about his wife accidentally saying something offensive to a local on their honeymoon.
Grayson, though, has enough old football-party lore attached to him to last the entire night.
Most of it is harmless and stupid. The kind of thing men survive in their twenties and then retell like battle stories once they’re old enough to know better.
But somewhere between Dana leaning sleepily against the pool wall and Mandy nearly dropping her drink because she’s laughing too hard, Cole says, “Honestly, Gray was lethal back then.”
Grayson’s head tilts back with a quiet groan. “Cole.”
“I’m serious,” Cole says. “NFL body, zero common sense. Women were lining up to ruin their own lives.”
Jackson nearly spits out his drink.
Wade points at Grayson. “I absolutely believe that.”
“No one asked you,” Grayson says.
Cole ignores him. “And then after the divorce?” He whistles low and long. “Man went a little feral.”
Dana rolls her eyes. “Can we not talk about your friend like he’s a zoo animal?”
“I’m just saying, his body count probably doubled.”
Mandy, drunk enough to have lost all sense of self-preservation, turns in the water to squint at Grayson. “You do have kind of a high-body-count vibe.”
I choke on my own laugh.
Dana covers her mouth, horrified but amused. “Mandy. You can't just say that.”
“What?” Mandy says. “He does.”
Grayson smiles, but it’s forced at the edges. I can see it even from the pool. The muscle in his jaw ticks once before he looks down into his drink.
Of course Grayson has a past. He’s forty-five and gorgeous and rich and used to be a professional athlete. He's not a monk or a priest.
But... still. The thought slides in anyway, quick and mean.
How many women has he touched like that?
How many women has he wanted for a few weeks, a few nights, a weekend?
How many names blur together for him now?
I swallow them down.
What if I’m just one more?
The warm water suddenly doesn’t feel quite as soothing. I force a smile when Dana says something to me that I barely catch. I answer on instinct. Laugh when everyone else laughs. Keep my expression light.
Inside, though, something small and stupid has started to ache.
I already know sex with Grayson means more to me than it should, more than is smart, more than is safe.
But hearing them joke about all the women that came before me leaves this ugly little feeling under my ribs, one I can’t quite shake loose.
I don't care about his body count, not really, but what it actually means for me.
By the time we all drift back upstairs, pruny and warm and smelling faintly of chlorine, Mandy is clinging to Jackson’s arm, Dana is sleepy, and Wade is still arguing with Cole about some ancient ski story no one else cares about.
Grayson walks beside me for part of the way, quiet. When we break off from the rest at the door to our room, he steps aside and lets me go in first.
It's dim and quiet when we step inside, the only light coming from the bedside lamp I left on earlier. But the tension from our argument lingers like smoke in the air.
Grayson moves past me without a word, grabs one of the spare blankets from the closet, and tosses it over the back of the couch like this was always the plan. He doesn’t even look particularly put out by it.
It should be a relief. Instead, watching him settle himself onto the admittedly too-small couch with zero complaint makes me feel like I've made the wrong choice here. Guilt gnaws at the back of my throat.
I stand there for a beat too long before going to the bathroom to change and take my makeup off, then climb onto the mattress and pull the covers up.
The room goes quiet after the lamp clicks off.
The faint hum of the heating system and the wind beyond the windows are the only sounds that remain. Grayson shifts once on the couch, then goes still.
I stare into the dark until it drags me under.