Chapter 28
Grayson
Things are getting real.
That’s the part I know now.
Whatever the hell this is with Carly stopped being a one-time mistake somewhere between Colchester and me hauling her into my bed after the CSU game. The lines are shot. Obliterated. We blurred them, we crossed them, then we backed up and ran them over with a truck.
I’m having drinks with Maddox and Cole at the brewery when I finally admit some version of that. Not the whole version. They don’t need the whole version.
They get enough from the fact that I’m here leaning on Pearson Beer's bar with an IPA in my hand, looking more settled than I have any right to.
Cole catches it first, obviously. He always does.
He wipes down the bar more for something to do than because it needs it, then points the towel at me. “You look smug. I don’t like it.”
“I’m not smug.”
Maddox snorts into his beer. “You are absolutely smug.”
“I’m relaxed.”
“That’s worse,” Cole says. “You’re never relaxed unless…”
I take a slow sip of my drink and make the mistake of not immediately denying it.
Maddox leans back on his stool. “Oh, wow.”
Cole just grins. “There it is.”
I exhale through my nose. “Don’t make this irritating.”
“It’s already irritating,” Cole says. “You dragged out the will-they-won’t-they part for so long I almost died of old age.”
“You two are unbearable.”
“Not wrong, though, am I?” Cole smirks.
I glance between them and decide there’s no point pretending otherwise. Not with these two. They know me too well, and Cole has been insufferably convinced about Carly from the beginning. “Things are getting… real.”
Maddox lets out a low whistle.
Cole’s grin sharpens. “Real how?”
I give him a flat look. “Use your imagination.”
“I already am. I want details.”
“You’re not getting them.”
“Coward.”
I ignore that. “We’ve been blurring lines. I know that. I know it’s messy. I know it probably should stop.”
Maddox raises his brows. “But?”
I tap my finger against the bar. I don’t have to think about it long. “But I’m not going to stop.”
The second it’s out of my mouth, it lands in my chest with clarity. And of course, Cole looks so pleased with himself that I immediately regret speaking.
“Oh, I won the bet,” he says, slapping a hand on the bar. “That’s what I’m hearing.”
I rub a hand over my jaw. “Cole.”
Cole ignores me. “Honestly, this is good news. You have to pretend you’re together for that wedding anyway.”
At that, I tip my head back and stare at the ceiling for a second. Fuck. The wedding. With everyone else that's happened, I'd nearly forgotten about it.
Maddox sees the look on my face and starts laughing. “You forgot about the wedding, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“You definitely forgot.”
“I did not forget. I deprioritized.”
“That is the same thing,” Cole says.
I’m about to tell him to go to hell when the door to the brewery swings open behind us. A small group of guys comes in loud, too loud, the specific kind of drunk where they think they're not coming across badly.
I don’t pay much attention at first. Pearson gets enough weekend traffic that a group of half-lit men isn’t exactly remarkable. But one of them says Carly, and I turn.
Aaron.
He looks exactly like he did at the restaurant over a month ago, but more intoxicated now. He's worse, now, his ego inflated around other men, his laughter obnoxious.
He spots me at the bar and his whole face changes with ugly recognition, recoiling.
But then he smiles. Not a friendly smile, though. It's a drunk asshole smile.
Great.
He heads over before I can decide how much patience I’m willing to fake.
“Sparkks,” he says, stopping just close enough to be irritating. “Funny seeing you here.”
I don’t bother looking at him. “Is it?”
He glances at Cole, at Maddox, then back at me. “Thought maybe you’d be at home with my ex-girlfriend.”
Cole goes very still behind the bar. “Oh?”
Maddox’s beer lowers from his mouth.
I set my glass down carefully. “Is this necessary?”
Aaron laughs like I said something charming. “Come on, man. You can drop the act.”
My patience gets shorter. “What act?”
He spreads his hands. “You and Carly. I don’t buy it, coming to my wedding together. I know her. She's not really on your level. She was barely on mine.”
That last part pisses me off immediately. The smugness, the ownership baked into it, like he still gets to claim expertise on her and what level she is.
I turn toward him, towering over the fucking idiot, and Aaron's drunken confidence falters when he realizes just how much bigger I am.
Good.
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” I say. My voice stays even, which somehow seems to make him less comfortable. “And Carly and I will very much be at your wedding.”
He blinks, then laughs again, but it sounds thinner now. “Sure you will.”
“I said we would.” The stupid thing is, I mean it. I’m not leaving her to deal with this prick and his bride alone.
Aaron shifts his weight, eyes narrowing. He wants to save face in front of his friends. I can see the idea forming before he says it.
“Okay,” he says. “Then come to the bachelor party.”
Maddox mutters, “Oh, no.”
Aaron keeps going, looking at me like he thinks he’s clever. “You know. Since things are so serious. Come hang out with the guys. Be part of it.”
It’s a challenge, obviously. A dick move dressed up as an invitation, an attempt to force a crack in this whole thing and see if I back off.
I don’t want to go to this asshole’s bachelor party. I would rather do literally anything else. But I also know exactly what happens if I hesitate.
He’ll spin it. He’ll make Carly feel small. He’ll make her pay for his bruised ego.
So I don’t hesitate.
“Fine,” I say.
Aaron’s brows lift like he didn’t expect that. Neither did I, frankly. He recovers fast, giving me another one of those smug little smiles. “Great. Give me your number.”
“No. Call my work with the details,” I say, turning back away from him.
He and his friends drift off toward a table, loud again the second they’re far enough away to pretend none of that rattled him.
Maddox turns to me slowly. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Obviously,” I say.
Cole folds his arms over his chest. “You know he invited you to be a prick, right?”
“Yes, Cole. I picked up on that.”
“And you’re still going.”
I look down at my drink for a second, then back toward the table where Aaron is laughing up a storm already. “Yeah,” I say, picking up my glass again. “I'll do it for her.”