Chapter 34
Grayson
I don’t remember leaving the reception.
One second I’m in that hallway with Carly’s voice chasing after me, raw and cracking around my name, and the next I’m behind the wheel with both hands locked so tight around it my knuckles ache.
I drive like a man with nowhere to be except away.
Away from the hotel. Away from Aaron’s wedding. Away from the look on Carly’s face when I said I was done and walked off before she could finish whatever excuse she was about to feed me.
My chest feels like it’s been split open with a tire iron.
By the time I pull into Pearson Beers, the wedding suit feels like a fucking costume.
The tie is too tight. The collar is choking me.
The whole polished, smiling, happy-boyfriend act is still clinging to my skin and I want it off.
I ditch the tie and the jacket in the car and loosen a few buttons, just trying to fucking breathe.
I shove through the brewery doors and head straight for the bar.
Cole looks up from where he’s leaning against it, talking to Maddox. Both of them go quiet when they see me.
I drop onto a stool beside them. “Whiskey.”
Cole doesn’t move. “Weren’t you at a wedding?”
“Not anymore.”
His brows pull together. “Gray—”
“Whiskey,” I repeat, sharper this time. “Fuck beer. I want something that burns.”
Maddox straightens where he’s been posted up with a bottle of water, his eyes narrowing. “What happened?”
I laugh once. It sounds ugly, even to me. “What happened is I’m a fucking idiot.”
Cole still doesn’t reach for the bottle. “Talk first.”
I turn and glare at him. “I’m not you. Pour the damn drink.”
He holds my stare for a beat, then reaches under the bar, grabs the whiskey, and sets a glass down in front of me a little too hard. He only pours two fingers.
I snatch it and toss it back like it’s water.
It hits my stomach hot and vicious. Not enough.
“Again.”
Cole hesitates but pours another two fingers’ worth. Maddox stays quiet, which somehow pisses me off more than if he’d started running his mouth.
I grip the next glass and stare at the amber in it. “She signed a lease. She was planning to leave.”
Neither of them says anything.
I laugh again, meaner now. “Yeah. Funny, right?”
Cole folds his arms over his chest. “Start at the beginning.”
So I do.
I tell them about the last five weeks. I tell them about last night, about Carly being drunk off her ass at the bachelorette party, about the girl calling me from Carly’s phone, about carrying her out to the car.
I tell them about seeing the text come through, about the landlord saying her apartment was ready early and that since she’d already signed the lease, she could move in whenever.
Then I tell them about today. About the church. About the way she sat next to me, asking what was wrong like she didn’t already know she was halfway out the door, about the reception, about the way she tried to talk around it instead of just saying it plain.
“She was going to leave,” I say flatly. “She had it planned.”
Maddox frowns. “Did she say that?”
I slam the glass down harder than I mean to. “She said she had a plan to move out, yes. Do you think I’m thick?”
Cole’s expression doesn’t change. “That isn’t the same thing.”
“It is when the timing lines up perfectly.” I lean forward, forearms on the bar, heat pushing up my throat. “Come on, Cole. Use your fucking head. She needed a place to stay. She needed a date to shove in her ex’s face. I gave her both.”
“Gray—”
“She moved into my house because she was desperate,” I cut in. “She stayed because it worked for her. Then somewhere along the line she was invited to his wedding and I, like a fucking idiot, offered myself up on a platter to solve that problem for her too.”
Maddox shakes his head slowly. “That doesn’t sound like Carly.”
I turn on him. “You know what doesn’t sound like Carly? Her lying to my face for months. But here we are.”
“Or maybe here you are, pissed off and hurt and filling in blanks with the worst possible shit,” he retorts.
I stand so fast the stool legs screech against the floor.
A couple of people at the other end of the bar glance over. Cole jerks his chin toward the back. “Office. Now.”
I don’t want his office. I want another drink and a memory transplant and maybe a fucking lobotomy, but I stalk after them anyway.
The second the office door shuts behind us, I start pacing.
“I let her around Penelope.” The words come out rougher than I intend. “Do you get that? I let her into my house, invited her into my kid’s life, and all this time she had one foot out the damn door.”
Cole leans back against his desk. Maddox stays by the door, arms folded. They’ve boxed me in without even trying.
“She cared about Pen,” Cole says. “When I talked to her about Penny back at the resort, that was clear.”
I bark out a humorless laugh. “Then why plan to leave?”
“Maybe because when she took the job, you were insane and she needed an out,” Maddox says.
“Bullshit.”
“You didn't even hear her out,” Cole huffs. “Things change. You don’t know what her plan was. You know what you think her plan was.”
I stop pacing and stare at him. “That’s real easy to say when you weren’t the one reading the text.”
Cole’s jaw tightens. “And it’s real easy to decide you know the full story when you didn’t let her finish a sentence.”
Something sharp flashes through me. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like I’m the asshole here. You’re my friend, you're supposed to take my side.”
Cole’s expression goes flat. “You lost me five minutes ago when you made that fucking comment about not being me. I am still your friend, Gray, even when I’m not on your side.”
I look away, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
He pushes off the desk. “I’m not saying you aren’t hurt. You are. I get it. But hurt doesn’t automatically make you right.”
“She admitted it—”
“She admitted she had planned to move out.” Cole steps closer, voice calmer than mine by a fucking mile. “There’s probably a lot more to it than that.”
“I don’t care what more there is to it,” I snap. “She was going to bail.”
“Or maybe she was scared,” Maddox says.
I shake my head. “You didn’t see her face when I brought it up.”
Cole gives me a long look. “And, again, you didn’t let her explain. Are you even listening to us?”
I exhale through my nose and drag both hands down my face. My skin feels hot. My bones feel heavy. And I’m so, so fucking tired.
“I can’t do this again,” I mutter.
Neither of them speaks.
“You know what the best part is?” I ask, staring at the floor as I drop into the chair opposite Cole’s desk. “I knew better. I knew better than to let someone get that close to Penelope. I knew better than to let myself get stupid over a woman in my house. I knew better than to care about her.”
Cole’s voice softens a fraction. “Gray.”
“The last nanny leaves, and Pen thinks it’s her fault.
Halsey flakes, and Pen thinks it’s her fault.
Every damn time a woman disappears, my kid internalizes it like she did something wrong.
” My throat feels thick now, the anger morphing.
“So yeah, I’m thinking about that too. I’m thinking about having to look at my daughter and explain why Carly is gone, and I’m thinking about how much it’s going to hurt her, and how much it’s going to hurt me to watch her blame herself and sob for hours or days or however long it takes for the hurt to pass in a fucking four-year-old. ”
Maddox shifts, quieter now. “You don’t know that’s where this ends.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
“I do,” I snap, louder this time. “Because I’m not doing this halfway. If she wants out, she’s out. I want her gone before Penelope gets more attached than she already is.”
Cole studies me for a second like he’s deciding whether to argue or hit me. “You’re attached, too.”
I don’t bother answering.
He sighs and rubs a hand over his jaw. “You love her.”
I let out a short, wrecked laugh. It's not even a question in myself anymore. I knew it weeks ago. “Yeah.”
The office goes quiet again.
For a second, all I can hear is the dull thump of music out in the taproom and the pulse beating behind my eyes.
Then I push to my feet.
“I’m going home.”