Chapter 2
GRAYSON
The hardest part of pretending you aren’t in love with someone isn’t trapping those words inside when they swell and try to burst past your closed lips.
It’s keeping your gazes quick instead of lingering, your hands in your pockets instead of sweeping loose pieces of hair behind their ear, and your excitement to become their fake boyfriend hidden by a smooth nonchalance.
I’ve managed to succeed with tasks one and two, but am finding it harder to accomplish the third.
From the moment I overheard Jill and Ivy talking about this wedding and what Jill needed to do to keep from being forced into her ex-boyfriend’s arms, I knew I’d be the one to help.
Not because I have a habit of crashing weddings, but because I would have done anything for her. I will.
Perhaps I’m a bit . . . overzealous when it comes to Jill.
For the better part of three years, I’ve been enamoured with the woman with the caramel-brown eyes, hair that’s so close to black most wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s truly more of a deep mocha, eccentric, handmade earrings that are always dangling, and the most subtle curves enhanced by her well-fitted dresses.
Having her as a regular employee wasn’t enough for me, so I pulled a few strings and had her shifted to my part-time assistant just so I wouldn’t have to share so much of her attention.
It’s selfish, but I’ve taken advantage of the openings left for me.
It wouldn’t have been appropriate to move too quickly when we do work in the same building, and while yes, I’ve been spending more and more time with her and those closest to her outside of the office, it’s not the same.
Jill hasn’t seemed to mind the new job. If she had put up even the slightest stink about the move, I’d have let her make whatever choice she wished to.
She continues to come into work with that dazzling smile and the pink, round cheeks that never fail to leave me struggling to catch my breath.
I fiddle with the air control in my car and lower the temperature to where she tends to have it set at her place.
She’s almost always touching the thermostat at the office and setting it to twenty degrees, freezing us all out.
Ivy’s the first one to give her hell and adjust it back up to the usual twenty-three, but I’m there before the heat can kick on, turning it back down.
The clock reads 7:53 a.m., and I scratch the back of my neck as I look to the front of her house.
Sunrise was quite a while ago, and all of her blinds are down, hiding any inside movement.
I’m always early, and she loves to be blissfully late.
It’s chaos waiting for happen, yet I’m intrigued to see how we could make it work.
Would I be able to encourage her to get ready a few minutes ahead of time, or would she instill a calmness in me that would keep my eyes off the clock?
They’re dangerous thoughts to be having.
To distract myself, I pop open my door and step out of the car.
Jill’s garbage bins are still at the edge of the driveway despite having been emptied on Wednesday morning.
With a glance down the road, I slap their lids closed and grip their handles before starting up the driveway, wheels rolling along the cement.
The elderly woman in the house four down from Jill’s is giving her flower beds a heavy watering and waves when she spots me.
Her name evades me, but I still wave back.
The wooden holder I built on the side of Jill’s driveway fits the two bins perfectly. I tuck them inside its walls and pluck the collar of my shirt from where it’s sticking to the base of my throat. Nerves spiral in my stomach when I hear the front door swing open and then close a beat later.
“You’re going to give her false hope, you know?”
I twist, holding my breath while I take in the sight of her.
She’s dressed similarly to the way she usually is, but a bit less professional than in the office.
Bright blue toenails peek out from the front of a pair of strappy sandals, the colour matching her ankle-length skirt.
There’s a long slit that goes up to the bottom of her thigh, exposing pale, pinkish skin.
A white cardigan is buttoned up at the middle and tucked into the skirt.
It slouches down her shoulder, treating me to another flash of her bare skin.
I flex my fingers at my sides before tucking them into the pockets of my jeans.
“What?” I ask, my throat dry as I inhale deeply.
She pulls her keys from her door and faces me, laughing lightly. “Elaine. She’s asked me about you quite a few times. If you keep waving at her, she’s going to fall in love with you.”
“I assumed she was married.”
“Maybe she is. Either way, I think she’d appreciate if you helped her with her garbage bins every once in a while.” She jumps down the two cement steps in front of her door and joins me, smelling like apples and cinnamon. “Thank you, by the way. I’ve been meaning to haul those back up.”
“I’ll make sure to think of her the next time I’m feeling generous.”
I nearly reach out and take her hand before thinking better of it. Instead, I take her overnight bag and shake my head when she opens her mouth to argue. We fall into an easy pace on the way to my car, then I’m there pulling her door open. Her eye roll is lighthearted as she slips inside.
“You’re already a professional. Do this in front of my parents and they’ll be furious at how wrong they were to assume I was lying about you.”
“That’s all it would take, huh? We’ve got this in the bag, then.”
She reaches for her seat belt and brings it across her chest, grinning. I shut the door and quickly round the hood. When I join her, she’s reaching for the cord in the cup holder and bringing it to her phone. With a wide reach, I set her bag down beside mine and put the car in gear.
“Do you mind if I have the cord? I’ve got the directions already loaded up,” she says, flashing me her phone screen.
I shake my head and pull onto the street. “Not at all. I’m curious what your road trip playlist consists of.”
“Really? You’re not one of those people who insist that the driver chooses the music?”
“Isn’t that distracting?”
“Right. I forgot you’re Mr. Serious when you’re driving,” she teases, immediately choosing a song that I already know. “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes flows from the speakers. “Do you approve?”
“I do.”
She nods and drops her phone into the cup holder. “So, I figured we could play a little game on the way there.”
My brow twitches, and I keep my eyes on the road when they want to snap back to her. “What kind of game?”
“I feel like I need to know more about you so we can really pull this off. I’ve been wondering what would happen if someone asked me a question that I had no idea how to answer, and yeah, I didn’t like that very much,” she says with a low laugh.
“I’m an open book, Jill. You can ask me whatever you want.”
I mean it. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t tell her. I don’t have any skeletons in my closet or secrets that I wish to keep hidden.
“Alright. Well . . . how many relationships have you been in? Before ours, of course.”
Glancing at the screen on my dash, I follow the directions displayed for me and take the next right leading out of Snowbell Ridge.
“Two that I would consider worth mentioning. Both were more than five years ago now but lasted for a few months. Neither were anything I saw lasting longer than they did.”
“Oof, okay. So, no big messy breakups with you?”
I quirk a smile and check my side mirror before turning onto the highway. “No, I’m not a fan of explosive breakups.”
“Got it. It’s your turn to ask a question now, in case you’ve forgotten how to play this game in your old age.”
“My old age?”
“You’re twenty-eight, right?”
I dip my chin. “And the last time I checked, you were only three years younger than me. That doesn’t exactly make me old in comparison.”
“Fine, fine. Go on.”
“How many relationships have you had?”
She taps her blue nails against the dash. “You can’t just ask all of my same questions, for the record. But I’ve only had one.”
“So, the ex that’s going to be at the wedding?”
“Yup, that’s him. His name is James, and he’s a rat bastard.”
I choke on my swallow. “Is there anything specific that I should know?”
“Just that he wouldn’t know what chivalry looked like if it grabbed him by his tiny balls and stretched them up over his eyes.
He was the type of guy who complained about everything going wrong in his life but put absolutely no effort into fixing his issues.
We can’t forget the gaslighting, either. That truly was a sight to behold.”
“Yikes. So, I should make sure he doesn’t have a chance to get you alone, then.”
“That would be appreciated, Gray. I shouldn’t have been surprised that my mother invited him, though.
The thing about narcissists is that they do their absolute best to make everyone around you love them so that they can use those relationships to trap you.
To this day, she doesn’t believe that he wasn’t the utmost perfect boyfriend to me while we were together.
It’s like he’s got tape over her eyes or something,” she explains, the last few words heavier than the others.
I shift in my seat and smooth my palm down the curve of the steering wheel. “I’ll do as much as I can to help, Jill. You have my word.”
“I know you will. That’s part of why I’m not as nervous for this as I thought I’d be. Ivy had a good point when she suggested you come with me.”
It’s not exactly what I want to hear. I’d much prefer it had been Jill’s idea. Still, I’m here either way. All I can do now is do my best to open her eyes while we’re gone, and if I’m lucky, she’ll have at least the smallest desire to get to know me as something other than her friend and boss.
As selfish as it is to want to use this trip to my advantage, I don’t leave myself any room in my head to feel guilty. Not when I’ve been wanting this for so long. I can be here for her as her friend while also try to show her that I can be more to her.
“Do you have another question for me?” I ask, putting myself back on track.
“Of course I do,” she says with a scoff before leaning in my direction. The slit in her skirt falls open as she moves, flashing more of her thigh. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned it, but did you grow up in Snowbell Ridge?”
“No. I was born and raised in Cherry Peak.”
“Really? And you moved . . . here? No offense, but why?”
“How much time of this drive do you want to spend on this topic?” I ask loosely, half-joking.
“It’s that heavy?”
“Not heavy, no. It’s just a lot of history that isn’t completely mine.
” Pausing, I steal a glance across the car to see Jill watching me, her lip tucked between her teeth.
I look forward again and focus. “The short explanation is that my sister went through a really terrible breakup in that town, and as all small towns are, our family became the topic of a lot of gossip. I moved away to start over, not solely because of my sister, but more so that it just got to be very tiresome to have so much history clinging onto my back in that place. I’m not a big city guy and knew I wouldn’t be happy somewhere too much bigger than back home, so I found this place.
Some people know me enough to recognize my face at the grocery store, but it isn’t the same as it was in Cherry Peak. ”
“I understand that. You get a taste of city living without all the traffic when you live in Snowbell. I’m the same way in the sense that I don’t want to ever live in a busy metro area. I’m happy where I am.”
“You wouldn’t ever want to try another place, just to see?”
“I don’t see the point.”
“Fair enough.”
I merge onto the main highway and speed up before setting my cruise and relaxing into my seat.
The song playing now is unfamiliar to me, but I can’t focus on it.
Not when Jill folds a leg beneath her body and digs her elbow into the console.
She’s so close to me now that her perfume is the only thing I’m inhaling.
It fills my lungs, the sweetness sticking in place.
Flyaway pieces of dark hair dance in the cool air escaping the vents and tickle the side of my arm where I keep it frozen in place.
My grip on the steering wheel is starting to burn my fingertips.
I want to touch her so badly, it’s growing painful to continue refusing myself.
Even just to smooth those stubborn hairs . . .
“What is your sister’s name? I should know them.” Her question record scratches my thoughts.
I clear my throat and slowly relax my arm. “Her name is Delaney.”
“Got it.”
“How did we meet? Are we going with the truth?” I ask.
“Oh, that’s a good question. I think we could thread the truth into the lie. Like, we met at work, but . . .”
“But then I realized I was in love with you and asked you out before Craig from the registration desk could. I made a reservation in the city, but you ruined the surprise by insisting we go to the Chinese food buffet in Snowbell instead, where you filled your plate twice and then snuck a takeout container of ginger beef home with you. After that, I drove you home, and you let me kiss you good night before slipping inside and shutting the door in my face.”
I don’t know where all of that came from, but it’s near impossible to stop myself from continuing.
My heart is rattling in my chest as I pause, waiting for her to tell me that I’m totally off.
That she’d never do that. But we both know she won’t because I’m spot-on. I know her better than she thinks I do.
After a few moments of silence, she speaks. “And then what? Did I at least bring the leftovers to work the next day to split with you?”
“Not a chance. You were too adorably possessive over it, so instead of fighting over the food, I used the opportunity to sweet-talk you into letting me take you out again. And this time, when I brought you home, you didn’t shut the door in my face.”
“Oh, I didn’t, did I?”
“Nope.”
“What did I do, then?”
My stomach tightens, and I almost tell her to drop it. There are a million things I could say . . . but I keep it casual, not wanting to freak her out.
“You made me coffee to try and earn yourself a few extra paid days off.”
Her snorted laugh brings out my grin. I blow out the lingering tension in my muscles and watch her eyes light up as they linger on me.
There’s a warmth rushing up and down my spine as I revel in the moment.
Patience has been my best friend the last three years.
The next few hours and days won’t be any different.
Slow and steady, Grayson. I can do this.