15. Grayson
15
GRAYSON
I love you.
Two days after our little bathtub escapade, I looked up the words Xavier uttered into my ear that night. With only his pronunciation to go off of, it took me forever to spell it out, but eventually I got it. We were on the phone when it happened, FaceTiming because he’s been out of town for work and I missed having his eyes on me, and I almost died from shock.
Immediately, I started to question whether or not he meant it, or if I had heard him correctly, but when I asked him just to be sure, he repeated it, his inflection a perfect replica of the tone the man used in the pronunciation video I played out loud after I got him off the phone. Nearly a week has gone by since then, and neither of us have mentioned it, but this morning, just before he boarded his flight back home, Xavier texted me to ask if I knew what it meant yet.
I didn’t respond.
I couldn’t.
Because I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t how things with him were supposed to go. I laid down the ground rules, said all the words to subtract meaning and circumvent emotion, did all the things I was supposed to do to keep him at arm’s length, but somehow he still stole his way into my heart. And now he’s commandeered my thoughts, making it impossible for me to focus on work even though I promised my manufacturer I’d have new designs to them by the end of the day, so they can get started on the new samples.
Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that I could make the samples myself, that the act of cutting, pinning and sewing would ease my troubled mind. I was wrong. Well, not completely. The moment I walked into the fabric store, I felt the familiar sense of peace wash over me. The trouble is, that peace went floating away on a cloud of confusion when Brian and Noelle walked onto the same aisle as me. I saw them before they saw me, noting that the sight of their linked hands no longer stings the way it used to, and decided to speak because I refused to do something weird like run away.
Pulling a bolt of maroon satin off of the shelf so I can have it cut later, I aim a calm smile in their direction. “Brian. Noelle. Hey.”
Both of their heads turn at the same time, Brian’s gray-green gaze wide with genuine surprise while Noelle’s brown eyes narrow. She lets him drop her hand and come to me, and I take stock of the way my body feels as he approaches. There’s nothing there. No wave of self-consciousness. No fear of being found imperfect and wanting. No love. No hate.
No, nothing.
It’s startling, being so unaffected by him after years of having my every thought, every feeling, every mood controlled by the look on his face. Damn, I think to myself, I guess this is what it feels like to be healed. The thought brings a smile to my face, and judging by the way Brian’s eyes light up when he sees it, he thinks that smile is for him.
“Grayson.” He comes in for a hug, but I step out of his reach. I might not hate the man anymore, but that doesn’t mean I want his hands on me. “Sorry,” he says, shrugging. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”
“So I’ve been told.”
There’s no point in mentioning that I have firsthand experience that’s taught me how true the old adage is. That he was an old habit I had to break and some days I thought the fight to disentangle myself from the woman who wanted to stay attached to him more than anything would kill me.
He shoves his hands into his pockets, running an assessing gaze over my frame. “You look good.”
My outfit is nothing special, just a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie, so I assume he’s referring to the glow everyone says I have around me these days. The bright aura that comes from finally getting what you deserve out of life.
“Thanks. I guess that’s what therapy and having your pussy eaten on the regular will do for you.”
Noelle coughs loudly, and when I glance in her direction, her eyes are bugged out like she’s choking on air. She recovers quickly, and I swear I see jealousy flash in her eyes before she turns her back to me.
Brian gawks at me, his eyes as wide as his girlfriend’s. “You’re dating?”
“Yes, Brian. I’m dating.”
Though that feels like too light a word for what Xavier and I are doing. If I’m being honest with myself, I know that it always was. We were never just dating. Never just fucking. Never just un-serious. We were courting a future, flirting with the idea of forever. We were falling in love.
“Who?” The question hits me with the force of a demand we both know he has no right to make anymore. My brows raise, silently imploring him to reconsider his tone and maybe the question altogether. A muscle in his jaw pulses, but again, his annoyance has no power over me. “If you don’t mind sharing,” he adds, more desperate for information than he is to keep his pride intact.
“No, I don’t mind sharing at all. It’s actually someone you know.”
“You’re dating one of my friends? Grayson, that’s just?—”
“You and Xavier have never been friends,” I say, cutting him off before he can get too deep into his tirade because he should know that I wouldn’t touch the men he considers friends with a ten-foot pole.
Brian rears back as if I’ve slapped him. “Xavier Allen? Your divorce lawyer?”
“One in the same.”
Another pulsing of his muscle, another clench of his jaw before he says, “Well, that’s a choice.”
I’ve been aware of Brian’s hatred for Xavier for a long time now, but getting to see it eat him alive, getting to watch his face fall as he realizes he has, once again, lost to a man who doesn’t consider him worthy enough to be his rival, will never get old. A sick kind of gratification runs through me as I realize that man is mine, and the sorry excuse for a human in front of me is not.
The ties have been cut.
The bonds have been broken.
And now, I’m free. Free to live and to love, free to speak my desires and trust that they’ll be met, free from the cloud of shame and insecurity I’ve lived under since I made the grave error of loving Brian Lucas, but most of all, free to say what I really think about the sham of a union in front of me.
“So is going back to a woman who cheated on you with your roommate and came crawling back over a decade later with her hand out,” I toss back, pairing the jab with a nasty, cutting smile that’s the last thing he sees before I maneuver around him and walk away, leaving him alone with Noelle and the rest of his questionable choices.
After the fabric store, I head home, intending to shower and change into something a little sexier before going over to Xavier’s and telling him I love him too. But when I pull up to the house, his car is already in the driveway. As soon as I put the car in park, he’s at my door, pulling it open. It’s been a long travel day for him, but he still looks immaculate, like he could have stepped off of the plane and gone straight into the courtroom, but instead he came to me. My heart squeezes when our eyes lock, and I can’t fight the stupid grin curving my lips.
Xavier reaches for me, his hand coming up to grip my jaw as he runs a thumb over my lips. “Happy to see me, Hart?”
I turn, pressing a kiss into his palm. “Always.”
“You never returned my text.”
“I know. I had to do some thinking before I sent a response.”
His eyes search my face, trying to decipher my mood. “And did you?”
“Send a response? No.”
A soft chuckle passes through his lips. “I know you didn’t send a response, Hart. I’m asking if you did all the thinking you needed to do.”
Maybe it’s his eyes or his voice or the love lining his features as he looks at me or the fact that I haven’t been this close to him in almost a week, but I’m melting under the weight of his presence. And my heart is racing, smacking against my ribs as I fight for focus and some semblance of cool.
“Yeah, I think so.”
Xavier breathes out a slow, steadying breath. “So you can confirm for me that you know the English translation for aishiteru wa ?”
“I do.”
“Tell me.”
“It means I love you.”
He runs his tongue across his bottom lip. “And I said that to you.”
“You did.”
“Because I do.”
“Love me?”
He nods. “Yes, Hart. I love you.”
God, his face. His expression is so open, so vulnerable, so scared. Like he thinks I might reject him, that I might hurt him, that I might not be able to trust him with my heart. I’m eager to tell him I already have.
“I love you too,” I say softly. Simply. Because that’s what he taught me love could be. The words are light on my tongue, costing me nothing but giving me everything, including the power not just to speak love, but to believe that I deserve it.