24. Chapter 24
Harlow
Grayson is acting normal. He’s been acting normal. It’s making me feel like I’m losing my mind. Did I imagine saying that I liked him? Did I imagine him saying it to me? Okay, so he didn’t actually say it. Not like that, but he basically did.
It was like an “okay, and what if I do?” thing.
But that’s it. He hasn’t mentioned it. I haven’t mentioned it.
I want to, but he’s just… being so damn normal. What does it mean? Anything? Nothing? I have no idea. Besides, what if I imagined it? What if it was some fucked-up, elaborate fever dream, and none of it actually happened?
What if I hallucinated the whole thing? Then what? Can’t say anything about it because that would be awful and embarrassing. That’s probably what happened anyway.
If he knew I had a damn crush on him, he wouldn’t be acting so normal. At least that’s what my brain keeps trying to convince me of.
“Hey, baby.” Fuck. I squeeze my eyes closed. I guess some things are different. Like Grayson calling me baby. “Are you about ready to go?”
I wasn’t sure what to think when he told me that his work friend wanted to host us for dinner. I was worried at first. Knowing that we’d have to be fake married—real fake married? Ugh. I knew we’d have to put on a show. Around people. Out in the real world.
Our parents are one thing. Others? Oof.
But really… it doesn’t feel all that fake anymore. It doesn’t feel like husbands with benefits. It feels… real. In a really terrifying way. Especially since the only time I had the courage to bring it up, I was half out of it.
I swallow hard, grabbing my phone off the end table. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Grayson shoots me a smile that I feel all the way to the tips of my toes.
This is becoming a real problem.
“Well, come on, then,” he says, cocking his head.
I’m being weird. I need to get it together. Being weird at home is one thing; being weird at a dinner with your husband’s coworker is another.
Ugh. Maybe I should text Aaliyah and ask her if it’s fucked up that I’m crushing on my husband.
No time right now, though, because Gray is still staring at me with his head tilted, like maybe he thinks there’s something wrong with me. To be fair, he might be right. But we’re not gonna deal with that right now.
“Alright, husband. I’m ready,” I say, taking his hand in mine and pulling him toward the door.
I’m almost convinced that there’s a slight hitch in his breath, but I’m mostly sure that I’m full of it and losing my mind.
The drive to Carlos and María’s house is quick, mostly because I’m lost in my own head, and when we come to a stop in their driveway, I jolt out of my thoughts.
“Are you nervous?” Gray asks after he shuts the car off. He’s white-knuckling the steering wheel, his voice low.
Am I? Sort of. “Maybe a little. But I’m not sure why.”
“Me too, and I don’t know why, either. It’s not like I don’t know Carlos.”
I mean, I don’t know either of them, but hey. Anyone Gray likes is usually someone I like.
“Well, we’re not getting any younger,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
I pick up the bottle of wine we bought and push the door open, climbing out.
Gray follows suit, meeting me at the front of the car and holding his hand out for the wine.
Taking a deep breath, I reach out and slide my fingers through his. I’ve always felt safe with Gray, and now is no exception. As soon as our palms are resting together and his fingers are twined through mine, something in my soul relaxes.
He leads us to the front door, and before we even make it up the path, it swings open. A man—I’m assuming Carlos—is standing in the doorway. He’s wearing an apron that says sous chef, and he’s got a towel draped over his right shoulder.
“Grayson,” he says when we make it to the door. His eyes light up as he turns to me. “And you must be Harlow. It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Carlos.”
I nod, swallowing down a new rush of nerves. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you too.”
“Hey, man,” Gray says. “Thanks for having us.”
Carlos leads us into the house, and I wipe my sweaty hand on my thigh. If Gray notices how badly the other one is sweating, he doesn’t comment on it. Probably because he can’t. Because his hand is fucking gross and sweaty too.
“Do you all want anything to drink?”
“Oh.” Gray holds the wine out. “We brought this.”
A short woman with dark curly hair rounds the corner. “Oh, our guests have arrived.”
“Gentlemen, this is my lovely wife, María.” He grabs her hand and spins her around like he’s showing her off to us. She giggles, her face flushing. I can’t help but smile. What would it be like to love someone like that? To have someone love you like that?
“I’m Grayson, and this is my h-husband, Harlow.”
I frown at the way he trips over the word husband, but María and Carlos don’t seem to notice it. See, it’s shit like that—him stumbling over the word husband—that’s got me thinking our conversation was nothing more than a fever dream.
“Please.” María gestures to the dining room off the kitchen. “Dinner is just about ready. Have a seat.”
Gray and I sit down beside each other, and I don’t want to let go of his hand, so I don’t. I tug his into my lap and hold it there, our fingers still twined together.
“How did you two meet?” María asks, her eyes lit up with excitement.
I glance at Gray, and he smiles. “Our parents were best friends. We grew up next to each other.”
“My mom got pregnant with me when Gray’s mom was six weeks pregnant with him. They were best friends growing up. They still are now.”
She smiles. “So you’ve known each other for a really long time, then.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “All of it, actually.”
“Well, that’s not true,” Gray says, squeezing my fingers. “I had six whole weeks of peace before he came into the world.”
I gape at him, my eyebrows raised. “Rude.”
Turning to me, he smiles. “You know I’m just playing, baby. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”
María giggles. “You two are just the sweetest.”
Carlos comes into the dining room with a tray. Four wine glasses, the wine we brought, and four glasses of water.
He sets everything out on the table, placing a glass of water in front of each of us before pouring the wine and passing those glasses out as well. “I’ve been telling Grayson at work how sweet young love is. I send him home early any time I get the chance.”
That’s a surprise to me, and when I glance at Gray, his cheeks and the tips of his ears are pink. Oh wow. That’s new. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Gray blush like that before.
María sighs. “It really is so sweet. I remember when we were like that, carino.”
“Like what?” I ask, my heart hammering even though I don’t really know why.
“Like you two,” she says, gesturing between us. “The second one of you isn’t paying attention, the other is watching intently. The hand-holding and blushing and all the bright, new love in your eyes.”
Her smile softens, and my heart threatens to punch its way out of my chest. What does that even mean? The love in our eyes? We aren’t actually in love with each other.
“I still look at you like that,” Carlos says, breaking the moment and saving me from my internal spiral.
“He does,” I choke out, since I’m not sure what else to say. “How did you two meet?”
Carlos laughs, and María grins. “High school. We were lab partners our freshman year. We were dissecting frogs.” A shiver races down my spine, and María nods. “My exact reaction. My hero over here helped me, though. Never had to touch a dead frog and still got an A.”
Sliding into the seat next to María, Carlos wraps his arm around her, pulling her in for a soft kiss on the tip of her nose. “And I’d do it again, mi cielo.”
Giggling, María pulls away. “He didn’t tell me until years later that he didn’t want to touch the frogs, either. He planned on taking a failing grade. Until he got paired with me.”
Gray squeezes my hand again. “That’s so sweet.”
María’s eyes dart between the two of us. “So, how did you two decide to take your relationship from friends to more? What was the tipping point?”
It’s not like I can tell them that we haven’t, so I’m not sure what to say. I mean, telling them I got left at the altar and then we somehow ended up married in Vegas doesn’t really seem as romantic as saving someone from having to dissect frogs.
“Well,” Gray says, clearing his throat. “I think I’ve always loved Harlow.” There’s a soft quality to his voice that has my stomach flipping. “Even when we were kids. You know,” he says, laughing a bit, “when we were twelve, I asked him to marry me.”
María and Carlos laugh again, but they’re both entranced by Grayson’s story, and I turn my full attention to him.
He’s wearing a small smile, his eyes soft in my favorite way.
“I definitely didn’t know what marriage was even about back then. I just knew my parents were married, and they got to do everything together, and that sounded like a fun time.”
María sighs. “So sweet.”
My heart feels like it’s being squeezed to death, and I can’t drag my eyes away from Gray.
He grins, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “So then, I asked him again at sixteen.” He pauses, then laughs. “He wasn’t impressed.”
There’s more laughter from Carlos and María, but I can hardly breathe, let alone laugh.
“He told me we were too young to get married, but that if I asked him again at twenty-five, he’d say yes.
” He looks away from them, holding eye contact with me.
It’s intense. So intense that it makes my heart climb into my throat, and no amount of swallowing will knock it back to my chest where it belongs.
“And now, here we are. Took me a long time, but I finally got him.”
He holds my gaze for a few beats longer, then he finally looks away.
“So you’ve just been in love with each other your entire lives? Oh, that’s so precious.”
I can barely hear María gushing about how precious we are. I’m staring at the side of Grayson’s face, watching as his lips move. I can’t make out any of the words he’s saying, but he’s talking. Smiling. Laughing.
I’m frozen. Lost as I stare at him. That was a joke, right? When he told me he wanted to marry me? That was just kid shit. It had to be. If it wasn’t… why didn’t he ask me again?
Only… he couldn’t have. By the time we were twenty-four, I was already engaged to Josh. He couldn’t have asked me to marry him. It was a joke. It meant nothing. He didn’t actually mean it.
But then why did it feel so real? Why was he staring at me like that? Why was my heart pounding so hard as he told the story?
I startle when a plate is placed in front of me.
My hand moves, lifting the fork and putting it in my mouth. My jaw works, chews, and my throat swallows. I wash it down with wine. Then water. But I don’t taste it. I barely hear the conversation around me.
My mouth is moving, so I know I’m saying words, but nothing is making sense to me. Because if that story is real… and if that’s really how Grayson felt… then why didn’t he tell me?
Why haven’t we talked about it before?
Before the wedding, he made an offhanded comment about it, and I—I said it wasn’t real. Because it wasn’t. There’s no way it was real.
Everything passes in a blur. The plates leave the table. María yawns. Gray’s hand tugs on mine. “You ready to head home, baby?”
I feel myself nodding, but my tongue feels too heavy to speak.
We say our goodbyes, and then we’re in the car, Gray’s hand still tucked in mine as the headlights illuminate the road in front of us.
“Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet.”
I bite at my lower lip, nerves rattling in my stomach. “Do you think I was rude?”
He turns his head, glancing at me. “No. Not at all. I don’t think they noticed.”
The “but I did” goes unsaid. Gray notices everything about me. He always has. That’s not a surprise.
“That story you told.”
His nose scrunches. “What story?”
“Of how we fell in love.”
His fingers twitch against mine, almost imperceptibly. “What about it?”
“Was it… the truth? Did you really want to marry me?”
Silence falls over the car, and Gray’s jaw clenches and then releases. “The easiest way to tell a lie is to keep it close to the truth.”
“What does that mean?”
He sighs. “They asked how we fell in love. I didn’t have a great answer, so I told them all that. It’s close to the truth. I mean, those things did happen.”
I sit on that for a second, my mind reeling. “So it wasn’t true? You didn’t mean it?”
Grayson glances at me again. “It was just a story, Harlow.”
“But it wasn’t the truth. You didn’t want to actually marry me?”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I wait for his answer. I’m not sure what to say, if anything. He’s quiet for so long that I’m sure he’s not going to say anything at all.
Finally, he shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t the truth. It was just a story. You were right.”
“Right about what?” I ask, my throat dry and a pit opening up in my stomach.
“Before the wedding.” The steering wheel creaks under his knuckles as he grips the leather. “You said that shit wasn’t real. You were right. It wasn’t. I was just a dumb kid who wanted to hang out with my best friend all the time.”
The pit grows, getting bigger and bigger until I’m sure it’s going to swallow me whole.
I carefully untangle my fingers from Grayson’s, letting my hand fall from his.
Not because I don’t want to hold his hand. But because for some reason I can’t explain, I’m almost sure that’s the first lie that Gray has told all night.