26. Chapter 26
Harlow
Gray’s hands are trembling where he’s still gripping my face, his breath fanning across my lips with every ragged exhale. My head’s a mess, my heart pounding in a furious rhythm.
“Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, that’s the truth.”
A million butterflies take flight in my stomach, and I surge forward again, catching his mouth with mine. His fingers tighten on my face, then slide up into my hair.
I don’t know what this means. I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know what it means for us or for our friendship. I don’t know what it means for our marriage. I don’t know what it means that my heart is beating too fast and my body is shaking.
All I know is that Grayson loves me. He loves me. He’s in love with me. And he always has been, and I—I think I might be too. In love with him, that is.
But I’m so confused. It feels like nothing has changed. But somehow everything has at the same time. I don’t understand.
Grayson’s hands are still shaking where they’re buried in my hair. He’s here. He’s touching me. And God, I want him. Close isn’t close enough. It never has been.
It’s like I didn’t even know I could want him this way. Like it never clicked in my brain. Until it did. And now I don’t know what’s happening or what to think.
Gray makes a soft sound against my lips, his fingers sliding through my hair as he pulls me closer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers into our kiss.
I pull back, even though I don’t want to. Given the way he chases my mouth, he doesn’t want me to either. “What are you sorry for?”
His face crumples. “For lying to you.”
My heart aches at his tone. “Gray—”
“I just didn’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you. And I thought if I told you—” He stops talking with a shake of his head.
God. I can’t even imagine how this must have felt for him. All these years? Me with Josh. He planned my bachelor party. He was gonna be my best man.
He… Fuck, he fixed my hair the morning I was supposed to marry another man.
My throat goes tight, my eyes burning again.
Then waking up married to me. I can’t even begin to imagine that. Waking up and all your dreams have come true, but not really. Not really at all. Because it wasn’t real. His dream, but not. Some twisted version of it.
All the nights I crawled into his bed and snuggled into him. “It must have been torture.”
Gray cocks his head. “What?”
I glance up at him, staring into his eyes. Eyes I’ve looked into a million times. Eyes I know like my own. Eyes so familiar to me that I’d know them anywhere. “Loving me.”
“What?” he chokes out. “Never.”
“You fixed my hair on the morning of my fucking wedding, Grayson.”
That seems to shut him up, but only for a second. “Yeah, but… I would do anything for you.”
Fuck, of course he would. “Right. Because you love me.”
His eyes fall shut. “Yes, Harlow. Because I love you.”
I have no idea what to do. No idea what to say. “I don’t know what happens now,” I whisper.
“Nothing.” He opens his eyes, searching my face. “Nothing has to happen. I’m sorry that I—that I did all this under false pretenses.”
“False pretenses?” I echo.
He nods. “Yeah, I shouldn’t have done that. You didn’t know how I felt, but I did, and I… it was wrong of me to… fuck—” He shakes his head, dropping his eyes. “It was wrong of me to agree to a sexual relationship with you. You didn’t know, and it was just so wrong.”
It didn’t feel wrong. Nothing about being with Gray feels wrong. Not a single bit of it. If anything, it feels like the most right thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. Like kissing him for the first time snapped something into place in my soul.
“I’m pretty sure getting married was my idea,” he says, rambling on. “It had to be. I’ve wanted it for so, so long. Why would it not be my idea? And I’m sorry for that too. I’m sorry that I roped you into all of this.”
Rambling is usually my thing, but Gray inhales a deep breath like he’s gearing up to go again, and I reach up, pressing my finger to his lips to get him to stop for a second.
He stares at me with wide, terrified eyes. I still don’t know what any of this means, and I think I need to sleep on it. I’m impulsive at the best of times. I know this. It’s a flaw. A massive one.
I saw myself kissing Gray, and I wanted more.
I kissed him, and then I wanted sex. I convinced him to stay married to me.
I convinced him to make it a “real” marriage.
This can’t be like that. Because I’m pretty fucking sure that I don’t want a divorce at all.
I’m pretty sure I want to be with Gray for the rest of my life.
I want to sleep in his arms and kiss him and wake up next to him. I want my entire future to be with him, but I also want to think about it. For once in my goddamn life, I want to think about how my actions might affect him.
How I acted before I knew he was in love with me was one thing. Now that I know? I can’t just pretend that doesn’t matter. I can’t just act like it’s nothing. I can’t tell him I love him back until I’m sure. I owe him that much. After everything I’ve put him through, it’s the least I owe him.
Swallowing down my nerves, I drop my hand from his lips. “I want to go to bed.”
His chest rises, then falls, his face falling with it. “Of course. Please don’t talk to your mom yet, though. You can take the guest room, and I promise I won’t bother you.” His eyes go glassy. “I promise I won’t. Just—”
“Gray,” I say, cutting him off. Jesus Christ, what is happening here? “Together. I want to go to bed together. If you want that. I know everything’s all fucked up. I guess I can sleep in the guest room if you want me to.”
I wrinkle my nose as I say the words because, yeah, I don’t want to do that at all, but I want to hurt Gray even less. And if this is gonna hurt him even more? Not worth it.
Before I have time to freak out, I’m wrapped in his arms, and I’m being crushed against his chest.
Every single bit of my body relaxes in his embrace.
I’m not sure I even realized how much I needed this until the second I was in his arms, breathing in his familiar scent.
“I’ve loved you for so long, Harlow. So, so long.
I can survive with it. I can deal with it.
I promise. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, okay?
” Grayson says softly, his breath blowing over my hair.
“I can shove it back in a box, or I can pretend I didn’t tell you.
We don’t have to kiss or touch or sleep together or anything.
Just… please, I can’t lose your friendship. ”
“You won’t.” God, this hurts so much. Knowing how much I’ve hurt him. Knowing what I’ve put him through. “I promise. It’s just me and you. Still Gray and Harlow,” I say, repeating the words he said to me in Vegas.
“Right,” he echoes. “Still Gray and Harlow.”
He doesn’t sound convinced, and I don’t know how to fix it. Not right now, anyway. Not tonight. I need to think. I need to sleep in Gray’s arms, and I need to think. “Let’s go to bed.”
Pulling away from him, I take his hand, leading him into the bedroom—our bedroom—and I strip down to my briefs.
I just want to feel his skin against mine, so I’m relieved when Grayson does the same. We crawl into bed side by side, and as soon as we’re under the blankets, I roll toward him, plastering my body against his.
He wraps his arm around me, and I snuggle closer, resting my head over his heart. His fingers slip into my hair, and he exhales a long, slow breath.
A sickening thought hits me, and my nose burns. “You took the week of my honeymoon off from work. Because… because you knew it was going to hurt.”
Gray’s silence says it all.
Fuck.
Shifting, I cross my arms over Gray’s chest and rest my chin on them so I can look at him. He’s avoiding eye contact. “I’m so sorry, Gray. I didn’t know.”
He huffs a small laugh. “Of course you didn’t.”
But maybe I should have. Maybe I should have seen the signs. How did I miss it for so long? Would I have ever seen it?
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shakes his head almost violently. “I was never, ever going to tell you.”
My lips turn down. “Why not?”
His eyes finally find mine. “I never wanted to put you in a position where you felt uncomfortable or unsafe with me.”
I watch him for a second, my throat tight. “I’ve never felt unsafe with you, Gray. You really just weren’t gonna tell me?”
Almost like he can’t help it, he brushes my hair back off my forehead. “When was I supposed to tell you, Harlow? When you were engaged to Josh? The day of your wedding? What should I have done? Dropped to my knees and begged you not to marry him?”
My heart skips. “I mean… yeah, you could have.”
Grayson shakes his head. “I couldn’t have, and you know that.”
I guess he’s right. But still. I don’t like it. I don’t like how much I must have accidentally hurt him over the years. Can barely stomach how many times he must have been in pain. “I’m really so sorry,” I say again.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
After watching him for a few more seconds, I sigh, then shift again, resting my head on his chest and hooking my arm around his stomach. His hand lands on my arm, and his fingers draw mindless patterns on my skin.
I don’t see how, but after a few minutes, Gray’s breathing evens out, and he starts snoring softly.
There’s no fucking way I’m sleeping, though. Not with the way my mind is racing, so I carefully grab my phone, then open my socials.
We’ve posted so many photos together. Years’ worth of them, honestly. Dating back to when I first opened my account and we were baby-faced teenagers.
I look through them all, starting with our most recent ones and going all the way back to the beginning.
Now that I’m looking at them through a new lens, I see them differently.
Of course Gray loves me. It’s so clear. So painfully fucking obvious in his eyes, in the way he looks at me.
From our most recent photos to our oldest.
The biggest thing—the thing I can’t get past—is that in every single photo… I’m looking right back at him the same way.