26. Chapter 26 #2
I have no idea what I’m doing. Literally none. Is this the dumbest thing I’ve ever done? Maybe. Am I gonna regret it? Likely.
Doesn’t matter. I feel like I need to. My mind hasn’t stopped since last night. I barely slept at all, and any time I dozed off, I jolted right back awake, my mind spinning out of control again.
Taking a deep breath, I knock on the door.
I’m chewing on my bottom lip, debating getting in my car and going back home. The sun isn’t even up, and Gray doesn’t know I left, and that’s all I need. For him to wake up and think something’s wrong. Or worse, that I left him after all.
The door opens, and Josh blinks at me in confusion. His hair is a mess, like he was asleep and I woke him up, his sweats crooked on his hips and twisted around his legs, his chest bare. “Harlow?”
“Can I come in?” He steps back without a word, gesturing me in. Josh sits down on the couch, but I don’t. I pace in front of it. “Is Andy here? I need to talk to you. Is it a bad time?”
He stares at me with wide eyes. “Yes, Andy’s here. He’s asleep. Of course you can talk to me. No, it’s not a bad time.”
If he finds it weird that I’m pacing his living room, he doesn’t mention it. And really, thank God. He’s probably still too out of it from being woken up.
“Were you really in love with me?”
I stop pacing and look at Josh in time to see him rub a hand over his face. “What?”
“Were you in love with me?”
“I—”
“It’s a simple yes or no question, Josh.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “I don’t think so. I thought I was, but I just don’t know. Why? You’re not—you’re not here to try—”
I cut him off with a shake of my head. “No. Fuck no.” He seems to sag in relief. “No offense. I don’t—” I shake my head again, glancing at him. “I don’t think I was in love with you, either.”
He takes a deep breath. “Sit down. Your pacing is making me nervous.”
That phrase has never made a single bit of sense to me. How can what someone else is doing make you nervous? It reminds me of my mom telling me not to hover behind her because it made her nervous. What is there to be nervous about? What am I gonna do? I’m the one who should be nervous.
“Harlow.”
Right. Sitting down.
I plop down on the couch next to Josh, shaking out my hands. He shifts, turning so he can fully face me. “Okay, tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s not real,” I blurt out. “Only it kind of is. Now. But it wasn’t. Not until now. At least not for me. Gray probably sees it differently.”
Josh slow blinks at me like he doesn’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. “Huh? I need you to start over, and please start me at the beginning of the conversation instead of dropping me in the middle of your thoughts.”
I do have a habit of doing that, don’t I? I think I just assume everyone is on my wavelength because, well… because Gray usually is.
Shaking my head, I blow out a breath and try again.
“The marriage isn’t real. We got drunk. So drunk.
Blackout drunk, and we got married. And then I was embarrassed.
Gray wanted to get an annulment, but I didn’t.
I didn’t want to get left at the altar and have a failed marriage all at once.
” Josh grimaces, but I ignore it. “So, anyway. I asked Gray… begged him, really, to stay married to me.”
I wave a hand through the air. “The videos? The photos? I don’t remember them.
Gray doesn’t either. We just woke up and our phones were dead, and when we got them charged, they were out there and damn near viral, and I didn’t know what to do, so I asked Gray to stay married to me.
” I inhale a sharp breath. “Say something.”
Josh’s lips quirk up. “Well, you haven’t stopped talking to even breathe, so I was just waiting.” I roll my eyes. “Okay, so you and Gray got accidentally married and decided to keep the ruse going?”
I nod. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Please keep up. I’m freaking out.”
He sighs, his face turning serious. “What are you freaking out about?”
“He told me he’s in love with me.”
Josh’s nose scrunches up. “Why are you freaking out about that?”
Has he lost his mind? How does he not get this?
Maybe I shouldn’t have come here. Actually, yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking.
I push to my feet, and Josh grabs my arm, tugging me back down.
“Sit. I’m still trying to wake up, and I’m not following.
You’re freaking out because your husband is in love with you? ” Something passes over his face. “Oh.”
Oh? Oh what? What does that mean?
“You didn’t know. Yeah, that makes sense,” he says, almost to himself. “Yeah, Grayson has always been in love with you, Harlow.”
I stare at him in stunned silence. “How am I the last person to know this?”
He shakes his head with a sad smile. “I don’t know.”
“Did you know?” I ask.
“I suspected.” He sighs.
“Is that why you didn’t like him?”
I mean, that would make so much sense. Everything is starting to make sense now. Except for the part where it really isn’t at all.
Josh laughs, but it sounds pained. “I don’t dislike Grayson.
I mean… maybe at first, but then I realized—” He shakes his head.
“Then I realized that what you two have exists on a different plane. Some place I couldn’t touch.
He got pieces of you that no one else did.
Pieces of you that you never even showed me. ”
I shake my head, slightly offended. Where does he get off accusing me of that? “That’s not true. I showed you things.”
Giving me a sad smile, he nods. “It is true. And that’s okay.” Sighing, he shakes his head. “When you left the wedding—when Grayson got you out of there—Andy was walking to his car. He heard you tell Grayson to take you home.”
“I’m not following.”
Josh smiles again, this one a little less sad and a little more exasperated.
“I was prepared to come home and find you here.” I blink at him.
“But you weren’t here,” he continues. Dots start connecting, my pulse pounding in my head and my throat aching.
“He took you home, Harlow. Just not to this one.”
Oh fucking fuck.
“I’m in love with Gray, huh?”
Laughing, Josh shrugs. “I can’t answer that for you.”
I frown. “I’m just confused. Because… well, because I don’t really feel any differently than I always have.
” Well, except for maybe the wanting to have sex with him thing.
But I’m not gonna tell Josh that. I do have some boundaries, despite what my appearance on Josh’s doorstep before the sun’s even up might suggest.
“So maybe you’ve always been in love with him too,” Josh says gently.
Maybe I have. “How could I be in love with someone and not realize?”
“Are you asking me rhetorically, or do you want a real answer?”
I glare at him. “I mean… I’m here, right? So clearly I want a real answer.”
He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “I think sometimes,” he says softly, his voice a little thick. “You can love someone so hard and for so long that you don’t realize what it means. You’ve loved Grayson your whole life, right?”
I’m pretty sure, so I nod.
“Right.” Josh swallows hard, his throat bobbing.
“If your expectation is that you love someone but as a friend, what do you have to compare it to, you know? Like you love Grayson as a friend. Or so you thought.” I nod again.
“So maybe you just assumed the way you felt is how all people feel about their friends.”
That… makes an absurd amount of sense, actually.
“Did being with me make you as happy as being with Grayson does?”
“No,” I whisper. It’s not even a question. Not even for a second. Nothing has ever made me as happy as being with Gray has.
We sit in silence for a second. “I think that’s your answer.”
“Are you happy?” I ask, glancing at him.
He smiles. “I am.”
Good. That’s good. “I have to go home.”
Gray. Gray is home. I have to go to Gray.
Josh stands up right after me. “Yeah, I think you do.”
Without thinking about it, I step into his space and hug him. He wraps his arms around me, but I feel nothing. No spark. No urge to burrow into his skin. No desire to drown in his scent. Just… nothing.
I drop my arms, and so does Josh, and then he steps back with a light chuckle. “Go get your man, Harlow.”