Chapter 18 #2
And the thing is—she should’ve seen this coming.
She should’ve known that avoiding it and keeping Crew wrapped up in this blissfully ignorant bubble wouldn’t last forever.
He was always going to ask the most obvious question, the one everyone wants to ask the second they learn her story.
But what they don’t know, what no one can ever know, is that they don’t actually want to hear the answer.
It isn’t complicated—it isn’t thoughtful or intentional like Crew’s mission to rebuild his family. It’s all based on one thing and one thing only. Fear.
Grace swallows thickly, then dons the nonchalance she’s feigned for most of her life when asked this question.
“There are a lot of reasons,” she says. “I didn’t know what else to do.
I didn’t have a GED, couldn’t drive, didn’t have any prospects of employment.
And it wasn’t—” She stops herself before she says something unforgivable, something close to it wasn’t that bad, because that is a lie she cannot force from her lips.
Instead, she parses her words carefully and says, “There were good days. I had a mentor, Hal, who taught me everything about horses. He was kind to me. I spent most of my time with him or in the kitchen with Maryann, who wasn’t necessarily kind, but she was never cruel.
She taught me how to cook and clean, and the quickest way to break someone’s nose. ”
Crew huffs out a laugh. “Jesus.”
“Only had to put it into practice once,” Grace adds, smirking at him.
“But Hal and Maryann made it better. It was never home, but with them, it felt safe. When Hal died, I didn’t want to leave Maryann—they’d been really close, and she took his death hard.
Then Bellamy offered me Hal’s job, and it was supposed to come with more money and—I thought—more respect.
It was just…one of those things. You keep telling yourself one day you’ll find something better, one day you’ll make it out, and then you look up and you’re twenty-five and still in the exact same place as before. ”
He doesn’t say anything in response, and whether because he’s waiting for her to continue or because he’s accepting her answer, Grace doesn’t know.
She stays quiet, hoping he won’t poke any holes in her very roundabout way of explaining what happened.
Omission may be just as bad as lying, but she doesn’t want to lie to him.
Grace takes advantage of the break in conversation, rolling over onto her stomach and resting her chin atop his chest. “Tell me something else,” she says, happily shifting the conversation back to him. “Tell me something no one else knows.”
He stares down at her with sleepy eyes, and for a moment, she thinks he sees right through her.
Grace’s smile falters slightly—he could call her out right now, could demand to hear every detail she left out.
But he doesn’t. He smiles back, tilts his head, and says, “You know we can’t play hooky tomorrow, right? ”
Grace’s grin quickly shifts into a pout. “Even if the boss gives his blessing?”
Crew laughs. “The boss has a reputation to uphold, and we’ll never live it down if we spend the whole day in bed while everyone else works.”
With a groan, Grace concedes. “I hate that you’re right.”
He chuckles again, then reaches for her arms. “C’mere.
” He pulls her into him effortlessly, like she’s light as a feather, and situates her by his side.
They lie face-to-face, and as soon as Grace settles her head onto his bicep, her eyelids immediately start to feel heavy.
Crew strokes her cheek, her neck, her arm, and his touch is drugging in the best way, sending her hurtling toward unconsciousness.
Her eyes eventually slip shut, and he leans forward and presses a barely there kiss to her lips.
As she hovers at the precipice of sleep, she hears him whisper, “Grace.” She hums, trying to cling to the sound of his voice—tries to force herself to stay long enough to hear whatever he has to say.
Her eyes remain closed, and the darkness is pulling her deeper and deeper, but she manages to resist long enough to hear him say, “It didn’t feel like home again until you got here. No one else knows that.”
The words reach her ears, her heart, her soul, and before she is completely lost to the world, she smiles.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Sometimes, when Grace dreams of her mother, her eyes are greener than she remembers.
They were beautiful, bright and curious, but Grace always thought they were closer to brown.
In this dream, they’re a muted sage. Milky, like Maryann’s blues, desaturated with age.
It doesn’t make sense in reality—her mother never got the chance to grow old.
Like so many of the dreams she has of her mother’s face, they are short-lived, fleeting images Grace tries to grab on to with both hands, only to watch them slip through her fingers like water, like sand, like all of the goodness that used to live in the world when her mother was still part of it.
It always hurts, leaving her behind, even after all this time.
It never gets easier to wake up and remember that she’s gone; it never gets easier to stomach the sharp, gnawing ache that settles in her chest as soon as she opens her eyes.
But when she wakes in the dead of night this time, with the echoes of those pale green eyes still haunting her thoughts, she doesn’t immediately feel that familiar pain—she’s too confused, too distracted to let it sink in.
Disoriented and sweaty, Grace picks up her head, blinking until her eyes have adjusted to the pitch darkness of her surroundings, and a few things become very obvious, very quickly.
Wherever she is, it’s air-conditioned, and even though she feels slightly feverish, the temperature is heavenly compared to sleeping outside in her tent—and, in stark contrast, whatever she’s lying on is hot to the touch, like a space heater kicked up to full blast.
It takes only a handful of seconds for it all to come back—for her to remember exactly where she is, and exactly what—who—she is lying on.
Beneath her, Crew snores softly, the even rise and fall of his expansive chest raising her up, and then lowering her back down.
Grace stares at the outline of his face in the darkness, wishing there was just a little bit more light in the room so she could really see him, see what he looks like when he’s fully at rest, at peace.
As she looks at him, memories of the events that led to this moment begin to rush in, and Grace’s cheeks start to heat as she watches it play back—sweet words from kiss-swollen lips, Crew buried deep inside, gasping against her neck.
She shivers as the images sharpen, and it suddenly seems impossible not to crane her neck forward so she can nuzzle at his jaw, if only to catch his scent, to feel his skin beneath her lips and really reinforce the idea that she’s here. In his bed, in his arms.
Crew murmurs something unintelligible when her lips make contact, and his hands are automatically at her hips, squeezing hard.
Grace moves to the other side of his jaw to give it the same attention, and she smirks when his breath becomes notably shallower.
Something begins to harden against her stomach, and Grace knows he’s awake—or at least on the verge—when he lets out a sigh, throaty and rough with sleep.
Crossing her arms over his chest, Grace picks up her head to look at him, and she can see his eyes blinking awake. He glances down at her, and a ghost of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Please tell me it isn’t dawn yet,” he rasps. His sleepy voice goes straight to that sensitive place between her legs—the place she’s realizing is rather sore, but not in an unpleasant way, now that it’s coupled with this newfound arousal.
Her eyes flicker to his nightstand, where an alarm clock straight out of the eighties with red, boxy numbers tells her it’s only a quarter to three.
She can’t remember exactly when they stumbled into bed after the mudding and the shower, but it feels like centuries have occurred since then—since the time before she realized she loved Crew and now, when it is the most obvious truth she’s ever known.
The only sure thing in a lifetime of uncertainty.
“It isn’t dawn yet,” Grace says, tapping the tips of her fingers against his chest. The hair there is sparse and wiry, and she traces the thin tendrils near his nipples, grinning when he hisses at the unexpected touch.
“We have a little time.” Her voice is full of implications, of wants, of requests she hopes he can hear.
When a hum sounds deep beneath his sternum, she knows that he has.
This time, he situates her on top of him, holding her steady by her thighs, securing them in his big hands.
When she takes him in for the second time, there’s a pinch of pain, and for a second, she thinks it may be too much, too soon.
That maybe he’d split her too far open the night before, despite his carefulness and his thoughtful preparation.
But then she hears Crew sigh, sees his neck stretch as his head falls back against the pillow, and pain, discomfort—all the unpleasant things that have ever existed—cease to matter.
“Grace,” he rasps. “You feel so good. So fucking perfect.” He bounces her slowly, lazily on his cock, and when she comes, it’s almost out of nowhere, hitting her like a tidal wave of sensation the second the edge of his thumb grazes her clit.
She doubles over and moans, but he doesn’t let her go far—he holds her face in his hands, keeping her steady as she rests her forehead against his.
“Look at me,” he demands, and Grace opens her eyes, bleary from the onslaught of this syrupy, delicious orgasm.
“Let me look into those pretty eyes while you come.”
Grace gasps, obeying his request, and it’s so far from anything she’s ever known—staring into his eyes, his soul as he fucks her through the white-hot heat of it, keeping her hips in motion and groaning as she throbs around him.
His hand sinks into her hair, fingers threading through the strands until he finds purchase, and then he pulls hard, and Grace’s moan morphs into a scream—an unintelligible, high-pitched cry of bliss.
At the tail end of it, his name bursts from her lips like a prayer, like a breathless exultation.
Crew grunts, holding her steady as his thrusts start to stutter and slow. He holds her attention with his grip, and then his words. “I’m yours, too, baby,” he says, the confession escaping in staccato sounds through his gritted teeth. “I’m yours.”
Grace clenches hard at that, hit with another towering wave of ecstasy.
Crew groans and then his entire body goes completely taut, seizing up until the veins in his neck are protruding and he’s seemingly lost the ability to breathe.
She feels him pulse and twitch inside her, feels the warmth filling her up until she’s leaking, and only when she leans down to press her lips to his does he finally exhale.
It’s a loud, broken sound, more beautiful than anything she’s ever heard.
As the aftershocks of his orgasm fade, she settles herself flush against his chest, both of them dazed and panting. She lies in the sound of his rapidly thumping heart—relishing it, memorizing its rhythm—until she dozes off once more.