Chapter 10
MICAH
Grayson was going out of his mind just as much as I was, I could tell. He hid it well, but I could read him by now. I could see behind his mask. When had that happened? How was it that I could understand him so easily, when I never had before?
Neither of us made a move to open the messages we’d received at the same time, but my heart was beating out of my chest at the thought of what it might say. It had been wishful thinking to expect that death would put an end to this.
A muscle ticked in Grayson’s jaw as he slid off the bed, holding out his hand. I didn’t miss the slight tremor in his fingers, mirrored by my own. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Forget about it for a bit.” He laughed without humor. “If we fucking can. I can’t…I can’t face it yet.”
I nodded, relieved at the short respite he was offering. “Yeah. Me neither.” Gripping his hand, my sweaty palm sliding against his, I rose to my feet and thrust my phone into my pocket. It sat there, a heavy weight that would remain until I gave in to the inevitable and saw what the message said.
Not yet, though.
“Everything reminds me of it,” he muttered as we made our way through the house and out onto the driveway where his SUV was parked.
“Me too,” I admitted. Gray didn’t need to specify what ‘it’ was. We both knew.
When we were in his car, he drove aimlessly, with no destination in mind, randomly picking a direction every time we came to an intersection.
We ended up in Blackstone, the next town over, and Gray pulled into the parking lot of a small diner with the name Peaches on the sign.
It looked like it had been neon once, but everything was faded, giving the place a vintage feel.
He nodded his head in the direction of the diner. “Want a milkshake?” I stared at him with my brows raised, and he shrugged. “Neither of us has any memories associated with this place, right?”
I took a deep breath. “No. No memories. And if they have milkshake… Yeah. You can’t be stressed when you have milkshake.”
A tiny smile tugged at his lips. “Is that a fact?”
“It is if I say so.”
“All right then. I’ll treat you to a milkshake.”
When we were seated in a booth inside the diner and a sweet older lady with the nametag Esther had served us with two huge strawberry milkshakes, I looked around the place.
There were a few groups of two and three dotted around the diner’s interior, and a couple of people seated at the counter, but it was the group of four in the booth to my right that caught my attention.
A gorgeous, dark-haired girl with three good-looking guys, probably a similar age to us or slightly older.
There was something about the four of them together…
Grayson’s foot nudged mine beneath the table. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Those guys in that booth over there—” His gaze flicked in the direction I’d just been looking. “—they remind me a bit of us in a way. Our group.”
I nodded. He’d put my thoughts into words, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it aloud in case we attracted their attention.
It was safest to keep a low profile at the moment, when we had no idea who or what we were dealing with.
Instead, I pulled my glass closer, wrapping my lips around my straw and sucking up the sweet, chilled strawberry liquid.
I immediately forgot all about the group in the other booth when Gray’s eyes darkened, his gaze focused on my mouth.
“Gray,” I whispered, breaking the spell, and he sat back, rubbing his palm over his face.
“Fuck.” Dropping his hand to the table, he sighed. “There’s no denying you’re distracting. When I look at you, I forget for a second. But then I remember.”
“I hope— Do you think Ava and Cruz—”
“Yeah. I’m gonna text them.” He swallowed hard as he pulled his phone from his pocket.
I could see the moment he steeled himself, his shoulders straightening and his jaw setting with determination.
There was that look of focus on his face I was used to seeing on the ice. “We should all be together for this.”
“Okay.” I pressed my foot more firmly against his in the hope that the contact would comfort us both, and he blew out a heavy breath as he pointedly bypassed the unread notification, his fingers tapping rapidly on his screen.
“I’m sending the same message to both of them, telling them to meet us ASAP.”
We drained the rest of our milkshakes in silence, waiting for a reply. Finally, Gray’s phone vibrated softly.
“What does it say?” I asked as he scanned the message.
“Meet them at the rink.” He pushed to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go.”