Chapter 50
Eleanor
“Are we just avoiding one another now?” Greyson asked as I walked past his bedroom door after putting Lorelai to bed for the night. He was unhooking the cuffs on his sleeves as he stared at me.
I took a few steps toward his room and stood in his doorway. “I’m sorry, I just . . .” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Make me uncomfortable? Ellie, I called you another woman’s name. If anyone should be uncomfortable, it should be you. I’m so sorry.” He rolled up the sleeves of his button-down and sat on the edge of his bed. His hands gripped the edge of his mattress, and every muscle in his arms became visible.
I wished he’d stop looking so much like himself. I was still unable to get the taste of his lips off my mind, and the more I saw those gray eyes, the more I wanted them to stare into mine.
I shook my head, trying to keep myself together. “It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. We had so much wine that night anyway. Things got carried away . . .”
He lowered his head. “I wasn’t that drunk,” he truthfully whispered.
Sigh.
Me either.
When those eyes looked back to me, every butterfly came rushing back. I slightly parted my lips and reminded myself to breathe every now and then.
“I’m so sorry, Ellie,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m horrified and such an asshole, and I don’t know what is happening between us . . .”
I wanted to push him to give us a chance.
I wanted to tell him we could try again.
I wanted to hold him.
To kiss him.
To have him as mine.
But I also knew that those thoughts were selfish and wrong.
Also, I didn’t want to hurt him like that, because I knew he wasn’t fully healed from losing her.
He wasn’t able to fully love, and I knew Shay was right, even though it made me sad.
The best kind of love was the kind that filled one up completely, and Greyson couldn’t do that for me at this time.
If I couldn’t have all of his love yet, I didn’t want to keep falling for someone who wouldn’t be able to catch me.
“We go back,” I told him, walking over toward him and sitting beside him on the bed. My hands gripped the side of the mattress, just like him, and I gave him a slight nod. “We go back to how it was before that night.”
“But . . .” He stared at me so apologetically, and I wanted to shake the guilt in his eyes. I needed him to know that I fully grasped how much his soul was struggling. Greyson was at war with himself, fighting to move on while still trying to hold on to the past.
He wasn’t ready to let her go, and I had to respect that.
My love was patient. For him, I’d wait forever.
“It’s OK, Grey. I swear, I’m OK. We’re OK.”
He gave me a half grin, and I gave him the other half. “I meant everything I said, Ellie, about how I feel about you. I just want you to know that I meant all of those words.”
I believed him too. How could I not? He was my Grey. The first boy to ever leave his mark on me. “I know you did, but you don’t need a lover right now, Greyson. You need a friend. Let me be that. Let me be your friend.”
He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “You have no clue how much I need that, how much I need a friend.”
I knew, because I needed one too. We each needed the other, maybe not lips against lips, but hearts against hearts. Maybe we’d both needed someone to talk us through the hard days, to get us closer to the light.
“You don’t talk about her, do you?”
“No.”
“Because you don’t want to?”
He shook his head. “No, because people get tired of a person’s sadness. They all start moving on and expect you to do the same.”
I tilted my head and looked up into those gray eyes that I’d loved so long ago. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Every single thing about her.”