Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
GRAYSON
Ilook over my shoulder one last time to see Emma’s small, familiar frame disappearing into the narrow hallway.
Once she’s out of sight, my right hand—the one she touched—unclenches from its fist, and I flex it, bringing some feeling back into it.
My jaw relaxes, and my body sags. The harsh mask I wear falls away, and I let out a deep breath.
This article is a fucked-up idea. Yeah, it’s a good idea for a story, but she’ll be too close to me for too long in a situation where we shouldn’t be close or alone. I’m asking for trouble, and for what?
A girl I met almost two months ago?
A girl who managed to—no, that’s enough. It’s not worth dwelling on anymore. I’ll pass on the article and call it a day. But what the fuck does that make me if she’s willing to let London go?
A child. A thirty-one-year-old man-child.
Goddammit.
Making my way to my four-door pickup truck, I see my little sister’s head bobbing to what sounds like rock music.
Well, not so little anymore, just having turned twenty-eight.
She hated my new car the moment she saw it.
I’m not a big fan of pickup trucks either, but it’s new, gets great mileage, and has storage for carrying things back and forth to the soup kitchen.
I open the passenger door, and Lainey continues to bob her head. “Parasite” by Kiss blasts from the big speakers in the car. “I take back everything I said about pickup trucks before. These speakers are fucking awesome!” she yells so loudly, I’m pretty sure people inside the theater can hear her.
I lean over to turn the volume down.
“Get your ass out of the driver’s seat, crazy,” I yell over the still semi-loud music.
She rolls her eyes as she climbs over the console, and I head to my side of the car. As I get in, I turn the music down to a reasonable volume.
“Fuck, Lainey. This is the kind of shit that makes it hard to believe you chose an orchestra to tour with over a band.” I shake my head and start to drive out of the parking lot, ignoring all thoughts of the short, blonde-haired girl I’m leaving behind.
Lainey scoffs. “Not just any orchestra, G. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where we’ll be touring in Europe and then back in the US.” My little sister jumps up and down in her seat, and I crack a smile.
Both of my siblings can always bring a huge grin to my face, and I’m damn proud to be their big brother. However, they can piss me off just as fast.
Growing up, my sister was the most rebellious of the three of us. We could call it middle child syndrome if she and Wesley weren’t twins. He just turned out to be more like me—more like our father.
Lainey had Mom’s free spirit until she turned eighteen and decided to settle down after getting into a decent four-year school in Boston, just a short drive from our parents’ place. She chose the major she thought would please my dad the most: biology. And fuck, did she hate it.
Sure, it helped her grow up, but she was miserable there.
Staying in Massachusetts, living a mundane life, while her twin brother, Wesley, and I were chasing our dreams. His dream of becoming an ER doctor, which he’s pursuing in Connecticut, and mine of becoming a chef, which now looks a little different.
The three of us were scattered across the country until we got that call ten years ago.
“And Kiss rocks. And so do Queen, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, and many others. I may play Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach on tour, but I can play some killer rock songs on my cello in my room.” Lainey throws her feet on the dashboard.
“Off!”
She rolls her eyes. “Ugh, whatever. You’re no fun.”
A small huff leaves me.
“So, who was that girl back there?”
I keep my eyes on the road as my hands grip the wheel tighter. “I told you. A student from the school paper.”
She makes a humming sound. “She’s very pretty.”
You don’t need to tell me twice, lil’ sis. “Whatever you say.”
“Come on, Grayson.” I glance at her briefly to see she’s now facing me. “I saw the way you guys were looking at each other. Are you sleeping with her?”
My head starts to shake right away. “No! Of course not.”
“Good. I’d hate for you to lose your job.” She’s silent for a moment. “Could you lose your job over that?”
“Lainey, I am not sleeping with her.” My eyes meet hers, which look exactly like our mother’s, and she rolls them.
“And no, I wouldn’t get fired since I’m not her professor.
The rules state that I’d have to inform my boss or a dean of any involvement with a student.
But from what I’ve heard, nobody on the faculty or board will ever take you seriously again.
There are only two professors we know of who dated students in the last seven years.
Both of them quit within a year and a half after that. ”
She scoffs. “G, you liar! You may not be sleeping with her, but you’re thinking about it. What aren’t you telling me?”
We reach a stoplight, and I close my eyes. If she sees what I’m feeling right now, she’ll know. And shit, I need someone to fucking know.
A small hand grabs my jaw and turns my head in her direction. My eyelids open as she examines my face.
Her hand falls at the same time as her jaw. “She’s masquerade girl. Jane Austen girl.”
My chin dips in confirmation, and the sound of honking cars grows louder behind us.
Putting my focus back on the road, I wait for her to take it in.
My sister doesn’t know everything that happened that night, like the sexual things, for example, but she knows the gist of it.
I kept most details between Emma and me to myself.
How happy and carefree she looked when we danced together.
The strange way she sometimes talked to herself, while also making silly jokes.
And the book she carried around, and the sadness I saw behind those big blue eyes when she spoke about it.
A mix of happiness, loneliness, and despair.
I’d do anything to wipe that look away, and we only knew each other for a couple of hours.
And here I go again.
“What are you going to do?” Lainey whispers as we pull into the parking spot in front of the small dark blue house I’m renting, about a ten-minute drive from campus.
Twisting the key to turn off the engine, my head thunks against the headrest. “She told me that the article she had already written was being pulled, but she and her editor want to do an in-depth piece on me. An article that could take months of her following me and visiting my two workplaces. I was going to say no, then she told me, and I quote, ‘London never happened.’”
Lainey’s small gasp of surprise echoes loudly inside the warm car. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. So, now if I don’t do it, after she has already set professional boundaries…” My head tilts to the side where my little sister sits. “It seems like she really needs this, Lain.”
She smiles, her eyes slightly teary. My sister is a romantic, just like our mom was. She’ll cry over any romantic gesture, but this is not one.
I’m feeling nothing but stressed and conflicted.
“Sleep on it. You’ll know what to do tomorrow,” she repeats what our mother used to say to us whenever we were undecided about something.
Lainey might have been rebellious as a child and still has a small streak of craziness running through her veins, but she also knows when to set Wesley and me straight, just like Mom used to.
My little sister shoves my arm lightly. “Come on, big brother. Let’s go get drunk on margaritas in your nice house. I’m headed to Manhattan after lunch tomorrow, and then you’ll be rid of me until Thanksgiving.”
We step out, and I put an arm around Lainey’s shoulders. “I’m going to miss you, crazy.”
“I know.”