Chapter 13 – Dylan
THIRTEEN
DYLAN
My eyes burn from exhaustion. From the long hours I put in last night on two songs, only to be interrupted by Grady when he was at my door and then again when another nightmare ripped through him long after the hammer stopped pounding.
I’d been on my way to his room when he woke up, and I’d silently retreated back to mine to let him have his privacy.
I heard the clink of the ice in his glass.
And I’m the one who, at four in the morning, pulled the blanket over him where he slept on the couch after it had slipped off and fallen to the floor.
So now I’m doing the only thing I can think of to help him. The one thing my Italian mother would do if she were in my shoes. I am going to cook for him.
Antipasto. Lasagna. Cannoli.
My stomach rumbles at the thought as I unload my groceries on the belt at the checkout stand. Of course, the tabloids catch my eye with their outlandish tales that are so far from true it’s laughable.
I know that.
Yet, I still stare when I see a picture of Jett. The hurt still real. The heartbreak still raw.
It’s an old photo of a performance I remember, but US Weekly says it was from last week. At least that helps with the sting of the headline below it.
“Jett’s Wild Weekend with Women Galore”
“Hey, aren’t you the one who’s staying at Grady Malone’s house?”
The chipper demeanor from the woman behind me is enough to stop me from picking up that magazine and torturing myself with the article inside. I look over to an inquisitive expression set on round cheeks and wide eyes of a tall brunette.
“Yes.” I’m not sure what else to say.
“I saw you with him at the farmers’ market the other day.” Well, at least there is a reason for her to know me. “And I’m his sister-in-law’s best friend.” She holds her hand out to me. “Desi Whitman.”
“Hi,” I say as I shake her hand. “Sister-in-law?”
“Yes. The only one there is. Officer Sexy’s wife.”
“Officer Sex—oh, Grant. I’ve met him.” This time my smile is sincere.
“How can you forget meeting any of the Malone men? I mean, it’s as if they were put here to show the rest of us we’ll never reach their level of perfection.”
I laugh as I remember my thoughts of a Malone sandwich the other day. “Ain’t that the truth?”
Her grin widens. “Well, it’s nice to meet the woman in Grady’s life.”
“We’re not—” I begin to correct in an effort to keep up my I’m-with-Jett charade, but her next words have mine dying on my lips.
“He deserves the best after everything he’s endured. Such a horrific thing to go through. I mean . . . they were best friends, and he couldn’t save him. God, can you imagine?”
My head reels with this new information, but I keep my smile plastered on my face, feeling slightly guilty for wanting more details when it’s obvious Grady would have told me himself if he wanted me to know.
“No, I can’t. It’s just terrible.”
She loads a gallon of milk and a bunch of bananas on the conveyor belt behind my order. “Grant said he’s been doing better lately. I’m thinking that’s because of you.”
“I can’t take any credit. I haven’t done—”
“Oh, shush.” She swats at my arm. “If I was doing a Malone man, I’d declare it outright. Wave a flag over my head. Write it in smoke signals. Girl, you want to claim him fast before someone else does. If they do, I have a feeling they’ll never let go.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say as I laugh and hand the clerk money for my groceries.
“Well, you keep that man of yours happy, and I’ll stay over here and keep dreaming about one for myself.”
“There’s always Grayson.”
She licks her lips and rubs her hands together. “I think I kind of scare him.” She laughs and waves her hand. “I’m a bit forward if you couldn’t tell.”
“Didn’t notice,” I joke as I grab my three bags. “Nice to meet you, Desi.”
With that, I leave the store, my mind buzzing about Grady Malone, my curiosity growing by the second. I think about him all the way home. The burns. How he couldn’t save his best friend. The emotional scars I’ve seen. The gruff exterior hiding them.
Every part of me rails against searching Google, but the first thing I do when I walk in the door is drop the groceries on the counter and head for my laptop.
I can’t resist.
I search Grady Malone and Sunnyville, finding page after page of accolades and charitable deeds by the youngest of the Malone boys. There are a few articles on the trouble he got into as a teen, but it’s the newspaper articles from two years ago that have me catching my breath.
“Tragic Loss of one of Sunnyville’s Finest”
“Today we are a city in mourning,” says Mayor Dan Jensen.
Tragedy struck the Sunnyville Fire Department last night in the four-hundred block of Crosby Court.
Firefighters entered the engulfed Cooper Warehouse to check for occupants and knock down possible internal accelerants.
During the search, a section of compromised ceiling fell, trapping firefighters Grady Malone and Drew Brooks inside the building.
Despite the efforts of fellow firefighters, they were unable to reach them in time.
Drew Brooks succumbed to the injuries he sustained from the fire.
Grady Malone remains in Sunnyville General Hospital, where he is receiving treatment for third-degree burns to his back.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Drew Brooks leaves behind a wife and three-year-old son. Services for him will be announced at a later time.
I stare at the article from two years ago, my mind filling in assumptions that only answers from Grady can confirm.
I click on the next article, which is about the funeral service, and then the next, which is an update on Grady’s condition.
One about the cause of the deadly fire—inconclusive.
And yet another with a picture of Grady leaving the hospital with his brothers on either side of him and a man, who I can only assume is his father, pushing his wheelchair.
The nightmares make sense now. The words he shouts. The groans of agony. The discomfort with his scars. The glassy-eyed fear he wakes up with that takes time to clear away.
The little boy and the woman from the farmers’ market—Drew’s wife and son.
I immediately feel like an ass for the conclusions I jumped to. My unfounded anger at Grady for not owning up to having a child. My distrust of men rearing its ugly head from both my father’s and Jett’s betrayal.
Lesson learned. Irrationality stemmed.
The scanner goes off. I jump at the sound and reach to turn the volume down, but it only serves to reinforce the magnitude of what Grady’s been through and how much he masks.
Putting myself in his shoes, I understand the dark moments that glance through his eyes.
His use of his sexuality to avoid talking about anything to do with it.
The survivor’s guilt that most nights I’m sure wages war against the memories competing for which one gets to take the biggest bite of him.
My stomach churns, and my heart hurts for him. Feeling like I’ve betrayed him by searching, I close my laptop but the pictures of Drew and Grady that accompanied the articles remain fresh in my mind.
Needing something to busy my hands as I process his hurt, I head for the kitchen and begin to unload groceries.
With a quick check of the clock, I know I have about an hour before he’ll be home from helping his brother.
The least I can do is make him a nice meal as an apology for a judgment I passed on him that he knows nothing about.
“You really should lock your doors, you know.”
The voice stops me in my tracks. That voice. The one that owned my thoughts and heart for over two years.
My heart wrings. My spine stiffens. “I’d only lock them to keep you out, and since I wasn’t expecting you, I didn’t think I had to. Don’t worry, as soon as you leave, I’ll run out and buy padlocks.”
I turn to face him, and the visceral punch to my system is staggering. His dark hair is in his signature messy disarray. His eyes are brown and unrelenting as they stare into mine. And then there’s that mouth of his. One side is curled in a cocky, you-know-you-still-want-me smirk.
It feels like months since I’ve seen him—smelled his cologne, heard the rumble of his voice as I lay my head on his chest, get that nod that he used to give me from the stage to let me know he knew I was there.
At the same time, it feels just like yesterday—the hurt, the anger, and the disbelief all like a fresh wound bleeding inside me.
“How’s Tara?” It’s my only defense against the tumultuous feelings rioting around inside me.
He half laughs, half smirks. “I told you, there wasn’t anything there.”
I chew my tongue as I stare at him. Disgusted. Hurt. Confounded. “That’s comforting. So you threw away a two-year relationship with me for something where there wasn’t anything there?”
“That’s not what I meant. You know how it goes—”
“Actually, I don’t know. How does it go?”
His eyes harden at being questioned. At not having an answer on the ready. “C’mon, babe.”
“If she was nothing, then the picture in People Magazine of you two at Starbucks was . . .?” I need to stay on the defensive because the longer he stands there, reminding me of everything that has been familiar for so long, the more my heart hurts.
And the angrier I become.
“Nothing.” He shifts his feet and folds his sunglasses to hang from the top of his shirt. “It was an old photo from an innocent lunch meeting. The tabloids recycled it.”
“Innocent, my ass.” I lift my eyebrows. “And the Rolling Stone article?”
“You saw that?” Confidence returns to his expression in that one simple phrase.
“Yep. Sure did.” I cross my arms over my chest and rest my hip against the counter as it dawns on me that Jett thought I would read that and all would be forgiven.
“You read that part about—”
“Yep,” I reply without even knowing which part he is referring to, because it doesn’t matter. None of this does. What he did with Tara is what matters. Not his words after the fact. “Too little. Too late.”