30. Grayson
30
GRAYSON
I ’d written and deleted so many messages to Kara that hours had slipped by. Nothing I wrote seemed to really sum up the apology I owed her.
“Dear Kara,” I mused out loud for at least the twentieth time that morning. “I’m so sorry you saw me fucking some other woman when the woman I really wanted to be fucking was you.”
I groaned.
“Dear Kara. All I can think about is how I could only come because I was picturing you beneath me.”
Yeah, like I was really going to send that.
“Dear Kara. I want you so fucking bad I can’t breathe and I don’t care if you’re with Hayden or Hawk or the entire Colorado Titans hockey team, I just want to know if there’s any chance you didn’t actually see me screwing someone else and might want to go out for dinner sometime?”
I threw myself onto the couch and wailed into a cushion. “Fuuuckkkk.”
I tossed my phone across the other side of the room, knowing I couldn’t say any of those things. It made a weird bleeping noise, and I dragged myself over to see what sort of damage I’d done.
There was a message from Kara.
All concerns about the probably broken speaker disappeared. I pounced on the phone, stabbing at the screen, urging the stupid thing to open the message faster, even though in reality it probably only took a few seconds.
Kara:
I was wondering if you’d like to go to the beach with me and Hayley Jade today?
A familiar sense of unease settled over me at the mere mention of the beach. And yet I found myself typing back in too enthusiastic capital letters.
Grayson:
YES! I’D LOVE TO! I’D ALSO REALLY LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR
I cringed at the screen. “Could you actually be any more pathetic, Grayson? Fucking hell.” I paused. “Also really lame that you’re talking out loud to yourself, so really, is it any wonder this woman is about as attracted to you as she would be her brother?”
I pressed my lips together to keep the rambling inside and deleted the text, trying again.
Grayson:
Sure. Beach sounds great. Pick you both up at twelve?
It was dry and boring, but I clearly couldn’t be trusted with caps or exclamation marks or heaven forbid, GIFs. If I didn’t watch myself, I’d probably be sending her the love hearts for eyes emoji.
Would it be lame to pack a picnic? Would that seem like I was trying to turn her casual invitation into a date?
I so wanted it to be a date.
“Ah, screw it.” I left the house before I could talk to myself anymore. I still had an hour to kill before I needed to be at the clubhouse though, so lame as it might have been, I found myself at the shopping center, pushing a cart around, filling it with anything and everything I thought one might need for a date at the beach.
A day at the beach. Not a date. Women didn’t bring their children on dates.
Women didn’t date men they’d put in the friend zone either.
It didn’t stop me taking my cart to the register with it near to full and then packing it all into the trunk of my car.
I made it to the Slayers’ clubhouse right at twelve, and Kara and Hayley Jade were already standing in the doorway, waiting for me.
My heart squeezed at the sight of Kara, some of my unease over where we were headed dissipating at a single glimpse of her. Her long dark hair fell loose around her shoulders and down the back of a thick, cable-knit sweater. Leggings clung to her hips and thighs, and white sneakers finished off her outfit.
Last night she’d been a knockout.
This look was cute as hell.
Clearly, it didn’t matter what she wore, I found her attractive in anything.
Hayley Jade half hid behind Kara’s legs, an adorable pink beanie with a pompom on her head, and a set of Barbies in her hands.
I smiled as I approached them, bending down to talk to Hayley Jade first. “Whatcha got there?”
She didn’t say anything, but she did hold out the dolls. I inspected each one carefully. “It’s pretty cold out here today. Do you think they’re ready for the wind at the beach? Maybe they need sweatshirts like you and I have on?”
Hayley Jade cocked her head to one side and then nodded firmly, spinning on her heel and running back into the clubhouse, presumably to find a warmer wardrobe for her dolls. I straightened, heart thumping at the thought of facing Kara after what I’d done last night and praying she hadn’t actually seen me.
Even though we both knew full well she had.
The shrink inside me was shouting about delusions, but I was off the clock, so I told him come back later.
Talking to myself inside my own head wasn’t as bad as talking to myself out loud, surely.
I pasted a nervous smile on and rose to my feet.
Only to find Hayden and Hawk standing behind Kara, leaning on the doorway like her personal security squad.
“Uh,” I cleared my throat. “Morning. I mean afternoon? How’d everyone sleep?”
Hawk smirked. “We going to talk about last night?”
Heat spread across the back of my neck. “Uh, the part where I delivered Bliss’s baby safely and happily into the world? How are they by the way? Did they name the baby?”
Hayden sniggered. “I don’t know about them, but I was thinking more about what happened after that.”
I cleared my throat, wanting to crawl into a hole and die, even though the two of them were clearly enjoying torturing me. “The food was great,” I told Hayden honestly. “Top-notch.”
Hawk’s laughter was full of pure amusement at my discomfort. “That the only thing that tasted good to you last night, Grayson? When we left, you had your mouth on—”
“Ridge,” Kara interjected.
I blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“Bliss called the baby Ridge.”
She was throwing me a lifeline.
“Oh, right. Good name. Strong.”
Hawk and Hayden were still trying to hold in their laughter. I was so giving Hawk bedpans to clean next time we were at the clinic. Asshole.
Hayley Jade ran back with an armful of new clothes for her dolls, and I took the opportunity to escape.
“Ready to go?”
Kara nodded, shifting a beach bag overflowing with things onto her shoulder and stepping out the door.
Hayden caught her by the wrist. “You forgot something.” He lowered his head and brushed his mouth across hers.
I averted my eyes but not quick enough to miss Hawk taking her chin and turning her head so he could claim her lips as well.
Hayley Jade stared up at the three of them with a happy smile on her rounded face.
I couldn’t say I felt the same, watching them kiss her, knowing they got to do so much more behind closed doors.
Hayden did something with his hands that might have been sign language before he waved goodbye to Hayley Jade, but when the little girl turned her big eyes on Hawk, it was clear there were things she wanted to say, even if whatever part of her she’d locked inside wouldn’t allow it.
Hawk didn’t seem to need her words though.
He knelt so he was eye height with her and ruffled her hair. “I can’t go this time, shortie. I’d love to, but Grayson has promised me he’s going to take super good care of you and your mama.” He glanced up at me, his expression changing to something fierce. “Aren’t you, Grayson? You’re going to take such good care of them that I won’t have to worry for a second that they’re out there without me. Right?”
If there was one thing I could do, it was that. I knew about Kara’s past. Knew probably better than Hawk did about others who could hurt them.
I might have been a doctor now, one who threw most of his punches at a bag at the gym. I knew what Hawk saw when he looked at me. I knew he saw me as weak. A paper pusher.
He had no idea I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life in the Saint View ghetto. That I’d grown up in houses where every day was a fight to stay alive.
That I surrounded myself with men who I knew very well could turn on me at any time and end my life. I didn’t go to the gym for fun. I practiced with my trainer for the day when one of those men might stop seeing me as a friend and instead decide I was a foe.
I trained for the day Trigger returned and I’d get to take his life as payback for the one he’d stolen from me.
When I stared Hawk solemnly in the eye and declared Kara and Hayley Jade would be safe with me, I meant it with every fiber of my being.
The Providence beach was cold and windy and mostly deserted of people, but the expression on Hayley Jade’s face when I helped her out of the back seat of my car was nothing short of priceless. She ran to the short fence that separated the sand dunes from the parking lot and stared out over the ocean with huge eyes.
“She’s never seen the ocean before.” Kara smiled softly, watching her daughter.
“They kept you pretty sheltered, didn’t they?”
She nodded. “That’s probably a gross understatement. It was different when I was her age. Before Josiah came along and changed everything we knew.” She sat on the rounded log fence next to Hayley Jade and undid the laces on her sneakers, encouraging Hayley Jade to do the same. “Did you grow up around here?”
I shouldered the bags full of food and other supplies I’d picked up at the store and closed the trunk. “Not far.” I pointed toward the Saint View end of the beach. “But I didn’t get to hang out at this end.”
Kara breathed in the deep, salt-laced air. “I’m so jealous. I would come here every day if I could. Hence why we’re here now, even though it’s too cold to swim.”
“Doesn’t stop the surfers.” I nodded toward the waves a way down the sand, where a handful of surfers sat on their boards in the swell, waiting for the next set to roll in.
Hayley Jade held her socks and shoes patiently, silently waiting until Kara and I were ready. She was such an obedient kid, never making a fuss or drawing attention to herself. Always waiting quietly for permission. I could see why Kara was concerned. It wasn’t typical behavior for anyone, let alone a five-year-old who should have been bubbling over with excitement, running around, chattering about everything new her mind was taking in.
“Who wants to race?” My gaze focused on Hayley Jade. “I think there’s a perfect picnic spot down there somewhere, and I wonder if anyone is fast enough to beat me to it?”
Kara caught on and put up her hand. “Me! I think I can definitely beat both of you!”
Hayley Jade’s smile turned into a grin, and she ran on the spot, little legs pumping like she was warming up for a sprint.
It was amazing to see how she communicated, even without words, and a good sign her trauma hadn’t forced her so far in on herself that she couldn’t eventually revert back to the way she’d once been.
I rocked on my heels, making out like I was getting ready to sprint. “Okay, then. On your marks. Get set…” They both watched me, poised and ready to run. “Bananas!”
Hayley Jade took two steps and stopped, realizing what I’d said.
I frowned at her. “How come you aren’t running?”
She giggled.
Kara hid her laughter.
I grinned, enjoying the sounds of their amusement. “Okay, let’s try again. Ready?”
Hayley Jade nodded.
“Set?”
A look of determination came over her expression.
“Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!”
She shoved her hands on her hips and gave me a stare that clearly just meant, ‘seriously?’
I laughed. “Okay, go!”
Hayley Jade took off running, her tiny feet flying across the sand, her slight weight barely making a dent in the surface.
Kara grabbed my shirt and held me back. “Go, Hayley Jade! I’ve got him!”
God, I loved the sound of Kara’s laughter and the warmth of her body as she hauled me against her. Her breasts brushed across my back, and fuck if all I could think about was spinning her around, gathering her up into my arms, and kissing her the way Hayden and Hawk had earlier.
Instead, I howled out in mock frustration. “Cheating! There’s some cheating going on here!”
Hayley Jade glanced over her shoulder at us, her excitement clear in her expression.
Kara and I laughed our way down the path after her, both of us sinking into the sand and jostling each other with our armful of bags.
Kara dropped hers onto the sand at the designated spot, and I nabbed the blanket sticking out of one of mine, spreading it out for her to sink down onto. She curled up, tucking her knees to her chest, gaze trained on Hayley Jade, who’d lost interest in the race she’d so clearly won and was busily picking up shells to put in her pockets.
I sat beside Kara, watching her daughter. “She’s going to bring home half the beach. You’ll be doing shell and sand art for weeks to come at the rate she’s finding them.”
Kara smiled happily. “I like the sound of that. It’s so…”
“Normal?”
She twisted her head, laying it on her knees to face me. “Yes. Exactly that. Normal. Did you do that sort of thing when you were a kid?”
The idea of anyone sitting me down, getting out glue and glitter and paint, and telling me to have fun and be creative was so insanely foreign to me it was laughable. I had no memories like that. Only ones of places my foster parents had ruined for me, the beach being one of them.
While surfers sat out in the water, laughing and joking with each other, and in summer, this place crawled with teenagers and families having a good time, all it represented to me was pain.
My chest got tight as the memories flooded back in. Memories I’d tried to work through in therapy, and when that hadn’t worked too well, I’d fought to keep locked tight.
“Food?” I asked her, digging through the bags, pulling out the lunch meats and cheeses I’d brought. “What do you like? I brought chips and sandwiches and juice for Hayley Jade too. Cookies? Candies?” I glanced over at her awkwardly. “I didn’t know what any of you liked so I just bought it all.”
She laughed, leaning over to rummage through the bag with me. “I can see that. I’m not fussy. It all looks good to me.” She picked up some crackers and opened a container of hummus. She munched on a few while we watched Hayley Jade, the crash of the waves the only sound between us.
It drew out so long I had to fill it. “I’m so sorry—”
“I want to—” she started at the same time.
Both of us stopped and looked at the other. She scrunched her face up adorably and squeezed her eyes closed. “Wait. Please. Let me say what I need to say because I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to say it if I wait any longer. I’m really sorry about last night. I was drinking, and I forgot my place. The whole thing was so incredibly inappropriate of me, and I hope you can forgive me.”
I blinked. “You’re apologizing to me?”
She widened her eyes. “Of course. What I did…watching you like that when you were…” She covered her face with her hands. “This is officially more mortifying than I even imagined. I swear, I’m not normally like that.”
“Like what?”
The question was out before I even really thought about what I was asking.
She peeled two fingers away from her face and stared at me from between them. “I don’t normally go to clubs and watch people I know have sex.” She covered her face up again. “Please don’t fire me from the clinic.”
I pulled her hands away. “Kara, you did nothing wrong. I was the one who was…well… you know…naked.”
Kara’s face flushed red. “You had every right to be. I mean…that’s what people do there, right? I shouldn’t have…I knew you were in there. I shouldn’t have followed.”
I paused. “Wait, you followed me?”
She shook her head quickly. “I mean, no! Not followed. Not…exactly. I…we…” She let out a long sigh. “Hawk is probably going to tell you anyway, because he has the biggest mouth known to man. This is so awkward I could die.”
“Tell me what?”
She glanced at me. “He thought you went in there last night because you were thinking about me. I told him how ridiculous that was—”
She was so pink with embarrassment. So beautiful. Her gaze was locked with mine, and she was giving me an opening, a chance to say exactly how I felt about her.
I had to take it. “What if I did?”
The wind picked up tendrils of her hair, blowing them around her face. Her voice dropped an octave. “What do you mean?”
Nerves rolled through me, like I was a sixteen-year-old boy asking a girl to prom, desperately unsure of what her answer was going to be but so sure of only one thing: I had to shoot my shot. That I had to ask. I had to hope there was a chance she might feel the same way. “What if I went into that party last night, because the sight of you and Hawk together had me so damn jealous I couldn’t breathe? What if I went in there hoping to fuck away the desire I felt every time your leg brushed mine beneath the table. What if I was thinking about you the entire time I was inside her…”
Silence settled between us. Then horror. All mine.
I’d just made this so much worse. “Fuck.”
Kara stared at me, shock written all over her face. “Hayley Jade!” she called distractedly. “Not too close to the water!”
I realized instantly how wrong I’d been. How out of line. How everything she’d said hadn’t been an opening for me to word vomit about how much I wanted her.
I hated this fucking beach. Nothing good ever happened here. The same crushing feeling I got every time I saw those waves rolling in intensified until my lungs ached. “I’m sorry. This is so inappropriate.” I looked away, up toward my car. I couldn’t even fucking leave. I’d brought her here, she needed a way to get home. I just wanted the earth to swallow me whole.
“Grayson…”
I held up a hand. “No. Honestly. No need to say anything. I get it. You have Hawk. And Hayden.”
“Grayson.”
“Just please forget I said anything. I misread the entire situation, and I honestly just want to go throw myself off the bluff. The thought of sharp rocks spearing through the chest, or a shark chowing down on my insides while the waves drown me, actually doesn’t seem so bad right about now. Maybe a speedboat could come by and just chop me up with its propellers for good measure—”
“I came last night, watching you with her.”
If I’d been able to place a million bets on words that would come out of her mouth, none of them would have been those.
I stared at her. I’d seen her at the club as I’d…finished. Our eyes had locked, no denying on either of our parts what had happened.
But I’d assumed she’d seen me with that woman, been horrified, and hightailed it straight out of there with only a single, unlucky glance my way that had confirmed it was indeed me she was seeing in that state.
She twisted her fingers around in the blanket. “So you understand now why there is nothing for you to apologize for. It was me who was inappropriate. I stood there, watching you with that woman, and let Hawk touch me—” She looked up and suddenly pushed to her feet, scattering cracker crumbs across the blanket. “Hayley Jade!”
I jerked at the panicked tone in Kara’s voice, quickly scanning the sand for the little girl, my stomach sinking when she wasn’t picking up shells. I shot up, twisting each way searching for her pink beanie, spotting it as she waded through the shallows, waves splashing up the pant legs she’d been smart enough to roll up to her knees.
“Grayson, that wave…” Kara’s fingers clutched me tightly.
The surfers down the beach hooted and hollered, catching the massive swell rushing toward the beach, bigger and stronger than any of the waves we’d seen in the time we’d been here.
Hayley Jade didn’t notice us, our shouts to her lost on the wind, zero awareness of the danger hurtling toward her.
The huge swell hit Hayley Jade in the back, the ocean surging and swirling around her, taking out her feet and sending her face first into the white water.
Kara screamed, “She can’t swim!”
I was already running, gaze glued to the pink beanie being tossed around. Another unusually large wave hit the sand, pushing her beneath the water again.
I watched in horror as Hayley Jade flailed, trying to keep her head above water while the ocean drew her deeper and deeper into its depths, the tide sucking her in.
I hit the water at full pace, only to be smacked backward by the third wave of the set crashing onto the sand, freezing cold water filling my eyes and ears and nose.
Instantly I was ten years old again, being held down beneath the water, my foster dad laughing above me while I struggled against his grip.
I couldn’t breathe. There was water in my lungs. Fear in my blood. I screamed but didn’t make a sound.
“Hayley Jade!” Kara splashed into the water.
The fear in her voice cut through the panic inside me.
I looked around wildly, finding my feet in the churning sea, searching for any sign of Kara’s daughter.
I caught the little pink beanie as it slipped underneath the waves.
I dove beneath them, visibility zero, holding my breath the way I hadn’t been able to do when I was a kid.
She wasn’t fucking drowning in this ocean. I remembered the pain and the terror all too well, and I wasn’t letting her go through that.
My hands caught hold of something solid, and I clutched my fingers into the soaking fabric of her jacket, hauling her back to the surface and up into my arms.
She spluttered and coughed, but to my surprise breathed normally, her face white with fear but her lips were a bright pink, not blue-tinged like I would have expected if she’d been without oxygen for too long.
“I’ve got you.” I rubbed her back, encouraging her body to expel any water she’d swallowed.
Kara ran through the shallows to meet us, a worried expression chewing up her pretty face. “Oh my God. That wave got you good.”
“We need an ambulance,” I jogged now the water wasn’t holding me back.
Kara put her hand on my arm. “What? Why? Is she hurt?”
“She just nearly drowned!”
Kara screwed up her face in confusion. “She was only under for a second. You got to her so quick.”
I stopped, confused. “No. She was drowning. I saw…” I stared down at Hayley Jade who looked wet and cold and surprised, but definitely not like she had a lung full of ocean water or had been struggling for air…
The way I had.
Kara put a warm hand on my chilled, wet arm. “She’s okay, Gray. Put her down.”
I shook my head, blinking away the memories, and dropped to my knees at the edge of our blanket. Kara knelt beside me, quickly finding a towel and stripping off some of Hayley Jade’s wet clothes. She wrapped Hayley Jade’s slim shoulders and rubbed her arms briskly, warming her up and drying her off. She smiled at her daughter. “You’re okay?”
Hayley Jade’s teeth chattered, but she nodded, staring at me with big eyes.
I swallowed thickly and tried to smile reassuringly at her, well aware it was now my behavior scaring her a whole lot more than being dunked by a wave had.
Kara shot me worried glances too. “Let’s go up to the car so I can get her changed. I brought spare clothes, knowing she’d probably get wet.”
I nodded numbly, following her lead, my heart still racing too fast and my breathing too erratic to do or say anything more. I picked up all the things and trailed them back to the car, packing the mostly uneaten food back into the trunk as the wind whipped around my soaking body, chilling me to the bone.
My head had gone dark.
Memories erupting from shadowy corners and twirling through my brain like a never-ending nightmare parade.
A car door slammed. I jumped, and then Kara was in front of me, undoing the buttons on my shirt.
“What are you doing?” I watched her nimble fingers move down my chest.
“You’re freezing.”
“Hayley Jade…”
“Is now warm in a fresh tracksuit and watching videos on my phone in the back seat.”
“She’s really okay?”
Kara nodded. “Really. I should have been watching her more closely. It could have been a lot worse. But you were so quick.”
“I didn’t feel quick,” I admitted. “I thought she went under. A lot. I thought…” I sucked in a breath, but it felt shallow. Like even when I tried to get more air, I couldn’t. “I thought—”
The air wouldn’t come.
Kara dragged off my shirt and wrapped the picnic blanket around me, which was sandy and a little stiff, but stopped the whipping wind from getting at my skin. She led me to the log fence. “Sit a minute. You’re having a panic attack.”
I hadn’t had one in years, but it felt a whole lot like dying. With nothing in me left to fight, I did as I was told, sitting heavily. My chest heaved. Stomach churned. I was sure I looked like I was losing it.
Concern radiated from Kara.
I didn’t want to scare her. “My foster dad found water torture an amusing pastime.” I fought the gut-churning feeling inside me. “Not that he had any of the skills they use on prisoners of war or whatever. He didn’t have the patience for anything like that. He just liked to hold my head beneath the water.”
Kara stared down at me, horror written all over her expression. “Why? How old were you?”
I shrugged. “Ten, maybe? I don’t really remember. Small enough to not be able to fight back.” I twisted to stare back at the waves, demon-like in their thrashing, the wind from earlier bringing in dark clouds that made the entire beach feel ominous. “I ran away from home once. Slept just down there, on the beach for two nights before he found me.” I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. “He dragged me into the ocean, screaming about what a good-for-nothing shit I was, and how Child Protective Services was going to take away his payments if I wasn’t there when they came to check on me.”
“He held you beneath the water as punishment?”
“He didn’t want to hit me and leave bruises.”
“So he tried to drown you instead?” Kara’s eyes were round with horror. “Foster parents are supposed to be caring. Nurturing…”
I laughed. “Maybe in Disney movies.”
But it wasn’t funny. I dropped my head, staring at the ground, hating that this shit still had an effect on me. I’d done so much mental work, trying to get through it, and I thought I had. I even swam now. Regularly. Though only in pools.
But seeing Hayley Jade’s head slip beneath the waves while she’d flailed and fought to stay upright had brought it all back, reopening a wound that had defined my entire life.
The laugh turned into a desperate gulp for air, my chest too tight, like someone had a vise around it.
Kara knelt in front of me, her knees on the sandy grass growing at the edge of the paved parking lot. She caught my hand and rubbed it briskly. “Tell me three things you see or hear or smell right now.”
My head felt like it weighed a ton. “Why?”
“Someone told me recently it helps calm your nervous system if you focus on what’s right here in front of you instead of whatever’s going on in your head.”
She was right. It was a technique I used with my patients. I drew in a breath that wasn’t nearly as deep as I wanted but better than the choking feeling that had me in its grip. “The sky is more gray than blue. That video Hayley Jade is watching is loud enough I can hear it even outside the car.” I let my gaze settle on Kara’s face.
“One more,” she prompted calmly.
“You’re beautiful.”
She let out a shuddering breath, her gaze dipping to my mouth before dragging back up my face. “Feel better?”
“I feel like I want to kiss you. And I’m so damn scared you’re going to say no.”
She let out a wobbly breath but didn’t turn away. And didn’t say no. “I don’t understand why you’d want that. I’m with Hawk. And Hayden.”
Which was exactly what I’d been telling myself ever since I’d met her.
Except I was selfish enough to not care. To want more, and to ask her if I could have it.
“I still want to kiss you, Kara.” I slid my hand to the side of her face, past her ear, tangling it in the wild mess of her hair. “And I think if you’re honest with yourself, you want to kiss me too.”
She narrowed the gap between us until my mouth hovered over hers, our warm breaths mingling in the cold beach air. I brushed my lips across hers, testing her reaction, buzzing at the feel of electricity when her body connected with mine.
“I don’t want to ruin what you have with them. If kissing you will hurt you, I’ll walk away.” I inhaled the salty smell of her lips.
“I can’t have three men, Gray,” she whispered. But her eyes closed and she tipped her head back, letting me trail my lips up her neck.
I kissed the spot beneath her ear. “You can have whatever you want. All you have to do is tell me yes.”
Her pause was the most agonizing few seconds of my life.
“Yes.”
I pressed my mouth to hers, all gentleness gone as she kissed me back just as hard, wrapping her arms around my neck and hauling me in. I stood, lifting us both from the low fence until her ass was on the edge of the hood and we were a mess of tongues and hands, roaming each other’s backs, stroking hair, brushing over skin. I ran my tongue along the seam of her lips, loving when she opened for me. The kiss seared, engraving itself in my brain, feeling so damn different than any kiss I’d ever had before.
Until I opened my eyes and caught a glimpse of Hayley Jade in the middle of the back seat.
She covered her mouth, giggling behind her hand.
I threw the little girl a wink and pulled her mother tight, wrapping my arms around her, hugging her close. “We have an audience,” I mumbled, smile so wide I couldn’t wipe it off my face.
Kara smiled as well, elbowing me. “I thought you were used to that.”