Chapter Thirty-Six
ELLY
THE APARTMENT is full of boxes stacked everywhere.
I can’t even get away from the sight of them by looking at the beautiful view of the city out the window, even their reflection on the glass haunts me.
When I first looked at this apartment, it was the windows that sold me.
The vintage floor to ceiling windows in the living room with their antique wood and rounded edges was what I fell in love with.
My new apartment is nice, I only got to take a virtual tour, but I know it was built five years ago to accommodate up-and-coming executives that are moving there. It has state-of-the-art everything, so no more drafty windows.
Glancing at my reflection, I swipe another tear from my cheek. I still haven’t heard from Gray. Marley called me, I was so happy and surprised to hear from her and ended up spilling my heart out. She said she would try to talk to him, but that was two weeks ago.
I’ve missed him every day, but it’s been a month, so I’m not holding out hope that I will ever see him again.
I look like shit in my leggings and long t-shirt, I couldn’t even be bothered with a bra today. Don’t even get me started on my hair, which looks like a rat’s nest that’s clipped up into a tiny twist with fly-aways and strands tucked behind my ears. Crossing my arms, I take another sip of my wine.
The doorbell pulls me out of my thoughts and for just a second, I hope it might be Gray. All the way from California, away from his ranch.
Yeah.
Right.
He wouldn’t leave that ranch for anything. Even me.
But that’s one of the reasons I fell for him, isn’t it? His unconditional dedication to what’s important to him?
When I look through the peephole, Thalia holds up a bottle of wine and a cloth grocery bag full of what I am assuming is junk food. I open the door and she breezes past me, with a quick kiss on my cheek, into the kitchen and starts unpacking her bag of goodies.
“I stopped at your favorite cheese store and got that god-awful port wine concoction that isn’t even real cheese and your favorite crackers, I don’t know how you eat that but because I love you…
” She looks up at me and sets her hand on her hip in only Thal’s sassy way, but when she sees my face, she stops.
Her eyes move down to the half empty wine glass I’m cupping around the top with the tips of my fingers, in a very unladylike fashion, at my side. The happiness drains from her face as she makes eye contact with me.
She sets everything in her hands down and turns to walk in my direction with her arms out. “Come here.”
The damn breaks and I sob into her shirt. “That’s right, sis, get it out. Get it all out.” She croons into my ear and rocks me with her as she wobbles from foot to foot, her arms tight around me.
When my sobs are just hiccups, I lift my head and look into her caramel brown eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re all I’ve got left.”
She throws her head back and laughs, “Girlfriend, that means you got the best.” She pulls me into a hug again. “Come on, sit.” She orders and points to one of the bar stools under the counter.
With a sniff, I pull the still half-full bag toward me. “This bag looks stuffed to the brim with what I suspect to be junk. What did you bring?”
She slaps my hand and, with a smile, pulls the bag back to her. “Don’t be impatient.”
Her happiness is always infectious, so I sit back and wait for her to announce everything she has in the bag. She reaches in and pulls out my favorite truffles and holds them up. “Sweets to get you started because,” she rolls her eyes, “we all know dessert should always be first.”
I giggle at her and then she sets the aforementioned cheese and crackers on the counter with her nose wrinkled in distaste, “Only because I love you and want you to have what you like.” She cocks her eyebrow.
“But those are all for you because I got me…” She reaches in and pulls out her favorite cheese and a box of crackers and holds them up.
Still wiping my face clean, I smile and stretch my neck to see what else she has in her bag of goodies. She reaches in again and quickly pulls out the DVD Forest Gump with Tom Hanks. He’s my favorite actor and I’ve forced her to watch every movie he’s been in with me.
“We are going to get loaded with this wine.” She sweeps her hand to the bottles on the counter. “While we watch Mr. Gump run like a fool because of a broken heart, all while eating junk food until we make our stomachs hurt.”
No one in this world could make me as happy as Thal does, well, except for maybe seeing Gray walk through my front door. My smile is genuine now and I hop off the bar stool. “Let me go pee and blow my nose. I’ll be right back.”
By the time I’m walking back down the hall from the bathroom, I hear voices, and they are not Tom Hanks. As I come around the corner, I practically skid to a halt when I see Gray standing in my doorway and Thal standing with her hand still on the knob.
My heart immediately starts pitter-pattering in my chest and my stomach flips.
He looks totally out of place, like someone cut him out of a picture of a farm and posted him in a picture of a city.
His eyes snap to me and I see the pain of the past few weeks move across his face. Frozen in place on the other side of the kitchen island, I put my hand on the barstool as a shield and make sure the back is perpendicular to the edge of the counter as I suck in a deep breath.
He’s hot as ever, with his Henley tucked into the front of his jeans behind his belt buckle and his tattered ball cap pushed back a little. He’s got his thumbs hooked in his pockets and in one hand he is holding a pretty cream-colored envelope.
Thal turns to me, her eyes wide, and says, “You never told me he was drop-dead gorgeous. Girl, why’d you even come back here?”
Gray’s eyes, which are locked on mine, flicks to Thal and back to me.
He lifts his hand to hold up the envelope wedged between his fingers and steps into the apartment to lay it on the island across from me.
“Wedding invitation from Mason and Sloane, she made me promise I would beg you to come.” He lifts one side of his mouth, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes and falls just as quick.
“You personally brought a wedding invitation half-way across the country?” Thal hangs her hand on her hip and looks from Gray to me before pointing in his direction. “That’s dedication.”
I still haven’t moved, I thought he hated me. I don’t know what to think or feel, I keep flip-flopping between extreme happiness and worry that I’m getting my hopes up. Surely, he wouldn’t come from Oklahoma just to drop off an invitation.
He steps up to the counter across from me and sets his hands on the cool marble. The color of his eyes is more green than brown right now, and they are focused on me. “I’m sorry about what I said. I was angry, emotions were high, and I never should have said any of that.”
Echoes of his accusations flit across my mind, making me suck in a breath.
“Thing is.” He looks down at my hands gripping the stool and back up. “Since you left, I’ve been miserable, and all I can think about is seeing your beautiful smile every day.”
The only reaction from me is a tear slipping down my cheek.
He grabs the bill of his hat and scrubs his other hand through his hair, another sexy move I’ve seen him do dozens of times that I’ve missed. Setting the hat back on his head, he says, “I’ve come here to ask you to go on a date with me.”
My eyebrows go up my forehead and my mouth clamps closed for a second. “A date?”
He nods his head. “Yes, I want to date you. Since you left, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and what has become glaringly clear is that my life is damned empty without you in it, so I will take what I can get.
It may be hard being in different states, but maybe we can take turns flying back and forth every month.
The wedding is in a couple of months and summer festival is coming up, and then in the fall is the county fair, and maybe I could take you to a couple of BBQ places that serve the real thing.
You can let me know what you think.” His eyes search mine as I take in what he just said.
Gray never leaves his horses. Or his family.
He came here for me.
Taking a second to process what he is saying, I look down at the counter.
But he keeps going. “You can show me the best of LA. Maybe the equivalent to the blue whale or the largest frying pan. Or something.” He trails off with the last couple of words and when I look back up, I can see just how out of his depth he is.
He’s nervous.
But he’s doing it anyway.
For me. My chin quivers, and more tears are rolling down my cheeks.
“Girl, if you don’t say something, I’m going to start flirting with tall, muscular and perfect here for myself.” Thal’s voice cuts into the quiet.
Clearing my throat, I can’t stop the wobble in my voice. “You didn’t call.”
Regret moves across his eyes as he nods, but he never breaks his eye contact with me. “You’re right, and to be honest, everything in me wanted to call you. I’ve picked up the phone and set it back down a hundred times.”
He takes a deep breath, regret and pain evident in his eyes as he looks over my face.
“But I had to think of Lainey Rai, because this isn’t some fling for me, Elly, it’s the real fucking deal.
I wake up and have to force your face from my thoughts so I can work all day knowing you’re out of my reach, but when I go to bed every night, you’re right back there when I close my eyes. I needed to be sure.
“So, if I have to fly to California to see you every month, to show you just how much you mean to me, I’ll do it. I’ll learn your favorite flower and send them to you every day. You tell me what would make you happy and I’ll do it.”
My heart is bursting with happiness. I glance at Thal still standing by the door behind Gray. She’s making a shooing motion with her hands, telling me to go on.
When I move my gaze back to him, his hazel eyes are zeroed in on me. “You thought I could hurt your family.” That’s what hurt the most, and the small sob in my throat when I say it almost chokes me.
He steps around the island so there are only the barstools between us, his hands flexing at his sides.
“I have my flaws, Elly. I won’t deny that.
I lose my temper too fast, I sometimes think the worst of people, and sometimes I’m impatient.
But as I watched you drive away that day, all I could think was that I’d just fucked up, I knew you didn’t have that kind of evil in you and I’d just pushed away the woman I love. ”
My eyebrows climb my forehead and even Thal sucks in a breath behind him.
He loves me.
“You love me?”
Those beautiful hazel soften and he nods once. “I’ve been miserable without you this last month.”
Glancing at the invitation on the counter, I lift my eyes back to his, he seems to be holding his breath. “You don’t need to fly here.”
His shoulders slump in defeat and he looks down at the counter with a nod and I realize I said that wrong. My head is spinning, and I can’t seem to pin down any one thought without another swooping in behind it.
“I mean, it won’t be necessary to fly back and forth.” I move my hand across the boxes stacked throughout the apartment when his eyebrows pinch together in confusion. “I got a new job.”
He takes a deep breath of relief and says, “That’s okay, wherever it is, we can work it out. Wherever you go, I’ll go.”
Lifting my eyes over his shoulder to Thal, she nods her head, and my gaze moves back to Gray. “I got a job in Tulsa. The movers are coming tomorrow to get all my stuff.”
His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “You’re… moving to Tulsa?”
“Mm-Hmm.” I nod. When I saw the job posting for one of the largest companies in the state, I jumped on it. I knew it was impulsive on my part, but all I could think was that I wanted to be close to him and to the family who gave me a small peek of what it can really be like.
A smile forms on his lips, and he steps around one of the stools between us. “Well, that makes things easier.” He says and extends his hand for me to take, but I have a death grip on the one stool still standing between us.
My eyes drop to his hand and back up, I don’t know exactly what I’m waiting for. I’ve missed touching him every day, this is what I’ve been wanting. Then I remember each time he walked away from me when emotions got high. “I have a condition.”
The offered hand stays extended. “Name it.”
My chin quivers again and my fingers are digging into the wood of the stool in front of me. “You can’t walk away from me or push me away, you have to talk to me first.”
He slices his head to the side once, “It won’t happen again.”
“Take. His. Hand.” Thal theater whispers from the door with her hands cupped around her mouth.
His hazel eyes are watching my every move, and I relinquish my hold on the back of the stool with one hand and place it in his. He cups my hand between his before he says, “I would be honored if you could see your way to being my date to the wedding.”
In my peripheral, Thal has cupped her hands together under her chin and is quietly squealing in happiness for me.
Smiling at him, I casually shrug my shoulders. “I guess I could go to the wedding with you. I’ll need to check the date on the invite to make sure I’m not washing my hair or something equally important that day.”
In one swift move, I’m pulled into him, my cheek bumping against his chest as his arms form a tight band around me. The smell of smoke and sandalwood envelopes me and I take a deep breath and burrow into him while fisting the shirt on his back.
“Daisies.” I mumble into his shirt, which gets a chuckle from him.
“I’ve missed you, frostbite.” He mumbles from the top of my head.
“I’ve missed you, too.” I say and take a deep breath of the smell that is uniquely Gray.