Grayson #2
She snorts. “Not if ‘childhood you’ had to sit under a beach cabana, pretending adult conversations were more fun than building sand castles, just because your parents saw every outing at their beach club as a networking opportunity. God forbid we didn’t look like the picture-perfect suburban unit. ”
I frown. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been buried in the sand.”
“My mother would have had a heart attack.”
“Climbed a tree?”
She shakes her head. “They’re doctors. Seen too many pediatric injuries.”
My brow furrows. “Had a snowball fight?”
Her eyes finally roll. “I’ve done that.”
“Makes sense. You’re so combative.” This earns me a laugh, and she playfully shoves my arm. Then she eyes our surroundings again, and her expression sobers.
“I know how this all sounds, but my parents—they’re not, you know, bad.
At all. They love me, even if they don’t say it much anymore, and they’ve given me so many opportunities.
I’m so lucky. They’ve just…they’ve worked so hard to get where they are, that it’s the only way they know how to live.
Naturally, they expect my brother and I to do the same. ”
It's clear her parents were strict as hell. Suffocating. Anyone raised in that environment would be a high-achiever, like her. But I can’t think of many people who’d be as empathetic.
The way she defends them, trying to understand their motivations, when it’d be so easy to rag on them, spears right into my chest.
Eliza’s wholly good. She can sling digs, tease, and roll her pretty eyes as much as she wants, but deep down, at the foundation of it all, is a sweetheart.
“They must be proud of you,” I say.
She scoffs. “Not exactly.”
“Now, you didn’t say anything about your parents lacking common sense.”
“They see me being here as a failure. A waste of time. Not that their opinions should even matter when I’m my own adult.” She scoffs again, then abruptly stops. “Sorry. This place is so beautiful and peaceful, and I’m being a total buzzkill.”
The chemicals gleefully buzzing through my bloodstream would disagree.
“It isn’t too quiet for you here?” I ask, genuinely curious. It’s nothing but sand, trees, and water. No music, no noise, no people. Nothing to do but sit and just be.
“Not at all. It’s…” Another deep breath, like she’s trying to absorb it all. “It’s like a little paradise. Like…we’re not part of the world right now.”
A salt-tinged breeze wraps around us, and I stay silent. Not on purpose, but because I’m too busy absorbing the soft, calm bliss painted over her face.
She mistakes my silence for disinterest, maybe, because she suddenly shakes her head. “And now I’m getting philosophical.”
“No, I think you got it right.”
It’s like that simple agreement opens the tap to her thoughts.
“This whole place is sort of like that, actually,” she says, fingertip drawing random shapes in the sand between us. “I know I’m working, but it doesn’t feel like it usually does.”
“Which is?”
“Like you can never really relax,” she answers, finger stilling in the sand.
She hugs her knees. “Like you’re fighting a constant uphill battle against people who think they’re better than you.
And then you leave, and there’s people and traffic and noise everywhere.
And then you go home and keep working, because that’s the culture, and you’re tired but you say yes to every social outing, because that’s just what you do, and you give all of this time and energy to people who you think care about you, but actually don’t give a shit, because they cheat on you, or hook up with your ex behind your back—”
She cuts herself off, closing her eyes for a moment. When they open again, they’re flat. “That’s, um, actually just me. Not a city thing.” Her mouth twists in self-deprecation as she glances over at me. “I’m really great company right now, huh?”
“You are,” I state. Sincerely. Intentionally, so she knows that opening up won’t chase me away like she thinks it will.
I want to dig, to find out what kind of corporate idiots would ever think they’re above this woman, what kind of shithead would cheat on her, what kind of fake friends would betray her like that.
Then I want to go have a private word with all of them.
Get them all to see how stupid they are, how fucking wrong they are, to cast her aside like that.
It isn’t lost on me that I was no better than them just a few weeks ago. But now I want nothing more than to remove that slump from her shoulders that looks dangerously close to defeat.
“It’s no wonder you’re so damn talented at dealing with dickheads like me.” I’m trying for humor, but grooves appear in her forehead.
“You aren’t a dickhead, Grayson.”
No, I’m usually not. But, “I was.”
Finally, a hint of a smile. “Good to keep me on my game. Don’t want to lose all my dickhead-handling abilities. I’ll be needing them again soon.”
“I can turn it up, if you want. Just let me know.”
“So generous of you.”
“I’m a generous guy.” I drag the cooler and bag in front of me and start unloading the supplies, keeping the oysters on the ice.
“You brought oysters?” she asks, her delight feeding my ego.
“Like I said, you need a different perspective on the atmosphere of this place.” I unscrew the cap on the hot sauce. “That includes oyster consumption.”
She shifts, folding her knees around and twisting to face me. I make a point of wrapping a towel around my hand before shucking, to which she huffs in amused annoyance, and present her with an open shell.
“Ladies first.”
Slurping oysters—slurping anything—shouldn’t be attractive.
Hell, I’ve witnessed enough of it to know.
But I find myself riveted to the way Eliza tilts her head back, exposing the long column of her neck, as she downs the oyster in the most ladylike way possible.
Her throat rolls as she swallows, and then her tongue darts out to lick some of the briny liquid off her lips.
The sight heats my own throat. There’s a gravelly note to my voice as I grunt out, “Good?”
Dainty fingers place the empty shell back in the cooler. “‘Good’ isn’t a strong enough word.”
I hardly taste the salty sweetness of my own oyster, and then I’m handing her another, telling myself to cool the fuck off, when she has to go and say, “I think the whole aphrodisiac thing is a myth.”
My cock stirs, like she just summoned it. “What do you mean?”
“My ex loved getting these when we went out.” The graceful line of her collarbone shifts as she shrugs. “Never felt a thing.”
She tilts her head back, sucking the oyster down. That sound, that silly little slurp that has no right stirring anything besides mild disgust, has me shifting my weight closer to her.
I’m too aware we’re all alone, too aware that it’s just me and her in this little corner of the pond.
Removed from the real world—just like she said.
So all those real-world rules I remembered earlier, all the self-defensive reasons I can’t afford to like this woman, and sure as fuck shouldn’t act on it, don’t apply here on this little strip of sand.
I don’t want them to.
Which is why I don’t stop myself from rumbling, “Well, that’s just because you weren’t eating them with the right man.”