Moments In Time: A Collection of Short Fiction (29 page)

Caught between not wanting to offend him and desperately wanting to get to know him again, my only option was to agree. “Okay, if you really want to.”

We walked into the house and I put a moving box together. Sitting in the living room with Grayson, wrapping pictures and knick-knacks in bubble wrap, was not how I’d imagined this day. I figured it would be me, my music, and the funny gnomes that were scattered all over the place.

“What are you going to do with all of this stuff?” Grayson asked as he struggled with wrapping one of said gnomes. “Is your place big enough?”

“No, my place isn’t half the size of this house. I’ll be donating most of it.” I glanced around the room that was starting to look more like a shell than the home I grew up in. I sighed and grabbed the packing tape, smoothing some over the box’s flaps to secure it. Then I picked up another figurine.

“Soph?” Grayson asked in a soft voice.

I stopped wrapping and looked at him.

“Why don’t you move back here? I mean, we could be neighbors. What’s the rush to get back? This is home.”

I frowned slightly and focused on making a mummy out of the figurine I was holding. “My home is in Pennsylvania now, and this isn’t my house anymore.”

He took my hand and it felt so natural, as if my hand belonged in his. “Home is where your heart is. I don’t mean to sound like a cheesy ‘Home, sweet home’ plaque, but really, Sophie, what do you have in Pennsylvania? Trudy told me you don’t have any kids.”

I couldn’t believe he’d asked about me and my aunt had never told me; just wait until I talked to her. My eyes glassed over, and I tried to force the tears to stay put.

“No, Jake and I couldn’t have children. I guess it was me because he knocked up his girlfriend just fine.” The pang of disappointment and inadequacy tore at my heart, and apparently it showed on my face.

Grayson placed his hand gently on my cheek. “Don’t, Soph, please don’t do that to yourself. Sometimes things aren’t meant to be. I’ve had to learn that.” He shrugged and dropped his hand.

What was he talking about? “From what I can tell, your life doesn’t seem half bad.”

“Well,” he said as he tapped a finger on my knee, “looks can be deceiving.”

I glanced at his abs, still bare and oh so tempting, and tried not to mentally count his muscles. “Maybe you should go home and grab a shirt. I’ll order us dinner. That is, if you want to stay.”

A broad smile appeared, completely transforming his face and taking my breath away. “I’d love to stay. I’ll grab some menus and some beer from my house and be back.”

When Grayson got up to leave, my focus slid to his hips. The man really was perfectly built.

As soon as he was out the door, I rushed into the bathroom to see how bad I actually looked. The big mirror greeted me like a slap in the face. Holy shit, I looked worse than I thought. I ran to my overnight bag and grabbed my hairbrush and makeup bag.

First, the hair. I yanked out the clip and the hair tie, and tried to run my brush though my hair, which was a difficult task. Stupid me had put it up when it was still damp, so it had this funky wave in it. I smoothed it out the best I could and decided in the time I had to put it back up in a neat ponytail. Then I attacked my face, wiping it with a cool washcloth to try to snap myself out of this funk, and threw on some concealer and mascara. Inspecting my work, I decided I didn’t look great, but I looked eighty percent better than I had when I first looked in the mirror.

I walked back in the living room to find Grayson sitting on the couch. He had put on a navy T-shirt and looked even better. At my approach, he looked up and smiled.

Great, I thought, he probably thinks I did this for him. Then I said, “I didn’t hear you come back in.”

“Sophie, you didn’t have to fix yourself up for me,” he said with a grin. “I know you’re beautiful. You don’t have to make it worse.”

“Worse?”

What did that mean? I looked worse? I was taken aback by what he said and my temper flared.

Folding my arms over my chest, I said tightly, “I didn’t do this for you. My hair was bothering me, so I fixed it for myself.”

Grayson chuckled, then stood and came over to me. “I didn’t mean you looked worse, I meant that—”

When I brushed off his comment with a wave of my hand and moved toward the kitchen, he called out, “Wait, let me explain.”

I stopped and turned to face him. “You don’t have to. It’s cool.”

“No, it’s not cool. I meant that it’s hard enough to sit here and not touch you, and then you go and fix your hair and all I want to do is mess it up. You don’t get it . . . you never got it.” He let out a ragged breath.

What the hell was he talking about? “No, I guess I never did and still don’t. Did you bring the menus?”

He looked confused at my change of subject. “Yeah, I put them in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what you were in the mood for. A new Chinese restaurant just opened, and we can order from there if you want. At least they deliver.”

“Sure. Yeah, whatever you want is fine. I’m easy.” At the sight of the snarky smile on his face, I quickly said, “I didn’t mean I was easy, I meant that I like whatever for dinner. That’s all I meant.”

Grayson walked over and pulled me into a hug, then laughed. “I know what you meant. You were never easy.” His laughter rumbled through his chest as he cupped the back of my head with one hand, and splayed the other on the small of my back.

I rested my cheek on his chest. This was the second hug he’d given me since I’d been back. I hadn’t been hugged or held by a man in over a year, and hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this basic human need. It felt comfortable to be held by Grayson, so I tightened my arms around him and just held him as he rubbed my back.

When I felt his hardness against my stomach, I pulled away. “Let’s order dinner. I’m hungry and I have a lot left to do.”

He nodded his head. “I’ll call. You go pack. Are you still allergic to peanuts?”

“Yeah, you remember that?”

He let out a little snort. “How could I forget? I remember sharing my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with you, and you blew up like a balloon and couldn’t breathe. I was so scared I was going to kill you with my lunch.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that.” I laughed but then saw the serious look on his face. “You didn’t kill me, though, and here I am.” I threw my arms out as if to say
ta-da
.

“Yeah, here you are,” he said thoughtfully. “Thank God.” He then pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket, turned away, and called the restaurant.

As he ordered our dinner, I watched him. Grayson was being cryptic and I didn’t know why. Our connection was still strong; that much was obvious. We had both changed but he was still my friend, and even though eighteen years had passed, it didn’t feel that way. We had fallen back into our easy camaraderie as if I’d never left. Except for the comments he had made; those I didn’t understand at all.

I packed up what little was left in the living room while we waited for our food, then moved on to the dining room. Thankfully there wasn’t much to do there, just some table linens. All the china and stemware had belonged to my aunt, so she took that with her. I put a box together and placed the folded linens in it, then taped the top flaps closed.

Hearing a noise, I looked around and smiled. “Ah, that was easy.”

Grayson walked up behind me with two beers and handed me one. It was uncomfortably warm in the house; it didn’t have air-conditioning and the July heat had warmed it up. I had forgotten how warm it could get here in the summer, and was ready to peel off the jeans and T-shirt I was wearing.

Happy for a little coolness, I took the bottle from him and said, “Thank you.” Then I tipped it back and took a long draw on it, before I set it on the table and went to pick up my newly packed box.

“I got it.” Grayson picked it up with ease and put it in the living room with the others. He grabbed a marker I had left on the floor and wrote
Dining Room
on it.

“Okay, what’s next?” he asked, sounding like he wanted to get this over with.

“My bedroom, I guess. All the other rooms are cleared out.”

I grabbed my beer and he followed me up the stairs, carrying an empty box. When I opened my bedroom door, I was confronted by my youth. I stood there a minute, taking it all in as I looked around.

Everything still looked the same. Academic awards and the dolls I never played with sat on a shelf. Photos of me and my friends were stuck between my dresser mirror and its frame, and my old jewelry box sat open on the dresser below, strands of cheap purple and green beads hanging out from a long-ago Mardi Gras party. My bed with the quilt my grandmother had made me was neatly made, as if waiting for me to dive on it and curl up for a nap. I let out a long breath and felt my shoulders sag.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I turned and grinned. “Yeah, thanks. I’m fine. It’s just really weird being in here. It’s been a long time.”

The doorbell rang. “That must be dinner,” Grayson said and waggled his eyebrows playfully. “I’ll be right back.” He walked out of my room and bounded down the stairs.

Alone for a moment, I sat on my bed and looked around. I leaned back on my pillow and looked at the ceiling, remembering doing this when I was a teenager. Many hours had been spent during my teen years, staring at the ceiling and wondering if Grayson would ever like me as more than a friend, or if he would be the one guy I would always think about. Closing my eyes, I found myself wondering the same thing, all these years later.

I felt the bed dip beside me. When I opened my eyes, it was as if my prayers had been answered and my dream had come true. I had Grayson Scott in my room and on my bed. I almost pinched myself with disbelief, but then he spoke.

“Hey, if you’re too tired to eat, I can put the food in the fridge.”

My stomach growled, and I instinctively went to cover it with my hand to mask the embarrassing sound.

Grayson chuckled and extended a hand to me. “Come on, let’s eat and then we can get back to this.”

• • •

Dinner was good, but I hurried through it, wanting to get all the packing done. I needed to get back to Pennsylvania, if for no other reason than to relieve the temptation and urges I felt when Grayson was near me.

I decided to start with my desk. Carelessly, I pulled out a drawer and the overflowing contents spilled out at Grayson’s feet. He looked down and frowned, and when I glanced at the pile I was mortified when I saw a picture of us when we were about ten years old, right on top of a bunch of other papers. I had drawn a heart around the picture and had written
Mr. and Mrs. Grayson Scott
on it.

Hoping he didn’t see it, I reached out to snatch it, but he beat me to it. He stared at the picture as he held it high in the air over my head so I couldn’t reach it. He looked up at it, then at me, and then started to read it out loud. “Mr. and Mrs. Gr—”

I attempted to grab it again, but he yanked it back and looked down at me as heat rose in my face.

He cleared his throat and waved the photo back and forth, teasing me. “Mr. and Mrs.?”

I tried laughing it off. “Yeah, you know, you were the stereotypical boy next door. That’s how I thought things worked. Boy meets girl, boy kisses girl, boy marries girl, and they live happily ever after.” I shrugged at the absurdity of it.

“You’re right,” he said slowly as he stared at me. “That’s how it was supposed to work.”

The utter sincerity in his voice surprised me. My breasts tingled, and I felt my core throb with a sensation I hadn’t felt in over a year as I looked up into his intense gaze. Determined not to let another man make a fool out of me, I looked away.

“Yeah, okay, Grayson,” I said sarcastically. “That’s why you took Mary to prom and then dated her rather than me.” I turned away, totally embarrassed that I had brought up ancient history like high school, but that was my last memory of him.

He grabbed my arm. “Hey, you didn’t want to date me, you told me that. Well, you told my mom that, and she told me.”

I shook my head and looked up at him in confusion. “I never talked to your mom about us .
 . . I mean, about you . . . me and you, whatever.” In fact, I had never told anyone how I felt about him.

“Yeah, you did.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’ll never forget it. It was right before the prom. You and your dad were washing his truck in the driveway, and my mom had just come home from shopping. When she came in, I told her that I was going to go to your house to ask you to go with me to the prom. Then my mom said that she asked you about it, and you told her that you had a date and you weren’t interested in me like that.”

“What?” I shrieked. “I never talked to your mom about the prom. I didn’t even go.” I thought back, desperately trying to remember that day, considering it was over twenty years ago. I vaguely remembered his mom being in our driveway that day, but I didn’t remember talking to her and knew there was no way I would have said any of that.

Grayson leveled his gaze on me. “I know you weren’t there because I looked. I figured you and your date skipped it and went straight to the post-prom fun.” An odd look crossed his face. “Wait a minute, are you telling me that if I would have come over and asked you, that you would have said yes?”