Chapter 26  

Skyler

I’m in bed with Grey.

I’m in bed with Grey.

I’m in bed with Grey.

I know he’s my lifeline in this moment, my drug to help me forget everything else. I know it’s wrong. Not smart. But I don’t care. I want it. I want him.

We kiss and kiss, my tongue against his, tasting all of his sweetness, the taste of mint and spices. I’m not trembling now. I’m light and solid, all tongue and fingers and lips and teeth.

He kisses like he sings—raw and skilled and searching. I trace the cords of his muscled arms, feel the rippled breadth of his back. His weight tethers me in the best possible way.

We break off, and he stares down at me. His eyes, his beautiful light gray eyes, like sunshine glimmering through rain, they hold me here. See me. For who I am in this moment. Not who I’ll be in another seven pounds. Or when we wrap the film. Or when I send a check.

“Sky . . .” he starts, but I don’t want words. I just want him.

I pull him closer and feel the length of him, the really full length of him, against my belly. Pressing against me. So close. Nothing between us. He’s so huge, all of him, not just his body, but his big beautiful heart, his energy, the power and goodness of him. I want it all inside me. Want to be filled with it. With him.

We kiss and kiss, and I graze my teeth and tongue along his jawline, nip his smooth shoulder.

He groans and presses hard against me, making me gasp.

“Shit,” he says, shifting his weight. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I pull him back against me, reaching down between our bodies. I’m ready for him. So ready. “Hurt me,” I say. But it’s not pain I want but feeling. Being in my body. Being here and now.

I shift my thighs apart, my need for him a sharp hot throb in every part of me. I’m scared and excited, but I want him so much. Even for just one night.

But Grey’s stopped moving, gone still beneath my hands.

“Grey?”

He looks at me, and it’s all wrong. There shouldn’t be so much hurt there. Or fear.

“What’s wrong? What did I do?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeats. But it’s different now. Guarded. He eases off me, and I know somehow I’ve spoiled things.

“You’re not. I promise. I want—” All of it. Everything. So much, I can’t find words for it all.

He looks at me, and his jaw flexes. His lips press together.

“Grey, what just happened? Talk to me.”

Shaking his head, he says, “I just . . . ​Shit. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it doesn’t feel right.” His eyes shift away from me, and his hand comes to settle on the sheets now bunched between us. Everything’s wrong. “Like I said, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Stop saying that. That’s not what this is about.”

It’s like a light’s gone out, just blinked into nothing. How can that be? I can’t make sense of it.

He still can’t look at me. “You were crying. You just . . . ​I shouldn’t have taken advantage of that.”

“You didn’t,” I tell him, fighting to keep from touching him, from pulling him back onto me, which felt so perfect and so right. “I made the first move, remember? Just like you wanted.”

“Yeah.” All the warmth’s gone from his eyes. He’s somewhere else, and I can’t follow him there.

“You won’t hurt me,” I tell him, gently. “And even if you do, I’m not a child. I can handle it. I won’t shrivel up and die.”

“But I will,” he says. “I mean, I won’t die. But I couldn’t take it if I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

He slides up on the bed and tugs his wadded-up jeans out from under my legs. Getting to his feet, he pulls them on then picks up his briefs and his t-shirt and just stands there, looking down at me.

I feel more naked than ever now. And wrong in every possible way.

It’s not me he’s worried about at all. I see that now. He’s the one who can’t stand to be hurt. Who can’t trust. He’s just going to keep picking at that wound inside himself, over and over. Until he grows the hell up.

“Can you give me my dress?” I hate the sound of my voice, dead in this quiet room. I need to get out of here. Talk to my mother. Answer calls. Go see Brooks.

He does, and I slip it on, zip it up without asking for help. I find my underwear and step into them.

Grey hovers by the doorway, watching. I feel how much he wants to leave, to get the hell away from me. And how much he wants to stay, to keep an eye on me. To protect me, like I’m the one who needs protecting.

I move past him into the living room, which is still littered with beer bottles, empty bags of chips. Great. I push aside the debris in search of my cell phone.

“Sky, we’re cool, right? You understand?”

I nod, barely listening. Where did I put my phone? “We’re fine.”

After consolidating some of the junk, I take everything into the kitchen and find, in the trash, my cell phone, smashed to pieces.

“What happened?” I pick it up. The screen isn’t just cracked; it’s pulverized. I try to switch it on, but it’s dead. “Did it fall? How did it get like this?”

Grey rubs his jaw, and the look on his face tells me everything.

“Did you do this?” I ask. But I already know. “Why would you do this?”

“Because it fucking stressed you out every time you got a call.” His tone is angrier than it should be. Especially for a person who just ruined hundreds of dollars of technology that I have to replace.

“You think it won’t stress me out to have to get a new one? To not be able to get calls when I have to be somewhere every minute? When my mom’s having a crisis thousands of miles away?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it. I just . . . ​did it.”

“Well, no shit.” I dump the pieces of the phone back into the trash. “But if your solution to every problem is to smash it, then I’m glad things didn’t go any further back there.”

“I don’t smash every problem,” he says. “Christ, Skyler. You make it sound like I’m the Hulk. I was just trying to give you a break.”

“No, you don’t smash everything. Mostly you just avoid it. Like your mom. Like me for the last few days.” I’m going to cry again, and I don’t want him to see me do it. He’s not what I need. I’ve been right about that all along.

I push past him, find my shoes, purse, and car keys, though I don’t know yet where I’m going. Just that I need to go. It occurs to me that I could go to the bar and meet up with the others. But I don’t want to be around Grey’s band or around Titus and Beth and whatever it is they have going.

Brooks, I think. I need to go see him, like I promised. Work on the film. I can’t call him to say I’m coming over, but I know it’ll be okay. He said he’d be home all night, so I know that’s where I’ll find him. He’ll be where he’s supposed to be.

And that’s where I need to be now, too. Somewhere safe and sane. I’m sure I can call my mom from there, and then we’ll just get to work. It’ll be such a relief, I think. To be with someone who just, plainly, wants me. Someone straightforward, stable, and easy. I don’t know why I haven’t let myself have that. It looks so good to me right now.

I say good night to Grey, who barely answers, then I head out, closing and locking the door behind me.