Grayson rolled over in bed and glared at the alarm. Three fifty-eight. It was Thanksgiving Day and they were due at his aunt and uncle's house at noon. Frankie had agreed to join his family for their meal, but Grayson refused to overthink the fact that it was the colonel who had invited Grayson and Christopher to join the Cohens for dinner at six and not his stubbornly silent girlfriend.
Frankie was obviously holding back and he understood her reservations, but his goal of wearing down her defenses meant discovering unusual ways of going about it. She wasn't a normal woman and he loved that about her. But it also made breaking through more difficult.
The buzzer blared and he groaned. Sleeping in seemed like a really good thing. He was getting too old for this, but there was something to be said for leading by example, and like the colonel had said, it was a great way of spending quality time with Christopher.
Grayson smashed the button to silence it and rolled upright, sliding his feet into shoes he'd left out the night before while grabbing the shirt and shorts from the end of the bed. Seconds later he opened the door to find Christopher standing outside, mid-stretch.
"About time. I thought I was going to have to find the pots."
Grayson smirked and did a few stretches of his own. "You're getting into this."
Christopher shrugged but the move wasn't as casual as his son tried to make it seem.
"I'm doing better in gym class. The coach has said a few things."
"The girls at school are probably noticing, too," Grayson added, trying to boost the kid's ego.
"Yeah. Kinda makes up for Cat dumping me."
They headed downstairs and Grayson locked up behind them. "You ever going to tell me what happened?" Frankie wasn't there in the driveway and Grayson frowned. Should he text her? Sleep was a rare commodity for her, and he didn’t want to wake her by texting if her phone wasn’t on Do Not Disturb.
"She's one of those girls."
"What do you mean?"
Christopher shrugged and broke into a slow jog and Grayson fell into step beside him.
"She's… I don't know. It was stupid. Me bashing the machine at the pier house because of her. She'd gotten all of those presents at her party, but when she saw the prize in the machine, she had to have it, too, and said she'd… do stuff with whoever got it for her."
"Do stuff? She was your girlfriend."
"Supposed to be, but then the other guys there started trying to get it and… It was stupid."
Grayson whistled. How old was that girl to be behaving like that? "That's a tough lesson to learn, bub. I'm sorry that happened to you."
"Me, too. But I don't want to be with someone like that."
“Good. You deserve to be with someone who respects and honors what’s between you. And you have plenty of time to meet a girl who will.”
They jogged for a ways in silence.
"I know who they were now. Mom's… friends."
Grayson felt like someone had sucker-punched him. He struggled to breathe and keep pace at the announcement, but given the long-overdue talk, he found himself thankful Frankie wasn't there.
"I didn't at first. They'd play ball with me sometimes and she said… they came to look out for us because you were gone. That's why they were always around."
Grayson felt Christopher's embarrassment in talking about his mother's behavior. He kept his head straight, eyes on the road in front of them. One step in front of the other.
"I hated you when I realized she was… I thought you made her do that. I mean, if you'd have come home…"
"Chris—"
"But I get it now. Guess I can thank Cat for that. Mom…" Christopher's voice broke and thickened. "You took care of us even though you weren’t around. She didn't have to do what she did with all those men."
All those men? Just how many were there?
Don’t go there.
"All that matters now is that you know your mother loved you. What she did is in the past." It took a lot to say the words without the bitterness he'd felt creeping in, but now that he and Frankie were building a relationship, it was easier than it had been before.
"Frankie said I should ask you about the bike. Why you love it so much."
Silence followed the words, and it took Grayson six strides to get himself together enough to speak. Frankie… The woman had an insight he only dreamed of. If there was ever an appropriate time for Christopher to hear that story, it was now. "I got the bike from my dad. He died of cancer when you were just a baby."
"I don't remember him much."
"I know. It was a long time ago."
"So that's it? It was your dad's?"
"No. That's not it. I met the man I called my dad when I was eight years old."
Chris stopped running and Grayson slowed, turning to face his son on the road.
"You mean Grandpa wasn't—"
Grayson shook his head. "My biological father ran out on my mom and me. Up until then I'd spent my life watching him hit and abuse her. Grandpa was one of the cops who'd come to the house that last time. He'd check up on us every now and again, see how we were doing, and about a year or so later, they got married. He raised me, taught me integrity, honor, respect. Everything."
"Did you always know I wasn't yours?"
Grayson nodded. "Your mother was pretty far along before we got together. I was overseas when she conceived, but I'm on your birth certificate. We agreed that we'd tell you one day, but we thought it might be best to wait until you were older."
"I heard people talking at the funeral. I felt stupid."
He could only imagine how that had made Christopher feel, and Grayson kicked himself for not realizing the source sooner. "I'm sorry. The choice wasn’t made to hurt you, Chris, but for us to be father and son."
Christopher inhaled and started walking away, then jogging. Grayson moved to catch up.
"I'm sorry I took the part. I shouldn't have stolen it."
"You're not the same person now you were then. You've changed a lot since that happened. I see that. I hope you see that, too."
"I do. I feel… different."
"Good. And apology accepted." Grayson saw the impact of his words on Chris, how his son lifted his chin a little higher, his expression a little more confident.
"Frankie's nice."
"I agree."
"She's a pain when she's in boot-camp mode though."
Grayson laughed and nodded. "She's one of a kind, that's for sure."
"What happened to her?"
Grayson turned his head toward his son. "What do you mean?"
"The scars on her belly?"
"I… didn't know she had scars."
"Oh.” Christopher looked uncomfortable. “Um… we were doing stretches and her shirt pulled up. I looked… but I didn't mean to,” he added quickly. “But that's when I saw them."
Grayson kept running, back to forcibly putting one foot in front of the other even though he wanted to get to Frankie's as fast as possible to find out what had happened. He'd seen her in a bathing suit once in California when a group of them had gone to the beach for the day. She'd had no scars then. "You didn't mention them? She didn't?"
"No. I pretended I didn't see them. I hate that she got hurt, though. They looked painful. You, um, want to sprint?"
That was all the warning Grayson got before Christopher took off and shot ahead of him. He had speed, and his endurance had really grown. Frankie was right, track or cross country would be a good fit for the kid.
Grayson picked up speed but his heart, his mind weren't on running.
Where had she gotten the scars?
One thing he knew for certain—he would find out. But how was he going to bring it up without her PTSD surfacing as well?