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Bodies writhing together. Lips meeting. Eyes catching. The intimacy. The heat. The need.
Grayson Nash.
It wasn’t this man standing before me—the man who was eighteen when we met, who carried me through a lot of firsts. The man who left for Chicago without looking back, who loves his job more than me.
“I came to save this relationship,” he says, and the hope in his tone is overwhelming.
“To save…” I begin to repeat.
Oh, God.
He has no idea how very much I have already moved on.
“I came all this way. Would you at least let me take you to dinner so we could talk?” he asks softly.
I want to shout at him that anything he has to say can be said in front of Kelly, but apparently he’d rather have this conversation in a room full of strangers rather than in front of my best friend, who I’ll recount every last word to later anyway.
“I’m not sure I have anything left to say, Colin.” I had sex last night. With someone who isn’t you.
“I have a lot to say, and I came all this way,” he says, a pleading tone to his voice.
I stare at him, thinking how fragile and weak he is compared to Grayson. I felt safe and protected in Grayson’s arms. In Colin’s? I always thought I felt warmth there, but it was nothing like the heat snapping between the defensive back and myself.
But he’s right. He came all this way, and a girl’s gotta eat.
I blow out a breath. “Let me just get changed.” I turn toward Kelly. “Kel, can I talk to you for a second?”
She nods and follows me into my bedroom as I excuse myself from Colin.
“What happened with Grayson?” she whisper-yells.
“We did it,” I whisper back, my cheeks filling with color.
“Avelina Marie!” she yells, giving me the pretend full name she can use to scold me with even though my full first name is not Avelina and my middle name is not Marie. Her eyes widen. “You did it? As in…sex?”
I nod. “And, oh my God, Kel, it was…everything.”
“Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah. Way, way better than okay. I’m great. He was great. He was incredible. So sweet, and caring, and tender. And huge.” I hold up my hands to express the length, and her eyes widen. “Huge.”
“Does your kitty hurt?” she asks.
I laugh. “He, you know, went face-first first, so it was plenty primed and ready for the monster. But yeah, I’m definitely a little sore today.”
“Oh my God,” she squeals in a whisper, and she grabs my arms, and we dance around in a circle for a beat. “I can’t believe you did it with Grayson Nash!”
“I can’t, either!” We’re both still whispering.
I grab a sweater and a clean pair of jeans from my closet, and I get changed quickly. “We talked, and we got to know one another, and—"
“Did you tell him who you are?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I told him my name was Cookie, and he never pressed for my real name. I feel like I should be honest with him, and I will be next time I see him.”
“There’s going to be a next time?” she demands.
I shrug. “I hope so. We exchanged numbers. He said he wants to see me again. I just…couldn’t bear to give up my shot with him before we had a chance to really connect.”
