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“Give me two seconds, okay?” Kelly says to Austin, and she scurries out of the room, presumably to clear the papers she was grading earlier from her bed. And maybe put away her stuffed teddy bear.
I should do that, too. Grayson doesn’t need to know I snuggle a stuffed bunny every night while I’m sleeping.
His eyes find mine after I hand Austin the cookie, and it seems like he’s trying to tell me something. We’re not quite at the level where the two of us can communicate without words just yet.
With any luck, we’ll get there someday. But that day is not today because I have no idea what the fuck he’s asking me.
“This is great,” Austin says as he munches the cookie.
“It was all Grayson,” I say modestly, and he laughs.
“Yeah, it totally was all me.”
Austin looks like he’s not really sure what to do with our banter, and Grayson doesn’t seem to be saying anything. I get the sudden inclination that he might not like Austin, but I can’t imagine why, and I can’t exactly ask him in front of the guy.
“Hey, are you going to the Heat’s home opener next Friday?” Austin asks.
“I’m not sure yet,” Grayson says. He avoids looking over at me, and thankfully, Kelly steps back into the room before Grayson has to expand on that.
She’s a little stilted and awkward, as if she’s not quite sure how to handle herself. We all know why Austin’s here and what they’re about to go do, so there’s no sense in beating around the bush.
“Guess we’ll see you at breakfast!” I say brightly, clearly only making the awkwardness even worse, and Austin glances at me and nods a little before Kelly grabs his hand and pulls him out of the room.
“Well, that was awkward,” I mutter.
“We? We will see you at breakfast?” Grayson says.
“It was a blanket we. Not a you-and-me we.”
“It was totally a you-and-me we. And you just basically told him I’ll be spending the night, and now if I don’t, he’ll know something’s up!” He’s hissing at me so Austin doesn’t overhear, but maybe he’s right.
“Oh, I, uh—I didn’t mean to…”
He purses his lips, and he’s angry again. It felt like we were making a breakthrough tonight, and now this.
I sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re free to go whenever. What we do isn’t any of his business.”
“He’s going to make it his business, which is probably why he showed up here tonight.”
My brows dip. “What are you talking about? He came here tonight because of Kelly.”
“I don’t trust that guy, and you shouldn’t, either,” he warns in a whisper.
My brows dip. “Why not?”
He glances back toward the direction the two of them disappeared. “We’ll talk later.”
“Fine. What’s this Vegas Heat thing?” I ask.
“Lincoln sent me a text last week about it. Jack apparently rented out a huge suite for players to attend the first home game of the season for the Vegas Heat baseball team.”
“That sounds fun,” I say.
“It does, and he invited families, too.” He pauses, and then he adds, “It might be the right time to put in my first public appearance with my new girlfriend.” He nods meaningfully at me.
“Are you inviting me?”
“Do you want to go?”
