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I remember that day, too. I was over at their house. Beckett and I were playing some video game that seemed to be the most important thing in the world, and we both heard his mom scream. He went down to check things out, and I stayed upstairs. I kept playing the game.
I didn’t know his dad was dead. I didn’t know the entire family would need the support of their friends in the coming days. I was just a teenager. There was a whole lot I didn’t know about life at all.
Hell, I’m thirty-two now, and there’s still a hell of a lot I don’t know about life.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to keep my voice low and soothing as I hold her close and rub her back slowly. “That sounds terrifying.” I’m about to say it was just a dream, but the truth is…it wasn’t. It’s her memory tossing one of the worst moments of her life into play by way of her dreams, and that’s a shitty thing for her own memory to do to her.
God, it’s not like we can stop these things. I can’t believe I’m getting defensive about her own memory to her. Have I really fallen in that deep after a single night with her?
It’s not possible. It’s merely my need to protect her—even if it means protecting her from, well…herself.
“It’s why I have the nightlight and the bunny,” she says quietly. “Usually I wake up alone, and those things help.”
I feel like a royal asshole for judging any of that before I knew the truth.
“We all have bad dreams,” I finally say, trying to come up with something to soothe her. “There’s nothing we can do to help that, but I’m right here next to you, okay?”
“Thank you, Gray,” she mumbles into my chest.
I get up for just a beat, grab her bunny off the dresser, and hand it to her. I pull her back into my arms and shift down, pulling us both under the covers but not letting her go. She settles onto my chest with the bunny held between her arm and my chest, and I link my arms around her.
“Tell me a story,” she mumbles.
“About what?” I ask, feeling suddenly insecure. I can’t just whip up a story on the spot, though my friends would say I’m quite the storyteller.
“I don’t care. Just talk so I can fall asleep listening to your voice.”
“Okay. Um…” I glance around the room as I wait for inspiration to strike. I start talking about the first thing that pops into my head, which is the last time I was with my entire family. It was back when my parents were still married instead of going through a divorce, and none of us had any idea where we’d end up a year later.
“About a year ago, we celebrated my grandparents’ sixty-fifth wedding anniversary, and the entire Nash family went to our parents’ goat farm in New York. It was the last time the six of us were together as a family,” I muse, wanting to keep the story light and fun but realizing I’m taking it in a different direction already. I switch tracks. “I pulled up a minute after Lincoln and he hadn’t gotten out of the car yet, so I parked about an inch from his door so he couldn’t open it to get out.” I laugh at the memory.
I go on to talk about how much fun it was spending the weekend with my brothers. As I’m talking, I can’t help but put myself back in the place I was in a year ago.
I was thinking about retiring. Lincoln and I had a long talk well after midnight over beer as we each perched on a counter in the kitchen while everyone else slept.
I still am. I’m fucking tired, and my body is beat to hell. The offseason is no longer a long enough break from it all.
I was starting to see how important family is.
I still am. It’s what brought me to Vegas, after all.
I was starting to think I wanted to settle down. Lincoln was talking about Jolene again, and Spence mentioned he met a girl.
I’m right in between the two of them by age, yet I’m still living life most like Asher. I don’t want to be like Asher.
I don’t want to get in trouble for stupid shit and get suspended for an entire year.
I don’t want to be living with Dad again.
I don’t want to be the spontaneous guy that nobody trusts. That’s never really been me anyway.
But what do I want?
As the woman in my arms lets out a soft sigh and her breathing starts to even out as I talk, an icy fear grips onto my heart.
I think I have my answer.
Chapter 29: Ava Maxwell
