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I’m angry with myself for letting this happen, for allowing my feelings to go there when it hasn’t even been a month since the night we spent together.
I knew she was different the very second she asked me for a date before we hooked up. My reputation precedes me, and typically the jersey chasers I hook up with just want to get to the main event.
She didn’t. She wanted to get to know me, and even though she kept some things from me in the process, she also wanted to share some of herself. I get why now since it was her first time. She put a whole hell of a lot of trust in me to hand that over to me.
She didn’t know me, exactly…but maybe she did.
Maybe Beckett shared stories with her about me so she felt like she did. She remembered the Tootsie Roll thing, and that left some sort of impression on her even though it was just an innocent sharing of candy for a kid who looked so damn sad all I wanted to do was make her feel some measure of happiness.
I was just a dumb teenager after one thing back then, and she was too young to fall into any sort of category that would allow me to remember anything else about our interactions together.
But she remembered.
And who knows what that means? Who knows what that moment did to shape who she is as a person today? Who knows what any singular moment might do to change who someone is at their very core?
All I know is that I’m changing. She got into my core in the short time we’ve shared, and that’s one hell of a heavy and terrifying admission to make—even if it’s just to myself. Even if I can’t share that with her, or my best friend, or my brothers, or anybody else in the world.
Because I can’t.
It doesn’t matter how I feel. I made a promise to the guy who has been my best friend for eighteen years, and I can’t go back on that now.
These feelings will pass, won’t they? It’s just the shiny newness of it. It’s just wanting what I can’t have.
And I’ll keep telling myself that until these feelings fade. Because if I don’t, it’s her heart on the line.
I’m not willing to risk that.
I pull into the valet lane and take the ticket from the attendant before I walk through the casino to head upstairs.
A woman’s voice stops me midway in my pursuit. “Grayson?”
I whip around and come face-to-face with Daphne…my situationship from Los Angeles.
My chest tightens as I suddenly feel a little lightheaded. What the fuck is she doing here?
“Daphne. What’re you doing here?” I can’t quite hide the surprise in my tone.
“I came to see you,” she says.
Why? It's what I say in my head, but not what I say aloud. She has no clue that I just came from a house where I kissed a different woman and didn't give Daphne a second thought. She has no clue I haven't given her a second thought since I left LA…maybe even since I officially pulled the plug on our situationship.
A term she coined, by the way, not me.
I wouldn't have called it anything more than friends with benefits, but she insisted we were in some sort of relationship.
I guess when you bang somebody more than a couple nights in a row, it comes with the territory.
“I…uh…” I'm not sure what to say. “It's good to see you.” It’s not. I don’t know why I say it.
I lean in for a polite hug. She doesn’t take it that way. She clings on for a few extra beats.
It feels like she's showing up out of the blue simply to throw a wrench into everything else.
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” she asks quietly in my ear.
It's her way of inviting herself up to my suite, but I have no intention of taking her up there. I don't really want to take her to the café where I had a date that meant something to me with another woman, either. So instead, I lead her over toward the casino bar.
It's probably not the privacy she was hoping for, but I can't give her that. That was always part of our problem. She wanted more of me than I was ever willing to give her.
