I Looked Out for Me
Three weeks and three days later . . .
I OPENED MY EYES AND saw my pillow illuminated by weak, early-morning-in-February Colorado sun.
But I felt Gray’s long, warm body curved into my back, his steady breath on my neck and his arm tight around my belly.
This was the third time we’d slept all night together.
I couldn’t wait for the day when it would happen all the time.
But it sucked that it happened last night because of what Casey did.
I closed my eyes and snuggled backward into Gray. He responded in his sleep by pressing deeper into me, taking me partly to my front, his arm curling tighter around me.
That was Gray. He gave even in his sleep.
I sighed.
Then the last three and a half weeks washed through my brain.
In those weeks I was surprised to find that normal was not boring and this didn’t have to do with Casey until last night.
I had always hankered after a routine, a pattern, steady money, steady life. But I found that Casey and I being on the road half our time, hanging in bars the other half and occasionally hustling someone at pool had more steadiness than everyday life.
This, I decided, had to do with the fact that steady meant most my time was spent with Casey.
In normal, my time was spent with everyone in Gray’s life and everyone who came in the bar which was to say pretty much everyone in Mustang.
For instance, Janie loved her man Danny and he was loveable. I’d met him, Gray and I had had a drink with him and Gray had known him for years. He was a big, burly bear of a man with a full beard, lots of long hair, an easy smile and a booming laugh. But that didn’t mean Danny and Janie didn’t fight and do it a lot. Which meant Janie came in complaining about him a lot. Their relationship was passionate and volatile and Janie didn’t mind sharing it. In detail.
Another example was that I met Macy, Gray’s aunt, and I didn’t need to spend ten years honing the art of reading people to read instantly she had piss and vinegar. I knew this when she came right in the bar, all five-foot-four, square-bodied, big-boobed, permed-fluffy-mouse-brown-hair of her and gave me what for for taking a job with Janie at Mustang’s rival bar.
Then Janie got in her face on my behalf and I (and the patrons, the male ones looking on avidly) thought I’d have to break up a catfight. But surprisingly, when Janie explained I was restarting my life and my job came with the room over the bar, Macy backed down.
That done, she turned her attention to me and announced, “So Mirry doesn’t ride your ass the rest of your life, you better learn how to cook. Lessons start your next day off. My house. Hear you don’t have a car so get Gray to get his fine ass in that POS truck a’ his and get your fine ass to my house. Eleven o’clock. You’re makin’ lunch.”
With that she stomped out.
My next day off, grinning, Gray dropped me off at Olly and Macy’s house.
I learned how to make hamburgers and fries.
It wasn’t that hard.
Then came Gray’s Uncle Charlie who looked a lot like Gray if Gray had an extra twenty or so years, drank and ate five times more than he did and spent the vast majority of his time with his behind on a barstool or in a Barcalounger. And when I say Uncle Charlie came, I mean he came straight into the bar, straight up to me and started straight-talking.
“Shee-it, seein’ you from afar was enough, up close, I’m in love.”
Yes, that was his opening line delivered while doing a head to toe and back five times.
Then came, “Also hear you’re the shit at pool. Got a guy at The Alibi that needs a lesson. When you’re off tonight, get Gray to bring you in. I’ll set ’im up then you get your cue. See you at nine.”
He left before I could say word one.
Needless to say, when Gray came in that night with the intention of having a beer in the final half hour of my shift then taking me upstairs to cuddle, fool around and then make love, he was not super-delighted with the change in plans as decreed by his uncle.
I knew this when he stared at me after I gave him his open bottle of beer, his lips to the mouth of the bottle but not taking a tug, his eyes aimed around the bottle at me, his body unmoving. Then, when I got done telling him his uncle’s plans for that night, the bottle hit the bar, Gray’s boots hit the floor and he was gone.
About an hour later, when I was in my room reading a library book I’d legally borrowed (yes, I had an address so I also had a library card!), Gray showed up. He stalked to me, plucked me out of the couch, planted us in it with me on my back and him on me and declared, “Your decision is you’re through hustlin’ pool, you’re through hustlin’ pool. You got an offer you wanna accept, up to you. But no one tells you to hustle pool and no one . . . and that means no one . . . uses you to hustle pool or for any fuckin’ reason. You with me?”
His face, his tone, the look in his eyes and the way he held his body even while lying on top of me made me answer what I’d answer anyway, “Yes.”
At my answer, Gray dispensed with the cuddling and got right into the fooling around then making love.
And I decided, if that was my reward (even though I liked cuddling, definitely), I’d agree to just about anything Grayson Cody decreed.
Every once in a while, after my shifts but definitely on my days off (when I wasn’t at cooking lessons with Macy), Gray took me to his house. After our bathroom drama, Grandma Miriam’s attitude toward me changed. That was to say, she now tentatively liked me which meant I was open for her to boss me like it seemed she bossed everybody.
This included such comments as, “You have such a pretty figure, Ivey, and you’re always in jeans and cowboy boots. You need some pretty skirts and heels.” And, “Every time I see you, you’re wearing different perfume. A girl has to have a signature scent. You need to settle on one and stay there.” And, “You really need more than a jeans jacket in Colorado. You need to get yourself down to Hayes for a winter coat. A nice one. Long. Wool. I think for your coloring, camel. Good timing since they’re having their winter clearance sale.” And, “You have such lovely hair, child, but there’s so much of it. You should get yourself an appointment at Stacy’s and get it cut, probably to your shoulders.”
This last was unfortunately timed to come while we were at the dinner table eating the spaghetti I made (I was really getting the hang of ground beef) and Gray was sitting there.
Mostly, since he did it himself, he ignored Grandma Miriam bossing me.
This, he didn’t ignore.
“She’s not cuttin’ her hair. Ever,” Gray declared, and Grandma Miriam looked to him, and even though she’d known him since birth, she clearly misjudged his tone and the look in his eyes because she kept right on talking.
“She has a beautiful head of hair, Gray, but you’re a man. You don’t know anything about these things. A shorter style will become the shape of her face.”
“She’s not cuttin’ her hair. Ever,” Gray repeated and there was even more steel in it this time.
“Gray!” Grandma Miriam snapped. “It’s not for you to say. It isn’t your hair.”
“Yeah, it is. You know how it is and even if you wanted to pretend you didn’t, you don’t want me to explain how it is. What I will explain is that it’s . . . not . . . yours,” Gray returned.
Grandma Miriam snapped her mouth shut and her cheeks got pink even as her blue eyes flashed. I quickly excused myself, rushed from the table and ran to the bathroom where I burst out laughing.
I think they heard me.
I didn’t care.
What could I say? They were funny.
Later, after Gray and I made out in his truck before I went to my room, I promised him I’d only ever cut my hair to get a trim.
This got me another hard kiss then, against my lips, a soft, sweet, gentle, “Thanks, dollface.”
And I made my promise honestly, but at Gray’s soft, sweet, gentle gratitude, it became a vow.
Being a waitress in a bar in a small town I quickly discovered that we had regulars and if they sensed you were turning local, they sucked you in. They did this by sharing their lives with you, showing you pictures of their kids, telling you what movie they recently saw and that you had to see it. They also did it by advising you about the restaurant a town over that had an unfortunate result to a recent health inspection and writing down a recipe that took four different napkins that you had to try.
Stuff like that.
Stuff I liked.
Though it had to be said that I might have been getting the hang of hamburger meat, a recipe that took four napkins was currently beyond my capabilities. Still, I kept it.
I also met Gray’s two best friends. Shim, a tall, gangly, sandy-haired man who was a hand on Jeb Sharp’s ranch and was engaged to Chastity, a seriously petite and curvy blonde who looked cute with him regardless of the fact he was eight inches taller than her. And Ronan, called Roan, who was about two inches taller than me, worked with Janie’s man Danny at some local place that processed gravel (who ever heard of such a thing, processing gravel? Still, from the way they explained it, that was what they did). Roan seemed dedicated to the task of expanding his beer gut, had no girlfriend and a fondness for telling long-winded jokes that were hilarious. And he had a million of them.
They started to become regulars at The Rambler and I liked it because they obviously liked me and I obviously liked that.
Unfortunately, working at one of the town’s two bars meant that Buddy Sharp, his sidekicks Jim, Ted and Pete and Gray’s exes, specifically Cecily, came in every once in a while. Just as Shim, Chastity and Roan made it clear they liked me, Buddy, Jim, Ted, Pete and Cecily made it clear they did not.
I didn’t let this bother me because, fortunately, even though they didn’t like me and didn’t mind me knowing it, that didn’t mean they didn’t tip.
Twice (before last night), Gray braved the wrath of Grandma Miriam as backed by God and His Word the Bible and he arranged for his cousin, Audie, to spend the night at his house to look after Grandma Miriam so he could stay with me.
I doubted this went down too well. What I knew was, however it went down, Gray and Grandma Miriam kept it between them because when I went over to his house after, she bossed me but she didn’t say anything about it. Nor did she give me any indication she was angry or disappointed in Gray or me.
I figured this was because Gray laid down the law that he was a man, I was his girl, his private life was his private life, and even though he lived with his grandmother, that was the way it was going to be. I also figured part of Gray’s law was that she didn’t bypass him with her aversion to our modern relationship and pass it on to me.
So she kept mum on the subject and Gray did what he pleased.
And luckily, what he pleased meant I had him all night in my bed with me.
And I liked that.
So having a job, a place, a boyfriend and a routine wasn’t boring.
But it was beautiful.
Until last night, and it wasn’t Bud Sharp or Cecily or Mustang making my life not what I wanted it to be.
It was Casey.
And, after last night (I hated to admit it because I owed him everything), but for a long time, making my life be nothing I wanted it to be had been all Casey.
It was quarter to eight, fifteen minutes before Gray was due in but also after the dinner rush. Folks ate early in Mustang, the dinner rush starting at five and ending at seven. Then things got quiet and it was just Janie and me and a few regulars until, on weeknights, around nine thirty, ten, Janie saw things pick up but not so much she couldn’t handle it on her own. On the weekends, it was a different story but she had another girl who worked part-time to help her out with that.
I was days. Or days until eight which was mostly days and evenings.
So it was quiet, me on the outside of the bar and Janie on the inside, shooting the breeze, and there were only four other people in the bar.
I was winding down from work but winding up to see Gray. We’d been together a month but I had been right. I wasn’t used to him or his beauty. I looked forward to it all day. I started getting excited about it when it got close then felt the splendor of it when he finally walked through the door.
And this escalated after our relationship became physical.
Since she didn’t mind sharing personal stuff with me, I tested the waters and I told Janie about it. When I did, she told me having an orgasm your first time was so unusual, it was exceptional.
“Though,” she went on quietly, “not surprised that a man like Gray gave that to you. What I will say is that I sure am glad you gave a man like Gray what you had to give him.”
It must be said I really, really liked Janie.
The first time being great, it kept getting better. Gray told me his father taught him patience and I learned that to be true. I didn’t know who taught him gentleness but that was true too, out of bed as well as in it. Nudity, touching, tasting, sharing, kissing, holding and making love was safe with Gray. I didn’t feel self-conscious, not ever. He communicated, not with words most of the time, with his eyes, his hands, his mouth. He guided. He taught. He listened. He paid attention. He discovered what I liked (and we both enjoyed it, me more, obviously) and he showed me what he liked (and we both enjoyed it, him more, hopefully).
And it just kept getting better and better.
Janie told me that, too, was unusual.
So I looked forward to Gray, to talking to him, to being with him then cuddling with him and finally being with him.
And I looked forward to it a lot.
So I was in a good mood, in a good place, fifteen minutes away from Gray and unprepared for Casey to storm into the bar.
But even if he’d come in at high noon and I had hours to wait for Gray I would have been unprepared. Because even though Gray met him at the diner like he said and gave him five hundred dollars of his own money (something we had quiet words about and he refused to allow me to do it, I didn’t like it but it clearly meant something to him so I let him), I hadn’t seen Casey since that day at Gray’s.
And also because I was not then nor ever would be prepared for what Casey would do and say to me.
It went like this . . .
He walked right up to me, manner hurried, things on his mind, places to be. I knew him well so I knew that.
I just didn’t know what was on his mind, where he wanted to be and I would never have guessed he would take for granted wherever that place was, it would be with me.
When he made it to me, he said, “Come on, Ivey, let’s go.”
I stared at him and asked, “Where?”
“It’s fuckin’ cold up here. Tired of cold. I’m thinkin’ southern California, San Diego or maybe Tucson.”
San Diego or Tucson?
“What are you talking about?” I asked, so caught in my new life, what he was saying didn’t dawn on me.
He focused more on my face. “Next stop. San Diego. Tucson. Maybe Phoenix. Pack your shit. We’re on the road tonight.”
Was he crazy?
“Casey,” I said softly, “I’m not going to San Diego or Tucson. I’ve got a job. An apartment. I’m not going anywhere.”
That was when he really focused on me.
Then he declared, “Yeah you are. You’re comin’ with me.”
It hit me belatedly that his relationship with the mystery Mustang woman had crashed and burned.
“Oh Casey,” I whispered, moving to him, “did you break up with your girl?”
He jerked up his chin, eyes hard, hiding emotion he didn’t want anyone to see but I knew him. He couldn’t hide from me.
“Bitch ousted me. Just like that. Said pack your bags, out tonight. So I packed my bags, I’m out, we’re on the road and this shithole is in our dust.”
I studied him and I saw he wasn’t lying when he talked about her after they met. He liked her. And he was hurt.
“If you guys have had a fight, maybe you should give her a night to cool down. Go see her tomorrow. Talk it out,” I advised.
“Ivey,” he snapped. “You’re not listenin’ to me. We’re gone.”
“Honey, seriously, give her the night.”
“Yeah, give her the night,” he hissed sarcastically, then went on in the same vein. “You gonna let me crash on your couch? Oh, I know, your friendly cowboy’ll let me crash at his pad.”
This meant he didn’t have any money.
“Yes, for the night, Casey, I’ll let you crash on my couch,” I offered cautiously at the same time trying to figure out how I’d convince Gray that was an okay idea.
“Fuck that,” he returned. “We’re goin’.”
“Casey, honey, I’m not going and if she means something to you, you shouldn’t either. You should give it a shot, work it out.”
“Relationship advice from my fuckin’ sister,” he muttered.
“Well, yeah, Casey. I know you. I love you. And you’re obviously hurt so I’m looking out for you and advising you should try to work it out.”
He leaned in, his face twisting, and spat, “I’m not hurt. Bitch wanted to tie me down. Yammerin’ on every night, ‘Casey, you go to the plant and talk about a job?’ and ‘Casey, darlin’, saw an ad in the paper, sellin’ cars, you’d be good at that.’ Sellin’ cars. Fuckin’ crazy. That’s not me. I tell her that, she doesn’t listen to me, just keeps at me with that shit. Fuck that, I’m done.”
At this speech it finally broke through. It dawned crystal clear that for the last month as I started my normal life with my job and my room and my boyfriend in this town, Casey had been going through the money I gave him, Gray gave him and undoubtedly his girl gave him. And no doubt he’d done it stupidly. And she was done giving money to him, feeding him, putting a roof over his head and a pillow under it. He probably promised her he’d step up. He didn’t. And she was done.
“Maybe you should take a second, think about what she said and look into those things, Casey,” I gave my suggestion hesitantly. “You don’t know. You might like it. I know I like waitressing. It’s fun. Maybe you’ll like doing something steady too.”
“Are you fuckin’ nuts?” Casey shot back. “This isn’t my life and it isn’t yours. We’re goin’.”
“Okay, if you’ve decided it isn’t your life, that’s fine for you. But it is mine and I’m not going anywhere,” I replied.
“We’re goin’,” Casey repeated.
“You can but I’m not,” I returned.
And that was when he shocked me straight to my core.
Because that was when my brother Casey lost it completely doing something he’d never, ever done to me.
And what he did was grab my arm, dip his face half an inch from mine, shake my arm hard and hiss, “Pack your fuckin’ bags, sis, we . . . are . . . goin’.”
Looking into his furious face, feeling his fingers wrapped tight around my arm, hearing Janie whispering probably into a phone behind me, I knew it.
I knew it then.
He needed me.
I understood it before but not in the same way.
He couldn’t make his own way. He couldn’t put gas in his car. He couldn’t feed himself.
Unless he used me.
Used me.
When Gray got angry with his uncle and made his declaration about no one using me, he didn’t mean Uncle Charlie. He meant Casey. He’d barely been around us but he’d seen it even before me.
That was why there were no connections but that rule was just for me. That was why I had to play it safe when he didn’t.
He found his girl who made his heart race, it was okay for me to find whatever I found.
But when he was done so was I.
I was his meal ticket.
I was all he had.
A long time ago, he was all I had. But as we got older, that had shifted. And instead of Casey finding us something safe, something steady, something right, something good and moving us into that kind of life, he was too scared or too dumb or too addicted to the hustle to do that.
And he couldn’t hustle anyone without me.
So he kept me under his thumb and used me.
“Take your hand off me,” I demanded quietly, but he didn’t.
His fingers tightened so much the pain magnified and he shook me again, this time my body going with it.
“Not gonna say it again,” he ground out.
I twisted my arm savagely but he was holding on so tight I didn’t get free and it hurt more so I stopped doing it and my voice rose with anger and a little bit of panic when I repeated, “Take your hand off me!”
He shook me again, leaning into me so I had to bend back, and shouted, “Get your shit and get in the car!”
I twisted my arm again, it hurt again even more but he still didn’t let go and I shrieked, “Casey, take your hand off me!”
“Dude, do as Ivey says,” Barry, one of the two men (I was right back when I made my guess) who sat hunched with his friend Gene nearly every night at The Rambler was now standing close to Casey and me.
Casey’s neck twisted and he spat, “Stay out of it.”
“Let her go and move back,” Gene ordered, standing to Casey’s other side.
Casey’s neck twisted the other way. “Fuck you!”
“One last shot, dude, you let her go or we make you,” Barry warned and Casey looked back at him.
“Yeah, right, fat ass, like you can do that,” he snarled, lip curled.
“Casey!” I snapped.
He looked at me, started to shake me again then Gene put two hands on his shoulders, Barry wrapped one around the wrist of his hand that had hold of me and they both pulled him away from me.
It was then it began. Casey tore loose and went back at them fighting.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “God!” I cried. “Casey! Stop it!” I shouted.
He didn’t stop. He took on Barry and Gene and he underestimated them.
Pure Casey.
They might be big boys but then again they were big boys and there were two of them. Casey had speed and agility but they had bulk and numbers and they got him down on his belly, his arm twisted around his back, Gene’s knee in it for good measure and Barry turned to Janie.
“You call Len?” he asked and she nodded.
“Lenny and Gray,” she confirmed.
I closed my eyes then opened them quickly.
A squirming, infuriated, Casey demanded, “Let me up, asshole.”
I got as close as I dared and told my brother, “Casey, Janie’s called the cops and Gray and you do not want to be here when either of them get here. Trust me. If I ask Gene to let you up, will you promise to get out of here quick?”
“Fuck you, you stupid, selfish cunt! Fuck . . . you!” Casey yelled.
This was a bad idea and it was very, very bad timing.
It was a bad idea because I had gabbed with Barry and Gene on more than one occasion. I saw them nearly every night for a month. I liked them, they liked me and they didn’t like anyone calling me the c-word, even my brother.
And it was bad timing because he said it precisely as Gray stalked into the bar.
So Gene got one second to twist Casey’s arm so brutally he cried out in pain and I feared he’s snap it right off before Gray pushed him aside.
He rolled Casey to his back, jerked him to his feet, pushed him off and invited in a low, rumbling, seriously angry voice, “Let’s do this.”
The last time they went head to head, Gray had dumped him right on his behind in the snow, but Casey, my stupid, stupid brother, did not hesitate.
And Gray instantly commenced beating the shit out of my stupid brother while I stood straining against the arms of Barry that were holding me back and shouted at them to stop.
They didn’t.
Not until Lenny showed up in uniform, badge on his chest, gun on his hip, and he pulled Casey from the hold Gray had on Casey’s collar to keep him steady while he slammed his fist repeatedly in my brother’s face.
Casey went flying, shaking his head, so addled by the blows he didn’t even throw his arms out to catch on to anything.
Lenny planted a hand in Gray’s chest, arm straight, eyes locked to Gray’s and voice growling, “Stand down now, Gray.”
Gray’s chest was rising and falling fast, his jaw was hard, a muscle jerking in his cheek. His eyes were locked on Casey who was swaying and still shaking his head, trying to shake the sense back in.
A fruitless endeavor.
Lenny gave it a minute, holding Gray’s eyes to ascertain he got a lock on it. When he did, Lenny stepped back and dropped his arm.
Then he asked the bar at large, “What we got here?”
Peg, the barfly who, like Barry and Gene, was there every night, piped up and apparently, even though she was usually always borderline sloshed, that didn’t mean she couldn’t pay attention.
“That guy came in mouthin’ off at Ivey. She tried to be cool with him. He didn’t listen to a word she said. He got physical, wouldn’t stop. Barry and Gene stepped in. They warned him to stop, he wouldn’t. They got him off her then he called Ivey the c-word and Gray was walkin’ in, heard him and justifiably wailed on him.”
Although this was succinct and all the truth, albeit with a bit of opinion thrown in, Gray had heard Casey call me the c-word but he didn’t know Casey had been physical with me. Hearing Peg, his gaze cut to me, he took me in and unfortunately I wasn’t wearing one of my long-sleeved Henleys but instead a short sleeved tee and he saw the angry, red welts on my arm left by Casey.
Fortunately, Lenny knew Gray. His glance was faster and he had a hand in Gray’s chest by the time Gray’s gaze cut back to Casey, his body leaned forward in preparation for launching another attack and his rage filled the room.
Gene edged closer to help Lenny control the situation and Barry’s arms got tighter so I didn’t do anything stupid.
“Keep your shit, Gray,” Lenny growled, arm up but now his weight was in it.
Gray continued staring at Casey.
“Gray, son, listen to me. Keep . . . your . . . shit,” Lenny repeated with variation and additions.
For a scary second, Gray continued staring at my brother before he pulled in a deep, audible breath, his rage saturating the room eased, and he took a step back.
Lenny dropped his arm.
Then he looked at Casey. “You thinkin’ clearly enough to hear what the witness said?”
Casey was bleeding from the lip, nose and a cut by the side of his already swelling eye but he was also back in the room and I knew this because he was scowling at Lenny.
He didn’t reply.
“It go down like that?” Lenny asked.
Casey continued scowling.
“It went down like that,” Janie chimed in from behind me.
“Exactly like that,” Gene confirmed.
“Yeah, just like that,” Barry, still holding me in his arms, threw in.
Lenny looked at each of them then back to Casey.
“Now, I can take you in for disturbin’ the peace, assaulting your sister and scrappin’ with Gray. This means I gotta also take Gray in. I’m seein’ you probably like that idea. But Gray’s got no priors, he’s got no outstanding warrants, he’s got family local who’ll look out for him and he’s got a certain reputation, so a judge will probably not go hard on him. You, I don’t know. You, I figure need to think smart right about now about how you wanna play this. Usually, I don’t mind arresting people. It breaks up my night. Tonight, I’m not feelin’ it. So you lucked out, you play it smart and get your ass outta this bar. But my kindness comes with conditions. When I say get your ass outta this bar, I mean get your ass outta my town and while you’re at it, outta my county. You feel like communicatin’ with your sister, who clearly has the urge to share her pretty face with the folk of Mustang for a spell, you send a greeting card. Are you reading me, son?”
Casey glared at Lenny then he shifted his glare to me.
“I gave it all for you,” he whispered.
That went in like the plunge of a blade but not for the reasons it used to.
And because of that, I returned, “And then I started giving it all for you. Difference is, I was twelve, Casey. I had no one else and I needed you. When I started to be able to give back, you were twenty and you just took it from me.”
My brother had it in him to wince before he kept at me.
“You’re all I’ve got.”
“I’m sorry, honey, but you aren’t all I have. Not anymore,” I replied quietly.
On my last word, Barry’s arms moved from around me and Gray’s arms took their place.
Casey’s eyes went up over my left shoulder then his face twisted and they came back to me.
“Did what I did because I loved you, sis.”
I knew that. Way back when, I knew it. Casey was everything to me and I was everything to him. Before we ran, we had a mom who was less than nothing, and we had a lot of troubles and a whole lot of nothing else.
All we had was each other.
But now that had changed.
“Then keep loving me and let me keep what I found,” I whispered.
I watched him swallow.
Gray’s arms got tight.
My eyes filled with tears.
Without another word, looking down to his feet, my brother turned away and walked out of the bar.
I knew he had no money, no skills, nothing.
I had no idea where he’d go, what he’d do, how he’d get there and how much trouble he’d catch when he landed wherever he landed.
And it killed me.
But one thing my brother Casey taught me was to look out for myself.
So the tears slid silently out of my eyes, down my cheeks and Gray turned me in his arms to face him. My arms closed around him, I shoved my face in his chest and I concentrated on that rather than running after my brother and giving him all of my money just to keep him safe for a little while.
Instead, for the first time since I was fifteen, I didn’t look out for my brother.
I cried in Gray’s arms and looked out for me.
“Dollface, know you’re awake.”
I blinked at the pillow, sighed and turned to face Gray.
He looked beautiful in the sunlight, in the moonlight, in the lights of the bar, in the light thrown from a TV.
But he never looked more beautiful than in the morning with his head on a pillow beside me.
“Hi,” I whispered, sliding my hands up his chest and his lips curved up.
“Hi,” he whispered back, his arm not around me shoving under me so both of them could gather me close.
He dipped his chin. I tipped my head back and he brushed his mouth on mine.
Then his hair slid across the pillow as he pulled slightly away but gathered me even closer.
“You doin’ okay?” he asked, his blue eyes studying me.
“No,” I answered honestly.
“You’ll get there,” he muttered.
I would. It would take some time but I would. And it would hurt but I would still get there.
“He’s a man,” Gray went on. “It’s time he acted like one, baby. Took care of his own shit. You still haven’t shared and I told you I’d wait, I’ll wait. But I know this, what you were doin’, and I get the impression you been doin’ it awhile, it is wild-ass luck you two made it this far without some kinda tragedy. And he’s a man. Those tragedies he could face are a far sight fewer and a far sight easier to move on from than what a woman could take. He put you out there. You. A miracle you didn’t get chewed up. You didn’t. Hold on to that. Hold on to the decent you carved out for yourself and let go of the shit.”
“He’s all I had for a long time, Gray,” I whispered.
“Yeah. And what you said last night is true. He’s not all you have anymore, Ivey. You’re with people who give a shit about you now.”
When I opened my mouth to speak, his arms gave me a squeeze and he went on.
“I mean give a shit about you in a healthy way not some fucked-up, dysfunctional way borne of whatever-the-fuck you two had goin’ was borne of. I get that you love him. I get he’s your brother. I get that you worry about him. But he shoulda sorted his shit and yours a long time ago. I also get that this has come to you. Don’t let guilt and worry fog that, darlin’. You’re on the right path. Don’t allow him to veer you away.”
I held his eyes then, nodding, I dipped my chin and pressed my face to his throat.
Gray tilted his head back and sifted his fingers in my hair. Then he kept doing it.
I let him because I liked it, it was soothing and after he did this for a while, I asked his throat, “You know what I wish?”
“I can guess, dollface, but tell me anyway.”
“I wish I’d met your dad because I would like to have had the chance to meet the man who made a man like you.”
His hand stopped and his body went completely still.
My head tipped back and his tipped down and I saw instantly he didn’t guess correctly. His eyes held surprise and something else, something I’d never seen on him or anyone.
But whatever it was, it made the area around my heart get warm.
“Gray?” I called when he didn’t say anything.
“You still fallin’ in love with me?”
I stared, my cheeks now getting warm and opened my mouth to answer affirmative when he went on.
“’Cause you should know, baby, I’m already gone for you.”
My mouth stayed open only because at that point it was hanging open.
Then I snapped it closed and asked, “You love me?”
“Yeah,” Gray answered.
“You love me,” I stated but it was still a question.
Gray grinned, dimple and all, and he repeated, “Yeah.”
Tears filled my eyes and I whispered it again, “You love me.”
Gray’s grin faded, he rolled me so I was on my back and he was mostly on me. His face got really close and he whispered back, “Yeah.”
I stared into his blue eyes with their russet-tipped lashes and shared quietly, “I fell for you after you first kissed me.”
And quietly back from Gray I got, “I win since I fell for you that night at my kitchen table when you blew on me.”
Oh God.
When I blew on him.
Oh God!
He went blurry as tears filled my eyes.
“Say you love me, Ivey,” he ordered.
“I love you, Gray,” I did as ordered.
“Good, baby, because I love you too,” he whispered.
Finally, he kissed me.
Then he made love to me. He did it slow. It was sweet. It was beautiful. And if I had any questions that I was on the wrong path, which I did not, I wouldn’t anymore.
I’d driven all over the country and back again probably eight times.
But finally, I was going in the right direction.