Secrets, Lies, and Summer Skies

Chapter Ten

When I woke the next morning, I was alone.

I'd been vaguely aware of Grayson leaving the bed in the early hours, but he'd left me too exhausted to so much as stir as his weight vanished from beside me. His absence wasn't enough to make me panic. After all, he had a job, and I didn't. Even if I wanted to spend the day in bed with him, it wouldn't have been responsible for him to risk his career just because I was still horny.

Knowing that we wouldn't reunite until the evening, I languished in his bed a while longer and breathed in his scent. It clung to the pillow like a perfume. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't stay put all day. It was with great reluctance that I removed myself from Grayson's room. It felt odd to use his shower when I had my own, so I left to get ready for my day.

The events in the club felt a world away. The only reminders of what happened were the dull ache in my ankle and the lack of a car in the driveway. The latter was a task which occupied most of my day. Not only had I needed to call the insurance company and explain the state my car was in, but I had to forward photographs to them and the police, and hope that nothing worse had happened to the vehicle overnight.

In my heart, I knew the car was going to be a write-off. All the love in the world wasn't going to bring it back from the assault it'd suffered. I had enough in my savings to buy another if I wanted, but I hated the process. Just looking at online listings was enough to give me a headache. Not that I knew nothing about cars, just that all the new vehicles felt soulless. My car had a real personality. There was a history to it. A sentimental connection that I didn't have with a picture on a laptop screen.

As the day drew on, I expected Grayson's return. I prepared dinner and headed upstairs to change into something alluring so that he'd want me as soon as he walked through the door. He'd said himself that he wanted to make up for the lost time. It'd taken almost three years for him to act on the impulse he'd felt during my leaving party, and I wasn't going to let him forget our night together or believe that one evening was enough for me.

The hours passed and the house grew dark. Grayson had told me that he wanted at least a message if I was going out, yet he'd not extended the same courtesy to me. My gut told me that I should reach out first, but I didn't know what his job entailed. He might have been at an important business dinner and wouldn't appreciate an interruption from someone telling him that they just wanted him home for sex. Disappointed though I was, I went to bed that night hoping we could pick things up the following day.

Grayson continued his disappearing act for the next three days. Unsure of where we stood, I held back from reaching out. I couldn't help but feel like an idiot. While I wasn't intimately acquainted with Grayson's dating history, I couldn't recall him ever having a long-term serious girlfriend. At least, not one he'd ever brought to the house or introduced to us. He was a notorious flirt, and it was possible that he was staying out of the house because he didn't want me to think anything serious would happen between us. If that was the case, I'd rather have had him just come out and tell me so we could figure out how to live together for the rest of the summer.

"Or..." Jenny suggested as we reclined by her family's pool one afternoon. "You could just, you know, send him a message. Crazy, I know, but it's easier to talk about things if you, like, talk?"

With no one else to turn to, I'd confided in Jenny. While I hadn't told her everything we'd done, because I wanted to keep some of the precious details of that night to myself, I'd implied that we'd kissed at the very least. I figured if she blabbed about a drunken kiss to my dad then he might have a few stern words with Grayson about it, but things would ultimately blow over. If he ever got wind that we'd slept together in his house, the men would never speak to each other again.