“No matter our physical attraction, this will never work. It can’t be. We can't.” I choked the words out of my throat like sand, hoping I sounded confident and sure, when what I felt was shaky and weak.
Grey swallowed heavily, his throat working to hold back the argument I knew was on the tip of his tongue. I could read the man like a damn book. And this one didn’t have a happy ending.
“So you need to leave,” I went on. “Right now...and this time, don't come back.”
His head snapped up. “But what about—?”
“I never should have let you see Maple in the first place. It'll only confuse her to have you popping in and out of her life all the time.” Without giving him a chance to respond, I turned my back and opened the front door. The gesture was plain. Get out.
The night air rushed in to cool my face, flushed with shame and grief and the last stubborn traces of lust. For a moment, I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears that threatened. Grey walked past me and paused at the threshold. I kept my expression frozen as he looked at me for the last time, searching for a crack in my resolve, silently pleading for another chance.
His fingertips stoked my cheek – so light, so sweet – a soft gesture I didn’t deserve after all the ways I’d probably tortured him. His eyes were so blue, so deep and so haunted, that I almost took back every nasty word I’d said. It was all right there on the tip of my tongue. But I knew I couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did.
So all I said was, “Goodbye, Grey.” And then I closed the door.
Chapter Nine
Greyson
The pain pounded through my head like a jackhammer through concrete.
“Fuck, make it stop,” I groaned into my pillow. I pulled it over my head and squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could block out the noise. That'll teach me to drink nothing but whiskey for three days straight...
The pounding was so intense that, for a second, it transported me back to the war zone. Small-arms fire rattling, artillery shells screaming through the air, bombs detonating in the distance. Deafening and deadly.
I hated the memories that rushed in with that sound. As the team leader that day, I'd had to make a snap decision between several equally risky options. And while my choice did result in a casualty, it was impossible to say whether any of the other options would have fared any better. The scenario had no obvious right answer. And that was what kept me up at night. Replaying every move I'd made¸ trying to imagine every possible outcome, wondering if I could have saved him.
Cracking one eye open, my brain latched onto the fact it was daylight out. Then the fog began to clear and I realized that wasn’t my head pounding. It was my front door.
“Christ, hang on a second.” I shoved the blankets back and tripped over my boots at the edge of the bed, stumbled my way out to the living room. Not an easy task when the floor was strewn with empty bottles, pizza boxes, and random articles of clothing.. Who the hell was at my door? It sounded like a goddamn elephant trying to charge through.
“What?” I pulled it open and saw a very pissed-off Nolan staring back at me.
“What the hell happened to you?” he barked.
I scrubbed a hand over my stubble-covered jaw. “Nothing.” Nothing I wanted to talk about, anyway. Especially not with Nolan’s judgmental ass.
“I was pounding on your door for fifteen minutes. Called your cell at least a dozen times.”
I shrugged. “I was sleeping, you dick.”
“It’s ...” He glanced down at his wrist watch. “Twelve-fifteen. On a Monday.”
Christ. It was Monday. I’d missed work. I took a deep, sobering breath and I knew things had to change. That final rejection by Finley had sent me into a tailspin. One I hadn’t been able to pull myself out of all weekend long. I was fucking up at work because I was so distracted, consumed by thoughts of her.
And since my work was basically the only thing I had, our little cat-and-mouse game was finally done. Push me away, let me get close again, rinse and repeat. Kiss me like she wanted to ride my dick, then throw me out. I was done. Done bending over backwards and trying to make this work. But what stung even worse than losing a shot with Finley—what really killed me—was losing Maple in the process. They were a package deal. I mean, sure, I could try to maintain my relationship with her, but the way I felt right now, I didn’t know if I had the balls to put myself in a position to get rejected and tossed out again.
Nolan stepped around me and headed inside. “Seriously, dude?” He shot me a questioning look.
I shrugged again, then sank down onto the couch.
“I’ll make some coffee,” he called from the kitchen. I heard him rattling around for a few seconds...and then I heard him talking on his phone. He was giving someone my address. “Yeah, today. And I’ll pay you double.”
I shook my head even though he couldn't see it. “What the hell are you doing?”
He entered the living room with two steaming mugs of coffee. “I hired a cleaning service. They’ll be here in an hour.”
“I have a cleaning lady who comes once a week.”
“Yeah? And if she sees the place like this, she’ll probably never come back. You went on a drunken bender. Trashed the place.”
“It happens.” After some of the shit we’d seen and done, he knew that as well as anyone.
He nodded. “It does. But this time, I’d like to know why it happened.”