Southern Player (Charleston Heat 2)

A particular truth she hasn’t shown any of these highfalutin’ hedge fund managers.

She gives my arm another squeeze. “Listen, we’ll get out of here. I’m anxious to…you know. Get home. Just let me go say hi to a few more people.”

My pulse jumps at the idea of finally getting to the good part of the evening.

Still. I don’t want to rush her.

“We can stay as long as you like,” I say. “I can tell you’re enjoyin’ yourself.”

Gracie waves me away. “Look, I’m just going to sneak over there for five minutes and say hi to one of my mentors. Then we can leave. Deal?”

“Deal,” I say.

I watch as she moves through the throng, sidling up to another woman. The two of them hug it out, the woman laughing when Gracie says something. A dirty joke, maybe. A comment about her shit show of a day.

I can’t hear what they’re saying from here. But they are talking animatedly. Old friends catching up. I feel bad just standing here—maybe I should go introduce myself.

Then again, if the other conversations I’ve had tonight are any indication, I’ll probably just end up standing there like a big, tongue-tied idiot.

So I grab some shrimp from the nearby buffet table and just stare at Gracie from across the room like the creeper I am instead.

She’s standing beneath a big old chandelier, the light catching on her earrings and the white of her teeth. She looks so damn good in that dress. The way it’s cut, the fabric, the fact that this stylish, successful woman is wearing it—all that tells me it probably cost more than what my truck’s worth.

The steadiness of moments before retreats.

Gracie really does look so good, and so happy, and so at home in this fancy-pants crowd. A crowd I am a world away from in my stupid custom shirt and blazer that are a size too big and few years too old. Stuffing my face with shrimp cocktail no one else is touching.

I don’t run in this circle. Don’t want to. Not because I’m an insecure asshole and I’m threatened by them. But because they’re just not my people.

They are, however, Gracie’s. Quite clearly.

An ache gathers in the center of my chest. Spreading outward until it devours my heart, my lungs. My stomach.

I know better than to run through all the ways Gracie and I are different in my head again.

But I do it anyways.

Gracie is educated. Cultured. Accomplished. Ambitious. She likes the city, being in the thick of things, rubbing elbows with people she admires.

I like spending my days with seeds. Putting my hands in the dirt. Being alone out in the quiet at the farm, listening to the distant rush of the water above the sound of the trees.

I know I’m getting way ahead of myself here. But if Gracie and I are together the way I want to be—the forever kind of together—we’re gonna have to work to make our circles overlap more.

But would she really want to come live out on Wadmalaw? Probably would mean skipping out on stuff like this upon occasion. Would she be okay with that?

Is it even right to even ask her to? Because she obviously loves these events. And I’m not all that sure she’d love being out in the sticks with me.

Just like I’m not all that sure I’d love being downtown with her.

First the whole speaking French thing with her pastry chef. Now this whole…situation.

I want her. Bad. That has not changed.

But the chance of us having a happy ending? I think that has changed. Or it’s just gotten more complicated.

I reasoned that if I could draw out Gracie’s authenticity, her honesty, we’d be golden. And even though I’m doing it, and even though I think her bravery is a beautiful fucking thing, it doesn’t negate any of these barriers between us.

Barriers that could, God, require very real, very dedicated work on both our parts to overcome.

I love that Gracie is well connected. I love that she has this incredible network of people who genuinely adore and respect her.

I want those things for her. I could never in good conscience deprive her of them. But if that means eventually having to let her go—

Then I’ll have to let her go. And she’ll take my heart with her.

Because even though we’re different—even though we don’t even exist on the same fucking planet—I’m still falling for her. Fast and reckless.

A recipe for disaster if I ever saw one.Chapter SeventeenGracieLuke is quiet as we head out of the party. I can feel the emotion radiating off him. My chest absorbing wave after wave of angst, making my heart clench.

Was bringing him a mistake? My intentions were good. But I could tell he felt out of place. Which is totally understandable. That was quite a rarefied crowd in there.