I swallowed hard as I read and reread those words.
You’re my best friend too, Kas.
FOURTEEN
Kassa
Gray age 23
Kassa age 18
For New Year’s, Alicia surprised me by taking me to Nashville for a few days, and we watched the ball drop in a crowded club with at least two hundred people. She let me have a glass of champagne, and we left the club with glitter and confetti in our hair, but it was a great night for both of us. I had been so caught up in having fun with Alicia that I had almost forgotten about how much I missed Gray and my brother.
Over the next few weeks, we spent a lot of time together. Definitely more than we had been spending together in the last year. Two nights a week, she came home early from work and we actually had dinner together. And, on Saturday nights, we went to a movie and gorged on popcorn and nachos. It didn’t even have to be a good movie; we always found something to watch.
It made missing the guys a little more bearable, and I soaked up the time Alicia was giving me. I didn’t know what had happened to make her stop working as hard and finally spend a little time with me, but whatever it was, I was thankful for it.
When Alicia didn’t come home early in the evening, I went to the gym and worked out for a few hours. AJ kept me company for a little while each of those evening, and crazily enough, it felt almost like I had a fatherly figure with him. He watched out for me, made sure I was okay and that school was going well. A few times, I did homework at the front desk while he kept me company.
On Valentine’s Day, two flower arrangements showed up at school for me and two went to Alicia’s office for her, one from Jace and the other from Gray. Jace sent me an assortment of flowers that made me smile because they were so colorful and sweet-smelling. The flower I got from Gray broke my heart a little. It was a single white rose with a plastic purple butterfly holding a card.
Love you more—G.
When I got the flowers and that note, I held my tears back, not wanting anyone to see how broken I was. I waited until I got home and climbed into the shower, the water beating down on me, before I gave in and let the tears fall. Sob after sob felt like they were tearing my insides open, but I couldn’t stop them.
Things between me and Gray had gone back to the way they had been before I’d nearly ruined everything. It had been easy because I wasn’t face-to-face with him, and even though I missed him like crazy, I was thankful for the physical distance between us. I was able to put a smile on my face when he called or texted, able to pretend like my heart wasn’t breaking every time I talked to Jace and he let slip that Gray was off with some random chick. He was screwing around more than he had been before his visit home, it seemed.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to fuck me out of his system, but I would chastise myself every time I thought about it. What had happened between us was probably completely out of his mind. He didn’t need to think about me when he had an entire state of chicks begging for his attention every night. Attention he apparently was all too willing to give. I was completely out of his mind when he was hooking up every night.
After I had wasted all the hot water with my cry-fest, I got ready and pretended I was fine as Alicia and I went out to dinner. We were each other’s dates that night. We even exchanged presents. A teddy bear with a leather jacket that sang “You Ain’t Nothing but a Heartbreaker” was her gift to me, and I gave her a huge box of chocolates I had already opened and eaten all the caramels out of.
She cracked up laughing when she saw it. It was what I had always done as a little girl. We would give her candy for Valentine’s Day, but when she would open mine, they would all be mushed and the caramel ones would be missing.
After dinner, we stopped for ice cream and then went home. It was a great night, and I loved how carefree Alicia seemed lately. She hadn’t had nearly as many headaches, or if she had, she hadn’t told me about them. But she seemed happier and that made me happy.
We settled into our schedule, with twice-weekly dinners and movie night on Saturdays. Time flew, and now, I was just days away from graduating. Gray, Jace, and Kin were flying out for it and then I was going back with them. I was excited to move out to California, to start college in the fall, and get to see my brother and his girlfriend more. But my excitement was being crushed by two things.
One, I didn’t want to leave Alicia. Before Christmas, yeah, sure, I had been all ready to go. She hadn’t ever been home and it’d felt like she hadn’t needed or even wanted me around. I had been counting down the days until I would be with people who did want me around. Now, we seemed closer than ever and I was going to miss her just as much as I had been missing Jace and Gray.
But an even bigger thing was zapping all the joy out of something I had spent months upon months dreaming of doing.
Gray.
Or, rather, Gray and his masses of one-night stands that were sure to come. I didn’t kid myself by thinking that his different-girl-every-night-of-the-week routine would stop just because I was moving in with him and my brother. He hadn’t hid that kind of thing from me when he’d lived at home, so it wasn’t going to stop when we were under the same roof again.
While I was almost despondent about leaving Alicia, she seemed more excited about my “new adventure,” as she liked to call it. She had taken me shopping the last two weekends to get me all new things for my room for t
he apartment I was going to be sharing with the guys. New sheets, pillow cases, curtains, and even towels and so much more. She’d packed them up and had them shipped so they were already waiting for me at the apartment.
I didn’t know how it was possible, but I was bubbling over with excitement to see Gray again, even while dread made my stomach cramp to the point that I could barely eat that morning. I was picking him up from the airport and then making the same trip on Friday to pick up Jace and Kin because they couldn’t make it out until then. For the first time since I had met Grayson Knight, I wasn’t looking forward to spending alone time with him.
I parked my car and ran to the airport. Traffic had been bad on the way due to ten-car pile-up on the interstate, and Gray’s plane had already landed at least twenty minutes ago. I had texted him to let him know what was going on, but he hadn’t messaged me back yet.
As the doors slid open and I looked around at all the people picking their luggage up at baggage claims, I tried to mentally prepare myself for coming face-to-face once again with the man who was my best friend. I can do this, I assured myself. It was Gray. He loved me and everything was going to be just fine. We were fine. I had promised him that nothing was going to change, and I was going to keep that promise, dammit.
Five minutes later, I still hadn’t spotted him. Concerned, I glanced at my phone to see if I had missed a call or a text from him and just hadn’t heard it. Maybe his plane had been delayed after all and he hadn’t turned his phone off of airplane mode yet. Or he was getting something to eat before he came out.
Or maybe he’d met some chick on the plane and he was fucking her brains out in one of the family bathrooms.