“Of course,” I smile, loving the way he puts everything he has into every performance, even if it’s just a soundcheck.
“I’m glad I have you alone for a minute,” he says, pressing a kiss to my lips once he sits down beside me. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
I reposition myself so I can face him directly, wondering how serious this conversation is going to be.
“I’ve decided I want to go to Maine to see my mother,” Grayson announces.
I feel the tension release in my shoulders, and hug him tightly. I knew I couldn’t push him in the direction of wanting to see her, and I’m so glad he’d made the decision on his own. I’m not exactly excited to go back to our hometown for my own reasons, but if it means helping Grayson heal, I’m all for it.
“I’m so glad you’re going,” I tell him against his shoulder. “I think you’re making the right choice.”
“I hope so,” he admits. “I don’t want what they wrote in that article to be true.”
“It’snot,” I say forcefully, pulling away to grasp both of his arms and look at him head on. “That article isn’t true regardless of if you go or not. You can’t base a huge decision off of wanting to prove somebody wrong. You need to go because you want to, and because it will help you move forward.”
I don’t mean to share so much, but it’s what he needs to hear. I won’t let him go all that way just to prove a point.
“You’re right,” he assures me. “I’m not going to prove anything, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t help put some things into perspective. I do want to go because that article isn’t who I am, but I do want to move forward, too.”
“Good,” I say, releasing my grip on him and placing my hand on his chest as I press a kiss to his lips. “It’s all going to be okay, you’ll see.”
“Will you go with me?” he asks delicately, as if he thinks I might say no. “You keep me grounded, Mia. I don’t know if I can face her without knowing I have you close by. I don’t want to do this alone.”
His words nearly melt me.
“You won’t have to do it alone, baby,” I murmur. “I promise.”
I haven’t been home since I finished college and moved to Dallas, but I still recognize all of the roads in the small town and don’t need the GPS on my phone to get around.
I now sit in the rental car that we had picked up in New York in front of my mother’s house, the house that my sisters and I had grown up in. I called her the night before to let her know that I was coming, but I didn't tell her about Grayson or that the reason we came home was so he could visit his own mother. I had wanted to go with Grayson, but he told me that this was something he felt he needed to do by himself first. I understood the feeling.
Making the trek up to my mother’s front door, I feel my heart rate pick up. I know what my mother’s reaction will be, so the thought of telling her about what’s transpired between Grayson and me and how we’d gotten to this point makes me a little nauseated.
“Mia, darling,” my mother exclaims upon answering the door that I had finally managed to knock on. “What a nice surprise!”
Hugging her tall frame, I notice that very little has changed about her since the last time I’d seen her. Her long hair has grayed a little with the years, but her sharp eyes that favor my own remain the same. Of the three daughters, my sisters inherited more of our mother’s personality, but I’m the one that looks the most like her. Because we don’t always see eye to eye like she does with my sisters, the last thing I want is to disappoint her, and I feel like I won’t leave with the same loving attitude.
We step inside the house and everything seems exactly how I remembered it. Pictures of me and my sisters at various stages of life line the walls and mantels, and the house—as it always had—smells of my mother’s fabulous cooking.
“So,” my mother starts, settling into the couch in the living room. “Are you going to tell me what brings you all the way home?”
She’s nothing if not direct.
“I’m here with Grayson Harris,” I admit to her. “We’ve been seeing each other.”
I would hate for Grayson to see me right now; the last thing that I would want him thinking is that I’m ashamed of him.
“Grayson Harris…” she muses, trying to pull the memory of him. “Not the boy who lived across the street that you used to stare at from our porch? Angela Harris’ son?”
I fight the urge to put my ever reddening face in a throw pillow. I wish she remembered anything else about him besides the fact that I was completely obsessed with him.
“Yes, Mom,” I sigh. “That would be the one.”
“How on earth did that happen?” she asks, and I can tell she’s stifling a laugh. “Isn’t he living in Los Angeles, trying to be a musician?”
“His band is actually incredibly successful, and we actually ran into each other because of my job,” I say, somewhat defensively, before explaining the rest of the story.
I conveniently leave out that Grayson had still been married when I first reconnected with him.
