I must have mispronounced my words, because Grayson regards me like I’ve just suggested a dive off the dock.
“No,” he says. Simple. Firm. Like it’s an established fact.
It makes my muscles stiffen against the hard plastic seat. “You don’t make my decisions.”
“I don’t,” he agrees. “I do, however, need to make sure you’re okay. And while you’re the smartest, most impressive woman I’ve ever met, you don’t need to do everything yourself. So I’m going to give you two very reasonable options, and you can decide which one you’ll take.”
16
GRAYSON
Her face is pinchedin exasperation as she looks down at me.
I much prefer it to the pain-fogged acquiescence of when I’d first brought her in here. Or the angry hurt when all her carefully constructed apathy from this week vanished.
Knowing I caused it made me feel like the smallest fucking man in the world. When I left Monday, I wasn’t thinking of her. I was thinking aboutme. But anyone with a single functioning brain cell would’ve known it’d be another insult, another blow to her.
I did it anyway, not even considering that she might be busy helping a grandmother cross a street, or saving a lost puppy, or being the kind of good person she’s shown me she is. The kind I usually am.
The kind who’s as lost as fucking Waldo wherever she’s concerned.
I’m not ignorant enough to think confessing last year’s situation, no matter how painful it was to wrench out, will magically make up for everything I’ve done.
“I don’t need help,” she says. Sweet notes of her flowery perfume mingle with the campfire smoke sticking to my sweatshirt.
“You don’tneedit, no. But I want you to have it.”
“It’s a little cut. There’s nothing wrong with me driving myself to the hospital.”
“Some rational people would disagree.”
“Iama rational person.”
I glance at her hand, braced in mine. It feels as delicate as it did when I helped her into that boat, except this time, it’s leaking blood. A hand as nice as this one shouldn’t have a gash like that.
Eliza’s a smart fucking woman. But what she did? That was putting-diesel-in-a-gas-engine stupid.
“Need I remind you that you just tried shucking an oysterfor the first timewithout a glove or towel, which is the first, most basic step to the process?”
I’m not an idiot. It isn’t good practice to insult a person after apologizing to them. But what the hell was she thinking?
Her tongue swipes across her lips. “You said on the tour that the blade’s supposed to have dull edges. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“I also said to always use a glove or a towel, then proceeded to use a glove for the demo.” Which she’s too bright to forget.
“There wasn’t one handy.”
“Should’ve been.” Steve must’ve taken the towel with him when he left the table. “Why didn’t you ask someone?”
“Amanda was off getting something from her car.”
“There are plenty of other team members out there.”
“I don’t know them well enough to interrupt their conversations.”
Because I made sure she didn’t know them atall,back when she started.
More guilt piles on to the Everest-sized mountain in my gut. It comes out as frustration. “Then why didn’t you ask me?”
