Page 115 of Worth the Risk

Or maybe she’s always been her, and I’ve just been looking at her through Claire-tainted lenses.

Fuck. I scrub a hand through my hair, confused as fuck and not wanting her any less, regardless of my thoughts.

Screw the contest.

Can’t I just have her as the prize?

I’m not naïve enough to think that prizes don’t come at a cost.

I step forward and slowly untangle Luke’s arms from Sidney’s. They both stir some but neither wake fully. I slip my arms beneath her knees and under her neck and pick her up.

It takes me a second to find my balance as she slips her arms around my neck, but the moment I do, she knocks me completely off kilter when she murmurs, “I love you, Grayson.”

I stand there with her cradled in my arms, my son asleep in front of us, and stagger under the weight those words hold.

It’s been almost eight years since I’ve let a woman say those words to me. Eight years since I’ve allowed myself to react to them. Eight goddamn years since I’ve wanted to say them back.

I can’t. My tongue ties and every damn thing I was just thinking comes back and hits me again. Sunnyville doesn’t have enough to keep her. So, even if I do . . . could love her, even if I do ask her to stay, that would be asking her to be someone she isn’t meant to be. That would only end with her leaving.

This is who we are. Changing for each other would mean compromising who we inherently are, when that isn’t what a relationship is about.

So, I do the only thing I can . . . I carry Sidney into my room and lay her on my bed. I don’t know how much time passes as I try to calm what those words did to my insides, but I stand there and memorize everything about her as she sleeps.

The rise of her chest. The line of her nose. The curve of her hips. The shape of her lips. The smell of her perfume.

I wonder a thousand what-ifs before I shove them down, lock them away.

It doesn’t stop me from wanting to show her how I feel about her. It doesn’t stop me from testing the same three words out on my own lips as I stand in the darkness of my own room. It doesn’t stop me from leaning over and kissing her with every ounce of embattled emotion that I feel.

When I do, when that soft sigh falls from her lips in response, when her lips react in turn before she fully wakes up, I know I’m a goner. I know she’s the one I’ve waited for, even though I know she was already gone before she stepped foot back in Sunnyville.

There are no words between us. There is no rush as we touch and taste and enjoy. Hands running gently over skin. Sighs filling the room. Unspoken emotions filling our hearts. There is nothing but us as I slip into her and show her how I feel in a way I can’t express with words.

As I show her I love her in the only way I’m capable of letting her know.

“Do you have an innie?”

I’m startled awake by Luke’s voice, by the curious face that’s angled to the side, staring at me, and by the grin he’s fighting a losing battle with.

In the split second it takes me to remember everything that happened last night, it’s already too late to escape this situation unscathed. My hands tighten the comforter around me as his eyes glance at my bare shoulders. I cringe as I imagine what he’s thinking.

Stay cool. Stay calm.

“Shh, your dad’s asleep.” I look next to me, where Grayson’s forearm is over his eyes and his breathing is still even.

Deep breath. I’m just going to have to talk my way around this one.

“Do you have an innie?”

“You mean my belly button?” I ask, more than aware that I’m absolutely naked beneath the cool sheets sliding over my skin.

“No, silly.” He laughs, and in that moment, Grayson jolts in awareness beside me. But he’s good. He stays still despite his breathing telling me he’s silently freaking out. “I mean a vagina. An innie. Sam told me that men love women because they have vaginas. Dad said that’s not true. He also said that boys have outies and girls have innies. So is it true?”

I cough in response as I try not to laugh at him or embarrass him when he shouldn’t be, but my sleep-drugged mind is freaking out about whether his question refers more to marriage or more to sex and how exactly I should answer.

“Well, I am a girl,” I say with a soft smile, remembering just how sweet he was to me last night as we talked Creepers and Justice League and then went through the PS4 games that were his. Not the ones in the top cabinet that were ones he could only play with his dad. “So, I guess that means I have an innie.”

“Hmm.” He puts his index finger on his chin as if he’s thinking. “How come you slept in here last night instead of my bed?”