Page 54 of Peaches & Pistols

I wait a beat before exiting my room as nonchalantly as I can muster. Greyson’s leaning against the opposite wall, head hung low, phone gripped tightly in his fist.

“I take it you heard that,” he states, not asks.

“Not intentionally.” I fiddle with the ends of my hair. I blew it out for the dinner tonight, so it hangs long over my shoulders. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Greyson isn’t a feelings-sharer, so I’m taken aback when he nods.

“Do you mind lending me your ear while I get ready?” he asks, walking to his bedroom.

I don’t enter his bedroom. Ever. When I was new, I tried washing his laundry and sheets and you’d think I killed his cat. One time I cleaned his bathroom, and a vein nearly popped out of his forehead.

And now he wants me to hang out in his bedroom, while he…changes clothes?

I want to be a shoulder for him to lean on, but more so, I’m jumping at the opportunity to get to know Greyson on any deeper level than the surface he offers the rest of the world.

Lost in thought, I barely register that he’s closed the door behind us.

“Thanks. I don’t want Harper hearing any of this.”

“Of course.” Awkwardly, I look around his bedroom, my mind collecting details like bits of treasure for me to examine, sort, and covet in the quiet hours when I’m alone.

The framed photo of him holding a baby Harper on his night stand. Her drawings haphazardly taped to his closet door. A misshapen, painted ceramic dish filled with his keys, wallet, and loose change, that Harper no-doubt made with her tiny hands.

He’s an excellent father, there’s no question. Carter never paid more than a passing glance to anything Everly made, let alone proudly display it.

Greyson grabs a fresh flannel from the closet, the taped drawings fluttering from the opening and closing of the door. He opens his dresser to grab a white undershirt and goes to change in his bathroom.

He leaves the door ajar so I can hear him. Looking around for somewhere to sit, I find the only option is his bed. I sit on the edge of his mattress and indulgently run my hands along the worn forest green duvet he sleeps beneath each night.

His voice draws my attention to the cracked door, and through the narrow opening, I can see him changing his shirt in the vanity mirror.

I should look away. I should be professional and appropriate and give him the courtesy of looking away. But when he unbuttons his flannel and shrugs it from his shoulders, I can’t peel my eyes away.

“That was Liv on the phone. She’s spending Christmas Eve with her parents, and just like every year, she tries to convince me to come and bring Harper so Meredith can meet her.”

I know from bits and pieces that Meredith is his mother, and their relationship is fraught with tension. I don’t ask for clarification, nor does he provide any.

“If I haven’t let her around my daughter in all nine years of her life, I have no fuckin’ idea why Liv thinks I’d start tonight.”

In the mirror I watch him reach over his head and grip the back of his shirt, taking it off in the sexiest move I’ve ever seen. Thankfully, the bed doesn’t creak when I rock back and forth trying to get a full picture through the cracked door.

Sweet. Baby. Jesus. That peppermint bark must be hitting hard because heat flashes over my body as the glory of his muscular back imprints on my memory.

Carter’s back is fit from swimming, but his muscles are lean.

Greyson’s back is all ridges and valleys where the muscle and sinew weave together to create a hulking masterpiece. What would those muscles feel like beneath my palms if we⁠—

“If a mother could love her own child so conditionally that she stopped raising me when I was eleven fucking years old…there’s no way in hell I’m exposing my daughter to that kind of heartbreak.”

My heart breaks for the grieving little boy Greyson was when his dad died. I can’t blame him for sheltering Harper from Meredith’s damaging behavior.

No! Don’t put the shirt on…darn it. My empathy distracted me from the last seconds of admiring his bare back, now clad in a white T-shirt.

“I know Liv wants us all to be one big happy family for Harper. But Harper’s family is already filled with people who love her and would never even dream of hurting her.”

Are Everly and I a part of that family? I don’t know when it happened, but we’ve become ingrained in the Lucky Spurs Ranch family.

He puts the clean flannel on, a festive red and green, and buttons it, checking himself in the mirror. I quickly stand and shift out of view, so he doesn’t catch me spying. A quick brush of his hair, and he’s ready to go.