Page 89 of All In

Josh’s nose scrunches up. “Why are you freaking out about that?”

Has he lost his mind? How does he not get this? Maybe I shouldn’t have come here. Actually, yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. I push to my feet, and Josh grabs my arm, tugging me back down. “Sit. I’m still trying to wake up, and I’m not following. You’re freaking out because your husband is in love with you?” Something passes over his face. “Oh.”

Oh? Oh what? What does that mean?

“You didn’t know. Yeah, that makes sense,” he says, almost to himself. “Yeah, Grayson has always been in love with you, Harlow.”

I stare at him in stunned silence. “How am I the last person to know this?”

He shakes his head with a sad smile. “I don’t know.”

“Did you know?” I ask.

“I suspected.” He sighs.

“Is that why you didn’t like him?”

I mean, that would make so much sense. Everything is starting to make sense now. Except for the part where it really isn’t at all.

Josh laughs, but it sounds pained. “I don’t dislike Grayson. I mean… maybe at first, but then I realized—” He shakes his head. “Then I realized that what you two have exists on a different plane. Some place I couldn’t touch. He got pieces of you that no one else did. Pieces of you that you never even showed me.”

I shake my head, slightly offended. Where does he get off accusing me of that? “That’s not true. I showed you things.”

Giving me a sad smile, he nods. “It is true. And that’s okay.” Sighing, he shakes his head. “When you left the wedding—when Grayson got you out of there—Andy was walking to his car. He heard you tell Grayson to take you home.”

“I’m not following.”

Josh smiles again, this one a little less sad and a little more exasperated. “I was prepared to come home and find you here.” I blink at him. “But you weren’t here,” he continues. Dots start connecting, my pulse pounding in my head and my throat aching. “He took you home, Harlow. Just not to this one.”

Oh fucking fuck.

“I’m in love with Gray, huh?”

Laughing, Josh shrugs. “I can’t answer that for you.”

I frown. “I’m just confused. Because… well, because I don’t really feel any differently than I always have.” Well, except for maybe the wanting to have sex with him thing. But I’m not gonna tell Josh that. I do have some boundaries, despite what my appearance on Josh’s doorstep before the sun’s even up might suggest.

“So maybe you’ve always been in love with him too,” Josh says gently.

Maybe I have. “How could I be in love with someone and not realize?”

“Are you asking me rhetorically, or do you want a real answer?”

I glare at him. “I mean… I’m here, right? So clearly I want a real answer.”

He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “I think sometimes,” he says softly, his voice a little thick. “You can love someone so hard and for so long that you don’t realize what it means. You’ve loved Grayson your whole life, right?”

I’m pretty sure, so I nod.

“Right.” Josh swallows hard, his throat bobbing. “If your expectation is that you love someone but as a friend, what do you have to compare it to, you know? Like you love Grayson as a friend. Or so you thought.” I nod again. “So maybe you just assumed the way you felt is how all people feel about their friends.”

That… makes an absurd amount of sense, actually.

“Did being with me make you as happy as being with Grayson does?”

“No,” I whisper. It’s not even a question. Not even for a second. Nothing has ever made me as happy as being with Gray has.

We sit in silence for a second. “I think that’s your answer.”