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In the rearview mirror, she saw him standing in the rain, watching her go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Grayson

Grayson didn’t know what was going on between him and Lucy. When she had suggested they go to dinner after callously rejecting him on Christmas, he had thought it was a ploy—another trick—so of course he had said no. He didn’t trust her and wouldn’t allow himself to be gutted again.

But now? Now he wasn’t sure.

What if she had meant it? And he had rejected her? It was why when she suggested they play nice at Mateo’s last night, he’d been all for it.

She drove him absolutely mad, and sometimes he thought for sure that she truly did hate him, but then sometimes she was so warm and friendly, like last night, that all his theories were moot.

He tried not to overanalyze it, which went against everything in him as an English professor. She was a disaster, a beautiful one, and he didn’t mind one bit. He was just there for the ride.

So time continued on, January giving way to February. In the store that day she was talking to a customer, wearing a cute little outfit, tweed shorts with tights and a sweater that fell off one shoulder, making the curve of her neck perfectly kissable.

He’d been staring at her throat all day, wanting to taste her pulse in his mouth.

Her lips were coated in red, and he wanted a ring of her lipstick around his dick, a vivid brand. He remembered fucking her face, how she had sucked him nice and hard in that infuriating mouth of hers.

He felt weak in the knees at the memory.

As if sensing his eyes, she turned away from her customer, saying, “Yes, my assistant can help you with that.”

She gave Grayson a dazzling smile, one that made him forget his ire at being called an assistant. He’d be anything—a bullied assistant, a lowly footstool, her dirty doormat—so long as she kept smiling at him like that. He went to assist, trying to catch the scent of Lucy’s vanilla perfume in the air as he walked past her. After Grayson was done dealing with the customer, he went to check on Charles, who was basically fully healed three months after his surgery and hardly even used his cane anymore. It was all about building up his strength now, which he was slowly but surely doing.

And while Charles built his strength, Grayson tried to build a relationship with him. It wasn’t as awkward anymore. They played chess during the day when the store wasn’t too busy and cooked and had dinner together in the evenings. They went grocery shopping weekly.

It was the little things. Even so, Grayson felt they weren’t as close as he wished to be, not in the way they had been when he was a child, when he’d beg his parents to stay just a little longer at his grandparents’. Perhaps that was an unrealistic goal—for things to return to how they were when his parents were alive, when everything was perfect—but he wasn’t even as close with Charles as Lucy was. Anyone could see the difference.

Charles lit up whenever Lucy was around, and Grayson had no doubts as to why. She was just like that: radiant. But he wished he could have that effect on his grandad as well.

He knew in the grand scheme of things, three months wasn’t long enough to make up for the two decades he and his grandfather had been estranged, but he still sometimes wondered if it was too late, if he shouldn’t even try. Afraid, he kept his heart guarded, and he knew that made him harder to get close to.

Grayson wanted them to be close. He wanted to hear about his parents—his mother, especially—but he was scared to open up those feelings. They were locked away so tight, had been for years, that he was afraid of how much it would hurt to open that door.

Unfortunately, hiding his emotions away was not the soundest of plans.

One day at the store, Grayson went to give Charles his lunch after grabbing him a cold sandwich from the deli he favored. Charles hadn’t slept well that night and had been in pain since the morning, so Grayson had driven out for it especially, wanting to remedy Charles’s crabby mood.

He brought it over to where Charles was resting on the daybed in the back. Charles was lying down with an unopened book on his lap, his face pinched. When Grayson handed him the plate of food, Charles mumbled a thanks and took a bite.

“They made it wrong,” Charles cried. “I hate tomatoes!”

“I’ll take them off,” Grayson said. He did just that, but still Charles made a face, pushing the plate away.

“No, now tomato juice is all over it,” he said, frowning. “I don’t want it.”

“You’re a witch,” Grayson said, his patience thinning. “Use magic to get the tomato juice off.”

Charles turned his cheek. “It’s not the same.”

Grayson rubbed his temples. “I’ll get you something else,” he gritted out.

“It’s going to take too long,” Charles huffed. “Forget it. I’m not hungry.”

Charles crossed his arms, pouting, acting like an absolute child.