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I’d gotten myself into this situation; I had to get myself out.
But Gracen growled, “No. Don’t you dare hang up. Just talk to me, Bella. What are you so scared of? It can’t be Fox because that would be total bullshit. He has to be the most reliable, trustworthy man you could ever hook up with.”
“I know that, but—” Feeling panic grip my lungs, I paused and took a deep breath.
Gray must’ve realized I was beginning to lose it because he more softly said, “Sis? Dammit, sorry. I’m sorry for snapping. I’m just trying to understand.”
“I don’t know what I’m scared of, though,” I tried answering, even though I knew that wasn’t an answer at all. My limbs began to tremble uncontrollably, and so did my voice when I confessed, “I just know I’m petrified.”
Squeezing my eyes shut and hating how much weakness I was exposing, I rasped, “And it’s always been of different things at different times. At first, the idea of exposure when it was so new and fragile freaked me out. I didn't want a bunch of other people’s opinions in the family to cloud it. I saw what Beau and Bentley and then Teagan and JB had to put up with from us when they started to get together. I just wasn’t ready to deal with that when I wasn’t even sure if Fox and I would…”
Oh, who was I kidding? From the very moment we had first kissed, I’d known somewhere deep inside myself that it would be him. For the rest of my life.
“But then time passed, and I started to really, like, get to know him on a completely different level, and holy shit, Gracen. He’s—he’s just—”
I gritted my teeth, totally wigging out because I was actually saying all of this aloud, to my brother.
“He’s really what?” Gracen pressed gently.
“Amazing,” I blurted. “He’s just—he’s so—I don’t know how to say this. But it scared me in a whole other way. When eve
rything went down with Ethan, it broke me. And then Fox built all that back up, but it also made me think, you know. If what happened with Ethan happened between me and Fox, it would kill me. I love him so much more than I ever even thought of loving another man, that it—it—”
“Scared you into hiding from it,” Gracen surmised on a sigh. “And in effect, hiding your relationship from everyone else too.”
“Yeah,” I agreed miserably.
“Jesus,” he mumbled before asking, “How the hell long have you two been together?”
I winced, positive my answer wouldn’t land favorably with him before I admitted, “Probably for over nine months now.”
“Wow.” He snorted, and I could picture him shaking his head in disappointment. “And now you’re all knotted up in some jealous, insecure snit because Dad saw him hugging some blonde outside the gym? Well, no, you’re not going over there to spy on him. And neither am I. You’re going to trust your damn boyfriend because Fox is trustworthy. You got it?”
“I know,” I said, wincing, “but—”
“No,” he cut in sternly. “There are no buts here because we both know Fox. We’ve known him since he was fucking born. And you’re not going to let some bad past you had with another man ruin what you have going with probably the best man there ever was.”
“He really is,” I whispered, feeling a tear trail down my cheek. “And you’re right. I would ruin everything by not trusting him now. So I won’t go. And I won’t ask you to, either.”
“Good.” He blew out a relieved breath. “And I need to tell you something, too. But maybe not today. Not sure if we can handle two huge info bombs like that at once.”
I furrowed my brow, curious by his evasive explanation. But I said, “Okay,” before asking, “Is it going to be something I won’t like?”
When he paused, I sat upright in the driver’s seat. “Gracen?”
“Maybe it won’t be as bad as we think,” he rushed to reassure me. “I want to get a little more information first, though. I don’t think I have the whole story yet, and I have this feeling I’m missing some key details, so as soon as I know everything, I’ll share it with you. ’Kay?”
I nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“Good. I’ll call or visit in a couple of days, then. Love you.”
“Love you too,” I told him as he ended the call. Then I blew out a breath and squeezed my hands around the steering wheel in front of me.
It was decided, then. I would not go and spy on my boyfriend. I would not recruit anyone else to do it either. I was going to trust a man I logically knew I could trust, and I was going to go inside now and forget about this small hiccup of crazy paranoia I was having.
Yeah.
Any second now.
