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Sawyer
She was still so fucking breathtaking to me.
She stood in front of me with worry in her beautiful blue eyes, questions rolling behind them. Even in her casual oversized, off the shoulder shirt, she was the most striking woman I had ever seen. And the way her jeans cupped her butt…
Much more than the physical, Grace had always captured me with her sweetness. I knew that not talking to her for so long was going to cause some sort of stilt in our friendship. I had done enough reading up on high functioning anxiety after she told me her thoughts, to know that my staying away was going to cause all sorts of questions in her head.
Questions she’d never ask.
She was going to think that anything I said, anything I did, was going to have a double meaning. She was going to think the fuck out of everything I said or did, and that was all on me.
All because I had been a jealous prick.
But seriously, though. She had a life here, I had a career there. Us forging some sort of romantic entanglement simply wasn’t feasible. So why in the hell couldn’t I keep my mind off of her? Why couldn’t I stop myself from wanting more?
I missed the random three am texts from her. The silly emails that told me nothing other than she was doing ok, and that she was happy.
I missed my friend.
I may have come to San Diego with the intent of seeing my sister and her kids, to get away from Salt Lake City and everything that came with it, but Grace was definitely part of the pull. There was no sense denying it any longer, not while I stood here, taking her in.
Urging her to spend the weekend with us.
“Sydney just wants us to get together,” Grace blurted out. “I’ve told her it wasn’t happening.” She pulled her lips in and her brows rose, as if the words were a slip and she hadn’t meant to say them out loud.
Even though I had told Sydney the same, hearing that Grace turned down the notion left my chest tight and uncomfortable. “Yeah. Her matchmaking skills leave room for improvement,” I tried joking, but it fell flat on my own ears.
Grace crossed her arms over her chest, adding to the slight distance between us. I felt as if she were holding herself together, putting a wall up.
Goddamn, I made a mistake with her.
They always said sex ruined friendships.
Yeah, well, with Grace, we did the sex thing first and fell into friends last so I wouldn’t necessarily say it was sex that put this divide between us.
But my feelings for her certainly hadn’t gone anywhere.
Fucking feelings.
“I see Syd and the kids all the time. You guys have fun and maybe I’ll stop by on Sunday before you fly home,” she said, still trying to get out of the day.
Yeah.
Not happening.
I hated this wall. I hated that she was hugging herself, guarding herself, from me. That shit was stopping. I was going to fix this friendship.
I knew she was going to think this phrase inside out, that she likely had with the three other pleas I gave her, but I said it all the same. “No. I want you to hang out. Please, Grace?” If she said no this time, I’d let her be. I wasn’t going to beg.
As badly as I wanted to, I wasn’t going to do it.
But, as she always managed to do, she surprised me. Spoken hardly over a whisper, she finally said after a grand pause, “Ok.”
I plopped Brody in the sand next to his brother and Sydney looked up at me quizzically.
“I’m going to the rail,” I said, well aware that my sister would figure out why I was heading to the railing.
Sure enough, her eyes casted in the direction of Grace. When Brielle fell asleep in Grace’s arms a little while ago, she had placed Sydney’s youngest in her car seat before excusing herself to the rails, where the seals and sea lions were sun bathing on the rocks below.
