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Sydney looked back at me, a small smile on her face. “She’d be good for you, Soy. You guys get along so well.” In less than four hours, Sydney had brought up Grace and me being good together no less than five times but more than that, Grace being good for me had been on my mind no less than five times today. A relationship just wasn’t in our cards, but our friendship? That could be fixed, even if Sydney didn’t realize it was broken.
“Yeah, well…” I wasn’t sure how much my sister knew about Grace and I and our history, and I didn’t exactly want to ruin whatever little trust I still held with the blonde beauty by telling Sydney something she didn’t already know.
“Different states, Syd,” I repeated instead, standing up and brushing the sand from my jeans, heading toward the only woman who completely held my attention for the last five years.
Before coming down, I had changed into older, worn Levis and a hooded sweatshirt, ditching my loafers for running shoes. This was a much more comfortable ensemble. No sooner than I pocketed my hands in the large hoodie pocket, my sister yelled out, “It’s not like you don’t have a career that you could transfer!”
With a strained chuckle, I moved a hand to squeeze the bridge of my nose as I walked away. My sister could be really fucking loud when she wanted to.
And there was no way Grace didn’t hear that, even if she were a distance away.
Sure enough, Grace looked back over her shoulder, catching me as I walked toward her. Her smile was nowhere to be seen but she didn’t look upset. No, she looked thoughtful. She watched me take a few more steps and before I reached her, she turned her attention back to the rocks below. Here, I could hear some of the chatter as the marine animals talked and fought over prime sun spots.
“How’s it going?” I asked, leaning forward on the rail next to her, leaving a good foot of space between us even if all I wanted to do was wrap myself around her and rest my chin on the crown of her head, as if my being around her could help ward off any of the negative thoughts she had in her head.
Grace nodded a few times, all while not turning her attention toward me. “It’s so beautiful out here.”
“It is.” And it was. I didn’t make it out to San Diego as much as I would like, but La Jolla was one of my favorite spots in the world. The crashing waves on the rocks on windy days, the heat of the sun with the cool breeze on nicer days…
“Look,” I said, just as she started, “I don’t—”
We both stopped, turning our heads to look at the other.
“You first,” I said, feigning a calm I certainly didn’t feel. Acting relaxed on the rail was taking more energy than chasing down a suspect.
She shook her head. “No. You first.”
I knew that that was her way of protecting whatever she had to say. I knew she was afraid of what my response would be to the words she wanted to give, and again, I fucking hated myself for putting this distance between us.
But I was hell bent on fixing that.
“I was just going to say that I’m sorry for the way I acted when I met Jeremy. I just,” I sighed, looking back out over the water. I took a moment before confessing, “I didn’t like him and realized I might have been a little bit jealous. I still…” I paused, shaking my head lightly and narrowed my eyes as I looked out over the water, thinking back to the day I met him.
Grace had been incredibly happy.
So fucking happy.
And as screwed up as it was, I had hated that someone else put that fucking smile on her face. So yeah, I had been jealous. Really green with envy of the man who couldn’t keep his hands off of my best friend but couldn’t manage to keep his eyes on her, and only her.
If Grace had been in my arms, there’d be no way in hell you’d catch me checking out every other woman walking around. Yeah, yeah, I knew that being in a relationship didn’t make a man dead, and that looking and touching were two different things, but it was the way Jeremy looked at other women that didn’t sit well in my gut.
Nor did the way he held Grace, like she was a possession and he was keeping her from me. The man fucking growled when Grace had hugged me hello. I went after perps daily who had similar attributes as he did, and that was what didn’t sit well.
No, I still didn’t care for the way Jeremy was with Grace then, but it wasn’t really my place to try and steal her sunshine from her, not when Grace fought for those very moments.
The ‘jealous’ bit of my speech caught Grace’s attention. She still relaxed into the rail, but her head turned toward me. Her eyes were narrowed as she thought about what I said. “Jealous? But why?”
If that didn’t just deflate the ego a little.
She didn’t say it in a malicious way though, but rather, in a thoughtful way—as if she had some sort of inkling that was part of the reason I stepped away from her those months ago.
I shifted in my spot, releasing some of the tension in my legs as I realized I locked a knee. I rolled my shoulders and tilted my head to the side as if to crack it, but I hadn’t been successful in that releasing pop in quite some time.
Probably too much stress.
Grace seemed to notice my unease and to my utter surprise, my uncomfortableness seemed to ease some of her own. She turned to lean a hip on the rail, crossing her arms over her chest, and offered me the first beautiful, full, smile I had seen on her face since the first moment I saw her on July 18, the day I met her douche of a boyfriend.
And you know what? If me being uncomfortable gave that to her, I’d be uncomfortable for the rest of my life.
