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He wouldn’t let it take Grace down. She was innocent. She didn’t deserve this crap. “Let’s go see him,” he said. “It’s better than sitting around here and worrying.”
“I’ll go,” she said. “I’ll explain.”
“I’m not letting you go without me.”
She looked up at him, her eyes shiny with tears. “I need to do it alone.”
“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay. You go talk to them. I should warn my mom.”
“Oh no, your poor mom.” Her eyes were full of tears. “She’ll find out too.”
Yeah, she would. The whole town would. But wasn’t that the point? They were going to start telling people on Friday. They were going to be free.
No hiding, no lies. Just truth from now on.
So why did it feel like they were lying harder than ever?
* * *
His mom was asleep on the sofa when he let himself into the house. Cam was in the kitchen watching football, a beer in his hand. “Hey.” He smiled at Michael. “How was your flight?”
“Good.” Michael looked back into the living room. “Mom okay?”
“Just exhausted. A few more days and she’ll be getting a break.” Cam nodded his head at the refrigerator. “Want a beer?”
“No thanks.”
“How about something to eat? There’s some pizza left over. Even Sabrina couldn’t eat it all.”
“I ate on the plane,” Michael told him. “My stomach still thinks it’s on London time.”
“It’s asleep, huh?” Cam grinned. And for a second Michael wanted to hug him. Because once upon a time, he’d put this man through hell.
He’d made his mom choose between them, and his mom had chosen Michael. Cam had left town, left his family. Left everything because he couldn’t bear to be in the same town as Mia Devlin without being with her.
It was only when Josh had disappeared that Michael finally called Cam to apologize. To beg for him to come back. And he had.
He hated himself for putting his mom and Cam through that.
The same way he wanted to slap himself for making Grace hurt.
His phone buzzed. He looked down to see Josh’s name flashing on the screen.
“I’ll take this upstairs,” he said to Cam. “So I don’t wake mom.”
“Sure.” Cam turned back to the football. “The pizza’ll still be here if you want it.”
“Thanks.” He walked into the hallway, heading for the stairs. “Hey,” he said, accepting the call. “What’s up?”
“You back home?”
“In Hartson’s Creek, yeah.”
“Great.” Josh sounded his usual sunshine self. “I tried to call you earlier. Figured you were still on the plane. Or getting strip searched. How was the trip? Did you get everything transferred over?”
“Yeah. It’s all done.” He walked into his room and sat down warily on the bed. He was so damn tired.
“And how’s Grace?” Josh asked.
