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He took a deep breath and raked both of his hands down his face. Sam got up to walk away, but he jumped up and grabbed her.
“You’re going to stay here and talk to me.”
She tried to pull away, but he held her tightly and wrapped both of his arms around her. She continued to struggle until she hit her arm on his arm.
“Ouch! Fuck, that hurt!” she whimpered
She stopped moving and held her arm against her tummy.
He watched the pain flash across her face and the way she cradled her arm. Tears began pouring like rain down her cheeks. He walked them to the sofa and sat down with her, his arm still firmly wrapped around her shoulders. She pulled her knees up, so her feet rested on the sofa and continued hugging her arm to her. He sat quietly as she cried. His own tears fell here and there, but he managed to get himself under control. Once her crying stopped, she reached forward for a tissue on the coffee table, wiped her eyes, blew her nose, then let out a long shaky breath.
“Can you talk now?”
Sam closed her eyes.
“What more is there to say, Gray? Haven't you put me through enough?”
“I never, never meant to put you through anything. I would rather die than hurt you. I thought I was saving you from Suzanne, not hurting you. I didn't think about it the way you did. Now that I see how you feel about it, I would do anything to turn back time.“ He ran his hands down his face if only there were a way to wipe away the worry and stress from the past few days. “For the record, you’ve put me through quite a bit these past few days. Your disappearing act was bullshit.”
She turned her head and looked him in the eyes for the first time. She opened her mouth to speak, then promptly closed it. He held her gaze, now that she was back, he fought the anger that threatened to creep in.
“In my mind, I wasn’t hiding; I was finished. I’ve told you from the beginning I wasn’t ever going to be in a relationship where my partner allowed himself to be manipulated. In a matter of just two or three weeks now, Suzanne has manipulated you twice, and you blindly go along with it.”
He took in a deep cleansing breath and slowly blew it out. He swallowed the lump that formed, cleared his throat and softly asked, “Where do we go from here? And before you answer, let me just say this; Dani told me what you said. She told me what Nate said, too. I get it, Sam, I do. I was wrong, and I’ll never—ever—do anything like that to you again. I swear it.”
She took a deep breath and looked out the window, but she wasn’t kicking him out, and she wasn’t running away. There was hope.
When she spoke, her voice was soft. “Three people in a relationship doesn’t work; I want more.”
“You deserve more. I’m going to give it to you.”
Her eyebrows raised into the little blonde whisps of hair on her forehead. The dark smudges under her eyes were prominent, the creases at the corners seemed to have deepened this weekend. He imagined his eyes looked much the same. He slowly reached over and pulled the arm she favored toward him, careful not to tug or harm it further. He held her hand in his and glanced down at her arm. She wore a long-sleeved blue T-shirt, which hung loosely on her small frame, but he sucked in a breath when he saw a splotch of fresh blood oozing into the fabric.
“What happened to you, Sam?”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “Well, Adam fell and cut me with a glass, and my mom died. That’s the short version, of course.”
Gray’s brows furrowed. “My God, Sam, are you okay?”
She retold the story, and he sat quietly and listened until she mentioned Dr. Eric Anderson and that he’d taken care of her and asked her on a date. That’s when his heart hammered in his chest and his throat burned from the dryness. When he felt he could speak without sounding like a jealous lover, he was proud of himself when he simply said, “We each have a promise to make – You don’t run anymore, and I won’t allow Suzanne to manipulate me anymore. We stand together. Deal?”
She softly smiled, “Deal.”
21
Around four-thirty in the morning, Gray’s phone rang. They had fallen asleep last night, both exhausted and spent. The gentle music that signified his mom’s ring seeped into his sleep-fogged brain until it registered what the music was.
Gray was already reaching for the side table where his phone lay, “Hi, Mom, what’s up?”
“When?”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Where is he?”
“When is that?”
“Do you need anything?”
