Which is why I know he’ll go along with this if I go through with it.
Still holding Grey’s gaze, I slowly, giving him all the time in the world to contradict me, say, “Yes, I’m with Grey.”
I’m startled away from the way he’s looking at me when Gus clears his throat, the sound echoing through the shop. When I look at him, his grin has been replaced with something unreadable.
“Well, good,” he says, although it sounds stilted. His hand finds the back of his neck, and he seems to shake off whatever came over him, the smile returning to his face. “You’ll have to come to the wedding.”
Everything inside me comes to a screeching halt. Grey’s gaze finally releases mine, swinging to focus on Gus.
“The wedding?” Grey asks, his voice sounding even more husky and deep in contrast with Gus’s low timbre. Pale blue eyes narrow, a line forming between his brows as he watches Gus with an unnerving intensity.
Gus, always oblivious, smiles once more, not sensing the tension rolling off Grey. “In a month. Eloise wants to move closer to her family in California. She was offered a kindergarten position in her hometown, and I can work from anywhere.” He shrugs, as if he never considered another option but followingher, as if uprooting his life wasn’t even a question. “We wanted to have a wedding here, and then we will have a reception in a few months with her family and friends.”
Grey raises an eyebrow. “Two weddings, huh?”
Gus is so blissfully in love that he doesn’t even notice Grey’s snark, but I can’t miss it. I’ve been on the receiving end of it too many times to count. But this seems colder, more pointed, than anything he’s ever directed at me.
“Two weddings,” Gus confirms. Then he looks to me, face open and inviting, no trace of whatever weirdness was there when Grey walked in. “So you’ll come to the wedding here? August fifteenth.”
Just a little over a month away. Everything inside me screamsno, that I won’t be okay watching my ex marry the love of his life five weeks from now. I open my mouth to say it, but Grey cuts me off. He walks across the shop, his long legs eating up the distance between us in four steps.
His clean scent envelops me the second he slings his arm over my shoulder and tugs into him in a way that feels effortlessly intimate. His lips are in my hair, pressing to my temple a second before he says to Gus, “We’ll be there.”
Finley is shaking againstme. Normally, I’m fairly laid back. Samantha, a girl I’d met in the city last summer, who I’d managed to go on five dates with—a personal record—had told me I was too easygoing, that she could never tell my actual opinions on anything. I refrained from telling her that maybe it was because hers were strong enough for the both of us—that I’d learned at a very young age to adapt my personality as needed. If someone has a lot to say, I have little. If things are awkward and stilted, I can carry on a conversation for hours without much feedback. It’s a skill I learned at a very young age, when all I wanted to do was make myself into the kid my parents needed—the one they wanted.
But there’s one situation when I don’t feel the need to adapt myself, when I feel most like who I am down to my core. In a crisis. And right now, Finley is shaking. She’s gripping the edge of the counter so tightly that her knuckles are turning white with the force of it. She’s pale and colorless.
My arm falls away from her shoulder, and I move in front of her, setting the coffees down on the counter. I’m pinned betweenit and her, leaving so little space that she has to tilt her chin all the way up to meet my eyes.
Hers are wide, a deer in the headlights. “You told him we would go to their wedding.”
I nod calmly. “You told him we’re dating.”
That was a shock, a defibrillator right to my heart. I’ve wanted to hear those words for so long, have had dreams about it for fifteen years, and when it finally happens, it’s all some kind of twisted joke to make her ex jealous.
I’m so damn gone for her that I’ll take even that little slice if it’s all she’ll ever give me.
She swallows, her throat working with the movement, and looks away, her eyes settling in the vicinity of my neck. “I did. I just…”
She trails off, and I fill in the silence. “Wanted to make him jealous.”
Her gaze shoots back up to mine, fire behind her eyes. “No.”
I raise an eyebrow in question, and it seems to fuel the fire, stoking it higher. Her jaw sets, and she steps back, putting space between us, although there isn’t much to be had. She crosses her arms over her chest, jaw ticking.
“I’m not trying to make him jealous,” she reiterates.
Maybe I just like making her mad, maybe it’s a welcome relief from that haunted look in her eyes a moment ago, because although I actually do believe her, I mirror her stance, arms crossed, and snort. “Yeah, okay.”
The last tinge of sadness evaporates from her expression. It’s replaced with hot anger, the kind I can feel in my veins, making my blood heat and my skin too tight. There’s nothing I love more in this world than arguing with Finley. It makes me feelalivein a way I only ever feel when putting out fires. When I’m covered in sweat and soot and know everything is on the line.
“This was stupid,” she says, each word spitting out like daggers. “He’s never going to believe the two of us are together anyway. We can’t even get through a conversation without fighting.”
I give her a smirk, the one I know always makes her see red. “I don’t know, Fin. He said he always knew there was something between us. Maybe he thinks all this bickering is pent-up…” I trail off, letting the words hang in the air. “Frustration.”
“I don’t think you allow any time forfrustrationto get pent up, Grey,” she shoots back.
My smile hitches higher, and I take a step in her direction. She falls back, moving until her back hits the wall. “Sounds like the words of someone who’s jealous.”
