Letting Go (13 page)

Ben Craft: How could you do this to us? We were supposed to be forever, Grey.

“No, no, no, no,” I whimpered. “Ben, no.”

“I don’t know how—Grey, what is it?” Jagger asked in a rush, reaching for my phone. I tightened my grip, but he somehow swiftly and gently pulled it from my fingers. “It’ll be okay, we’ll find out who did . . . what the hell? You sick fuck!” he roared out toward the street, and people turned to look at him. “Stop hiding, you have something to say, come and say it!”

Graham walked quickly over to where Jagger was turning in circles, his eyes looking suspiciously at everyone. Wrapping his arms around Jagger’s chest, he started pulling him back toward the car. “Calm down, man.”

“I swear to God I will find out who you are!” Jagger yelled at everyone, and yet no one.

“Calm down, Jagger,” Graham grunted as he released him. “Calm down and get Grey out of here.”

“This piece of paper came from
my
place. It was in my fucking house!” Jagger hissed at Graham, shoving the vows in his face. “You know I wouldn’t do this shit to her, now tell me how this got here. Tell me who took this!” he yelled back toward the street. Jagger bent into my open car door and took my chin between his fingers, his eyes were wild and his voice was harsh. “That is not Ben, Grey. Whoever it is, is sick and twisted, but it’s not him. Okay?”

I exhaled roughly and nodded my head once.

Everything about him softened as he continued looking at me. “I need to hear you say it. I need to know you believe it,” he whispered, pressing his lips softly to mine. “It’s not him, baby.”

“It’s not Ben,” I finally choked out, and Jagger released a ragged breath as he moved his hands to cradle my face, holding me close to him. “You had the vows?” I asked shakily. “W-why . . . why would you?”

He moved back far enough to look at me better and shook his head slowly. “He’d been working on them at my mom’s place the week before the wedding. He kept them there because he knew you’d look for them at his parents’ house.”

A startled laugh escaped my lips, because I
had
looked so many times in the days leading up to the wedding.

“I didn’t know if you’d want to see them . . . after . . . but I knew you would hate me if I got rid of them. So I’ve just been holding on to them until you were ready. I knew one day you would ask about them. But they—I mean, they were
hidden
in my loft so you wouldn’t stumble upon them, Grey. I don’t understand. No one else goes in there . . .”

My eyes widened. “I’m not doing this!” I said quickly. “I’m not doing this to myself, I swear to God, Jag, I’m not!”

“No, baby, no. That’s not what I was saying, I know you wouldn’t. Someone cruel is doing this, and I promise you I’m going to find out who. Okay?”

I nodded and he pressed a firm kiss to my lips.

“I need to get you out of here. Where do you want to go? Do you still want to come to my place, or do you want to go to your parents’ house?”

My mouth opened to say my parents’, but I quickly shut it. Part of me screamed that I’d just seen the vows Ben had been preparing for our wedding, and now I was betraying him by being with his best friend. But I realized that is what the person who stole the copy of the vows was trying to do; they were trying to separate me from Jagger. They were trying to make me take ten steps back in my healing from Ben’s death.

“Yours,” I whispered.

“All right. Let’s get you into the passenger seat, I’ll drive you over there.”

“What about your—”

“We can pick up my car later, it’s fine where it is. Just let me drive you.”

I don’t remember the drive to the warehouse, or going inside. Actually, I don’t remember much of that day at all except the fear of getting another message and cringing every time my phone went off. And most of all, wondering what Ben
would
say about us if he were here.

Chapter 10

Jagger

August 6, 2014

“
I
D
O
N
’
T
K
N
O
W
what you’re seeing, but that is not a dinosaur.” Glancing down at Grey when she giggled, I squinted at her, then looked closely into her gold eyes. “Are you stoned?”

“Shut up, Jag.” She pushed against my chest and kept one hand there to lightly trail her nails against my skin. “That is totally a T. rex! You’re just looking at it upside down.”

I looked back up at the clouds in the sky, and shook my head. “That’s not an upside-down T. rex either.”

Her free hand splashed water up at me, and I laughed. “Babe, seriously, if anything, that’s a tree.”

“You have no imagination.”

Leaning over her body, I brushed my lips just below her breasts and spoke against her skin. “I beg to differ.”

Grey’s hands went up to play in my hair as I placed soft kisses all over her stomach. “I see a T. rex, a bunny, a mug, and a heart. You think they all look like cotton candy or trees.”

“That just means I’m the sober one here.”

She tugged gently on my hair, but only sighed as she relaxed her head against the handles of the Jet Ski.

We’d gone out on a boat with a few friends from high school this morning to wakeboard, and I’d been prepared for it to be a disaster. In spite of her uncaring reaction when she saw Grey and me together, it didn’t stop me from waiting for LeAnn to say some bullshit to Grey. Even when LeAnn’s guy—a different one from the restaurant—went out on the water, LeAnn was talking with all the girls like they were just catching up.

After wakeboarding for a few hours, Grey and I had left them and rented a Jet Ski to spend some time alone before Grey had to get to work. We hadn’t even been on the water for thirty minutes when I’d had to cut off the engine because the way Grey’s hands were curling against my stomach had made it too hard to concentrate on anything else. She’d wiggled her way around me until she was sitting on my lap so she could lie back against the Jet Ski, and I’d been struggling to keep my hands and mouth only on places they’d already been. Her being in a bikini wasn’t helping my self-control . . . or lack thereof.

Given the way Grey had reacted a week and a half ago when Charlie showed up at my place, I’d been afraid she would regret what we’d been doing. But by the next day, she was back to normal. Staying pressed up against my side, giving me teasing kisses that would quickly build . . . it was how it had been, and I was glad we hadn’t gone back a few steps. But since the day she’d received the copy of Ben’s vows and the message from his Facebook account, I’d slowly watched her drift back into being the Grey I’d come to know so well over the last two years.

There were moments, like right then on the lake, but the rest of the time I’d find her staring off at nothing or she’d just slowly shut down and curl into a ball while gripping the ring around her neck. It was almost as if she’d remember the present and what I meant to her now, but then go back to cling to the past. Never moving on from the point we’d been at a week and a half ago, and going back a few steps for the majority of our days.

I didn’t
need
more from her physically. If she needed to go back and slowly build up to where we’d been, I would do that for her in a heartbeat. But with the amount of time each day she spent in the past, I knew we wouldn’t be starting over . . . I knew I was slowly losing the girl I’d had for what felt like only a few seconds.

I was slowly losing Grey completely.

She didn’t want to talk about Ben, she didn’t want to talk about what had happened . . . she just didn’t want to talk. She was the Grey she had been after Ben died, but this time she was shutting me out too. So for the few moments I still had her, I wasn’t wasting a single second. I wanted to have memories of the girl I’d waited for once that girl was completely gone.

“I have to go back soon,” she mumbled.

I sat up and looked over at the shore. “What time do you have to work today?”

“Four. So, probably an hour or so.”

“All right.” I grabbed her upper arms and pulled her toward me. “Get behind me and we’ll head in.”

“I said soon,” she said softly when she was sitting again, and I looked up at her heated stare as she gripped my waist and adjusted herself on my lap.

Releasing one of her arms, I slowly traced the line of her bikini top down to the swell of her breast, and raised one eyebrow when she sucked in a sharp breath. “And what do you want to do until
soon
is here?”

Before she could respond, the roar of an engine and the sounds of yelling filled the otherwise quiet spot on the lake, and I dropped my hand to look at the quickly approaching boat.

“Yeah! Get some!” one of the guys yelled as they passed us, and I kept my stare on them until they were too far away to see clearly, because I knew exactly what I would find in front of me. Anytime we were physically close and something interrupted us, she would look at the position we were in in a whole new light, and go back to being the Grey who was stuck in the past.

Finally, looking back at Grey, I gave her a tight-lipped smile and reached behind me for her life jacket as she sat there staring at my chest and gripping her necklace.

“Put this on, sweetheart, I’ll take you in.”

Grey barely said anything more than a mumble as we went in and I returned the Jet Ski, and I don’t think she even realized I wasn’t walking with her toward her car until she started to get in. She looked back to where we’d been, then looked over to where I was standing next to my car.

“I’ll see you later.” She said the words almost like a question, and I just nodded. Without another word, she got into her car and drove away.

I got into my car and dropped my head back against the headrest as I replayed the good parts of the day. But it was hard to remember anything when three words kept going through my mind like a broken record.

I’m losing her.

Grey

August 10, 2014

“
P
U
T
M
E
D
O
W
N
,
put me down, put me down!” I screeched as Jagger ran into the warehouse with me thrown over his shoulder a few days later. Before I could slap my hand against his back again, his hands were on my waist and he was bending over to throw me onto the couch.

“There. You’re down.” He smiled wickedly at me and stole a kiss, then stood up, but I grabbed his hand and yanked him back toward me.

“That was terrifying,” I murmured against his next kiss.

“I only almost dropped you once.”

“Exactly! You almost dropped me! I saw my life flash before my eyes.”

He smiled widely and pinched my side. “You’re being dramatic. I’m gonna go jump in the shower and change. Do you want to do the same when I’m done, or are you gonna head home?”

“I’ll jump in when you’re done.” I placed my hands on his bare stomach, and pushed him away. “Go shower, you smell like lake water.”

“And what do you think you’re making my couch smell like?” he countered as he walked backward toward the stairs.

“Cupcakes and rainbows?”

He stopped and gave me a look. “There is something in that water that makes you high, woman.”

I laughed and pointed up to the loft. “Go shower so I can too!”

As soon as I heard the water turn on, I got off the couch and went to find my purse where I’d dropped it near the door. Putting it on the bar top in the kitchen, I searched for my phone and texted my mom to let her know I was staying at Jagger’s for a while. I’d barely gotten the TV on when she responded, asking if we had protection.

I groaned and flipped through the channels until I found a movie, and had only been watching it for a couple minutes when Jagger came back down the stairs.

His skin was tan from spending so much time at the lake this summer, and it made the contrast of his black hair and green eyes just that much greater. I was still whiter than white, and praying I hadn’t burned anywhere. I blamed my dad’s Irish heritage.

“I left some clothes on the bed for you to change into,” Jagger said as he flopped down on the couch next to my feet.

“So now I’m going to smell like you?” I teased, and nudged his side with my toes.

He grabbed my foot and immediately started massaging it with his large hands. “Better than smelling like the lake.”

“Don’t lie,” I moaned through the foot rub. “You love that I smell like . . . fish.”

Jagger barked out a laugh and tossed my feet away from him. “That is not what you smell like, but now all I can think about is you smelling like fish. Go shower.”

“No. Foot rub!” I whined, and tried to put my feet back on his lap. He just continued laughing and pushing them away. “Please?”

Grabbing one of my hands, he pulled me up and pressed a soft kiss against my cheek before pushing me toward the edge of the couch. “When you come back.”

I sent him a pathetic look as I slowly stood up, and he leaned forward to grab me and pull me back down.

“Don’t pout, beautiful,” he whispered before placing his lips on my neck.

I tilted my head away and sighed softly. “I thought I smelled gross,” I said when he continued making a line of kisses down my neck.

I felt his smile against my skin, then he said, “I never said ‘gross.’ I said ‘lake.’ You took it to another level with ‘fish.’ ” Jagger bit down gently on the base of my throat, and his hand gripped the back of my thigh when he moved lower.

My breathing was uneven by the time he made it back up to my lips, and the hand that had been gripping my thigh slowly moved up to grab the side tie of my bikini bottom. Pulling until it came undone, he reached under my shirt to undo one of the ties of my top, then the other. I was still wearing my shorts and tank top, but I knew I would be pulling them off soon if he didn’t do it himself, and suddenly I wanted that shower. I didn’t want to smell gross if things were heading in this direction.

“Um, I . . . shower—I should shower,” I stuttered.

“Then go shower,” he challenged.

It took another few moments before I was able to gather the will to move away from him, and the only thing that had given me the strength to do so was knowing that I wanted to smell clean.

“Five minutes,” I shouted as I ran up the stairs, his low laugh following me.

I’d never showered that thoroughly
that
quickly in my life. Barely giving myself time to dry off and towel-dry my hair, I ran into the loft and put on the clothes that were sitting on the end of the bed. I glanced down at the boxers and long shirt I was wearing, and fought with myself for a minute about whether or not I should take off the boxers. But I had nothing underneath, and I knew if I went down like that, Jagger would think I wanted something.

Something I knew I did in fact want but wasn’t sure I was ready for yet. I wanted him, I wanted his hands on me, but that still didn’t stop the fear of finally giving myself to him. By the time I stopped arguing with myself and was on my way down the stairs, I still had the boxers on and was trying not to seem as eager to get back to him as I was.

“That was longer than five minutes,” he said with his signature lopsided smile when I made it down the stairs.

“Hey, at least I’m clean.”

“And looking amazing,” he murmured as he reached for my hand and pulled me down so I was sitting on his lap.

“Amazing?” I asked against his lips. “Somehow I doubt that.”

Jagger leaned back and gave me a look. “You have no idea how amazing you look in my clothes.”

The gravel in his voice was enough to make a shiver go through my body, and I sat up to crush my mouth against his. His hand slowly ran up and down my legs, each time going a little higher, but nowhere near high enough. I wanted to ask him to touch me, but couldn’t find my voice even though the words were repeating in my head. Pushing away from him without ever breaking the kiss, I slid one leg over his lap so I was straddling him, and slowly rocked my hips against him.

His hands went to my hips to press me harder against him, and a low growl rumbled up his chest as I continued rocking against him. Jagger dropped his head and slowly ran his nose between my breasts before moving over to suck on one of my nipples through the shirt.

My phone chimed from where I’d left it on the other side of the couch, but I ignored it until it chimed again, and again, and again.

Jagger lifted his head and looked over for a second before reaching for it.

“It’s probably just my mom.” I leaned forward to kiss his jaw, and couldn’t stop the giggle that sounded in my throat when I said, “She asked me earlier if we had protection, and I never responded.”

Jagger’s body went rigid, and the hand that was still on my hip gripped tighter. “Grey,” he breathed.

I sat back quickly at his tone to look at him. I’d been expecting him to laugh or look embarrassed because of my mom, but instead he looked like someone had just beaten the shit out of him. He looked weak, exhausted, and pale.