Page 72 of Waiting for Her

“I mean a break from story time.” How I’m able to speak calmly, I’m not sure. What I want to do is track down this fucker and finish off whatever Jack did to stop him from hurting Bri. I’m hoping he used some form of fists.

“Oh. I’m sorry. Was it…”

I stand up and hold my hand out to her. “Bri, stop it. I needed to hear everything. It’s a lot to take in. Let’s take Rocky for a walk.”

The second he hears the word ‘walk,’ his ears perk up and he races to the door where his leash hangs.

“Oh! Okay, yeah. That would be good.”

I look down at her feet and notice she’s still in flip flops. They’re not the flimsy rubber kind, but they’re not the most supportive, either. “Want to put on sneakers?”

She quirks a brow at me. “Are we planning to do some speed walking? A quick 5K? I think I’ll be alright in these.”

“Glad to see you never lost your smart ass.”

She smirks but it’s her next move that takes me by complete surprise. She lifts up on her toes, bringing our joined hands behind her so my hand is resting on the small of her back and kisses me on the cheek, lips lingering on my skin for a few seconds.

When she lowers herself, our hands are still in the same position, our bodies so close together I can feel her chest rise and fall. I want to wrap my other arm around her and say fuck it all to taking Rocky on a walk.

“Thank you, Grady.”

“For?”

“Listening. Not judging me. Being honest about your feelings, especially when you have every right to be angry with me for not speaking to you for six years.”

I shift, framing her face in the palms of my hands, and lean down, letting my forehead rest against hers.

“Don’t you get it, yet, Bri?”

“Get what?”

“It doesn’t matter what happened in your past. Whatmistakesyou made. My love for you, it doesn’t have a beginning or an end. I would have waited for you forever.”

Bri

Rocky’s pulling onhis leash, anxious to smell everything in his path. He walks five feet then smells a tree or blade of grass. I already feel a great kinship with him. I get distracted easily too.

He stops and pees on a rock then sniffs his own pee to make sure he’s still claimed it as his own. Maybe I don’t havethatmuch in common with him.

My arm brushes against Grady’s every few steps we take, but he makes no move to stop our constant touching, so I don’t either.

If I thought my eyes felt like sandpaper when I woke up this morning, now they feel like sawdust mixed with broken glass was sprinkled directly into my eyes. Reliving those two ugly years was exactly as hard as I knew it would be. But Grady deserves to know everything that happened.

“Can I ask you another question?” he asks, pulling back on Rocky’s leash to keep him on the sidewalk as best he can.

“Of course.”

“It’s not really a question, more like a confirmation.”

“Grady, whatever it is you’re wondering, I promise to be honest with you.”

“The reason you stayed away… it was because you were ashamed and embarrassed?”

“Yes and no. I wasn’t the same person you knew me as. The anorexia, it messed with me in so many ways. I had to give myself time to become mentally and physically healthy again. I knew you deserved that much. But so did I. One of the things I learned about during therapy while I was in treatment for anorexia—”

“Treatment?”

“Yes. Jack gave me exactly two days at home. Kept my mom and Andy informed of what was happening. Kept the boys away even though they were dying to get to Peoria and go after Trent. Anyway, he gave me two days at home to cry, to think. Then he said he was taking me to a treatment facility for people with eating disorders. With Lily’s connections as a social worker, she knew which facility would be best for me.”

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