Page 103 of All I Need

“Go. Grab your shit, maybe a few extra things in case I’m not ready to let you go, which is likely, and come back to me.”

“You’re not coming in?” she asks, halfway out the door.

“Nope. Miss Polly will think she needs the low down and I just want to get back home, get you naked again and play with that toy that’s been a substitute for me since we met.”

She stumbles then slams the door, rushing up the steps.

I take a quick second to check in with Willow while I’m waiting. Her last message to me about Grayson being home for the weekend was exactly the right timing but it also made me curious about what was going on.

She picks up on the second ring. “Hey.”

“Hey there. So what’s going on?”

“Just a second. Let me step outside.” A niggling in my stomach causes me to sit up a little higher. “So much has happened this weekend, Walker. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Everything okay with Grayson?” I ask urgently.

“Yeah. Well, I think so. He’s…”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Mick’s here.”

I sit back in my seat, not at all expecting her to say that. “No shit?”

“No shit. He’s… Walker, he’s moving to Liberty.”

Whoa. “Well that explains the odd behavior while we were in Chicago. He kept talking about how much he hates missing out on Grayson’s life. That there were changes coming.”

“He failed to mention just how big those changes are, though. He’s never once talked about moving here, Walker.”

“It’s not like you and Mick have ever been that close, though. You talk about Grayson and that’s about it,” I remind her of something she already knows. I have never asked for too many details on what went down with her and Mick but I’ve always had this suspicion that she liked him a little more than she first let on. One night stand or not, Willow was never the type to just jump into bed with someone. And since then, she’s been like me, dedicating her life to Grayson. Only, where I’ve dated here and there, she hasn’t. She said she wanted to focus on him.

“I know. I’m surprised, though. He’s never liked anything about small town living.”

“You had no idea this was happening?”

Her silence proves that she might have had some inclination. “Maybe I had a little bit of an idea.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You say that Mick and I haven’t been close but lately… we’ve been chatting. A little bit more. It started when Grayson began high school. There were just more things happening in his life that Mick needed to be aware of, you know? And then it kind of shifted.”

“Shifted, how?”

“I don’t know exactly. We talk almost every day, though.”

“So he’s not here just for Grayson. He’s here for you.”

“Maybe?”

“Holy shit.”

“That’s kind of what I thought, too.”

“Wow. So, what’s this mean? Where is he staying?”

“I think at first he kind of expected to stay here.”

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