Page 45 of Just Let Go

“Seriously?”

“It was a joke. Sheesh.” He plopped down on the sofa as she flipped a few lights on. She was aware that he was watching her,but she was the only other person in the room. What else was he supposed to look at?

She moved to the kitchen and filled her coffee carafe with water. “Do you take your coffee black?” She’d called out so he’d hear her from the living area, but when she turned around, she found him standing at her kitchen counter. “What are you doing?”

“You’re being nice to me,” he said. “That’s not like you.”

She had no idea why, but the comment amused her, and she had to look away before he saw the smile on her face. “Go back and sit down. I’ll bring you some coffee when it’s ready.”

He tipped his head to the side and shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

But he didn’t go back and sit down. Instead, he started walking around the loft, looking at her decorations, touching knickknacks, making her nervous. He held up a framed photo that was on a shelf of her entertainment center. “This is the same picture on the wall downstairs.”

He remembered that?

“Who is it?”

She moved into the living room, took the photo from him, and put it back on the shelf where it belonged. “It’s nothing.”

“Obviously it’s something or you wouldn’t have two copies of it.”

She didn’t want to talk about her mother—not with anyone, but especially not with Grady. Somehow she thought it would make her horribly unattractive, admitting that her own mother didn’t want her.

Not that she wanted Grady to find her attractive. It just wasn’t a subject she discussed.

“Sit down.” She gave him a push and he fell onto the couch.

“You’re bossy.”

“Yes, I am. You’d be smart to start listening to me.” She walked back into the kitchen and poured him a cup of coffee, struggling not to feel off-kilter about the turn this night had taken. She knew herself. She liked rules and thrived on routine. Having Grady Bensonin her loft was against the rules and certainly not in her routine, which was quite possibly why the whole situation had her on edge.

She’d only made him coffee because it’s what people in the movies made for drunk people when they were attempting to sober them up. At this point, however, she might be better off to let him pass out on her couch and call it a night.

She handed him the mug, and he set it on the table beside the couch without taking a drink.

“I’m curious about you,” he said. “You’re not like most girls.”

She should probably be enough of a modern woman to take that as a compliment, but somehow it nicked a nerve—the I’m-not-pretty-enough nerve. But she had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the way she looked.

“You’re different.”

“Why, because I don’t throw myself at you?” She had no idea where that came from, and she regretted it as soon as she said it.

He, however, found it amusing and laughed. “That’s part of it.” He leaned his head back on the sofa, forearm resting on it. “My sponsor dropped me.”

She quietly sat down on the other end of the couch.

“Been with them ten years and they cut me off—” he snapped his fingers—“just like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, realizing she actually meant it.

He shook his head. “It’s my own fault. I’ve got a temper. I don’t listen to my coaches. I’m always trying to do it my own way.”

“Sounds like a bunch of stuff you’ve heard other people say about you.”

He moved his arm and looked at her, sinking a little bit lower in his seat. “It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

She gave a soft shrug. “I don’t know.”

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