Page 85 of Just Let Go

“What did you say would happen?” Grady sat there, looking a little too comfortable, as if he was perfectly fine with all of it. But Quinn wasn’t fine.

“Nothing,” Carly said.

“This. You and Jaden.” Quinn should stop talking. She heard a tiny voice inside her tell her so, but she swatted it away. “The way he idolizes you. You are not the kind of man a fifteen-year-old boy should be looking up to.”

Grady’s face fell.

“Quinn, stop,” Carly said.

Quinn pressed her lips together, as if that could keep the words from spilling out.

“No, don’t stop,” Grady said. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

“One who takes drunk girls he hardly knows home with him and then doesn’t call them the next day,” Quinn said, her voice a loud whisper. “I’m betting you don’t even remember her name.”

Grady started to respond but quickly snapped his jaw shut.

She made sure her expression appropriately conveyed her satisfaction.

Grady leaned across the table, toward her. “I didn’t sleep with her if that’s what you think.”

Quinn’s eyes widened. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Why wouldn’t you believe that? It’s the truth.”

“Because I read all about your love life, Grady. You’ve got a new girl on your arm in almost every non-skiing photo there is of you on the Internet.”

Did I just say that out loud?

“So what? That doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with all of them,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“No!” He straightened, something like anger flashing across his face.

His response took her aback. Wasn’t he? That’s the way every website made it sound—Grady Benson was a playboy, a womanizer, and he’d left a trail of lovers in his wake.

“Why do you care anyway?” he asked.

“I don’t.” But even she knew it was a lie.

And the fact that she did care was every bit as maddening as the man himself.

CHAPTER

20

SUNDAY MORNING,Quinn awoke early. She didn’t want to get out of her bed, go to church, or do any of the things she normally did on Sundays.

She wanted to crawl into a hole. She’d made such a fool of herself last night she could hardly stand it, and knowing that both Jaden and Carly had been there to witness it made everything that much worse.

After her childish outburst and public argument with Grady, everyone around the table had grown tense. Jaden had tried to lighten the mood with talk of skiing, but Grady looked like he’d rather be chewing on nails than sitting there one more minute. She was lucky he didn’t drive off without all of them, and honestly, she was kind of surprised he didn’t.

Now, lying in her warm bed, her body ached from putting it through the task of skiing, using muscles she didn’t even know she had, and she thought she might die from humiliation.

Sunday. Church at The Pointe, Harbor Pointe’s largest smallchurch, and then brunch at her dad’s. Hopefully Carly had a conflict. She did not want to rehash last night’s disaster.

After she showered, she sat down with a bowl of oatmeal and flipped open her laptop. Her Facebook newsfeed was lame on all counts, but she tried to keep up on the latest with her friends and her community. Plus, it was a great distraction.

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