Page 78 of Always Been Yours

I love her crazy ass but he’s right. She isn’t leaving us with a lot of rules tonight.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Vivi

I’ve been laying in the dark for who knows how long. After Grady dozed off, I figured it was time for me to go to sleep too. Except I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t think going to my own room would help the problem. It probably would’ve only made it worse.

Instead, I’ve been laying on the air mattress, staring at the ceiling. My mind has been ping-ponging between different thoughts without any sort of coherent direction. But it keeps coming back to that one year when it was storming on the last day of school, so Tim set us up in their living room. We were still in elementary school, far too young to even begin to understand romantic feelings, but it was the one, and only, sleepover Grady and I got to have alone. Not including the times we snuck into each other’s rooms. We never meant to stay the night together those times.

Since we laid down tonight, we’ve stayed close with our sides touching while we watched TV, but neither one of us crossed that line, despite everything.

Another thing my mind keeps going to: did that last conversation change something between us? Rationally, I know that seems crazy. He’s been so open about everything that it seems unlikelythat he’d be swayed by my own complex history.

That doesn’t calm my insecurities though. The ones that tell me I’m too much. My history is too convoluted. That no matter what, I’ll never be loved in the way I’ve spent my life dreaming. In the way I grew up watching Tim love Selena. That not even Grady could want me, despite all the broken pieces.

And I don’t think I could stand to lose Grady again. Not now.

Maybe I haven’t fully confessed my feelings toward him, but we crossed a line tonight. I put my trust in him and if he pulls away now? I’ll never recover this time.

“What are you thinking about?”

I turn my head toward his voice. “Aren’t you sleeping?”

“I was. Your thoughts were too loud, they woke me up.” I can hear more than see the playful smirk gracing his face.

“You tell me what they’re saying then.”

“It sounded like gibberish.”

I chuckle quietly. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what it’s like all the time.”

He pauses for a few seconds. “Can I hold you?”

“Yes,” I whisper, pulling in close to him. “You don’t have to ask.”

He wraps his strong arms around me, instantly making me feel safe. “I do. I don’t want to push you too far after everything this weekend. Those weren’t my intentions when I showed up this morning.”

I smile even though he can’t see it. “I know that. Quite the difference from last night, huh?”

“Yeah,” he mutters but I can feel him smiling against my forehead. “Is that a bad thing though?”

I consider this, letting my hand trail up to his jaw and run my fingers through the short hair there. “No, not bad. Probably good, right?”

“Probably, yes. Do you think you can sleep now?” He kisses my nose.

I turn around, spooning him. “If you hold me like this, then yes. I think I can fall asleep.”

It isn’t lost on me that we could go to my bedroom and sleep on an actual mattress. But I’m not ready for… that. That sort of vulnerability.

Grady hasn’t asked yet. He hasn’t really pushed me at all. He’s been patient in a way that only Grady ever has been with me. He’s taken all of thenext stepsbut waits until I make it pretty clear that’s what I want.

But right now, in his arms, I want more. I wanthim.

He says that he’ll be here as long as I want but he’s wrong.

I’m at his mercy whether he knows it or not.

I want all of him even if I’m too scared to ask for it.

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