Page 44 of Only for Love

There’s a gravity to his voice that rolls through me. Three years have passed since he broke my heart. Three weeks since Randall confirmed Grayson had died.

Gray was supposed to be my best friend. He was supposed to be the one I loved forever. But he never saw the tears stream down my face. Never knew the hurt and humiliation and anguish. He just disappeared into the night, and I had to hear from the county gossip machine that he was in boot camp at Fort Benning. I didn’t even know if it was true. I even thought about just showing up there one day.

I cried myself to sleep for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for him to call, to explain. To do something that would show I hadn’t been in love with a soulless liar. But I was.

And still, I am.

Pathetic.

“You there?” His voice is deeper. Darker, as if he’s damaged. There’s something to it, almost as if I can touch the coarseness running through him.

“I’m here.” I can’t hang up. An overwhelming hope bleeds through me, wishing that somehow, errors of the past will magically mend.

“Been a while.”

I’m wordless.

He mumbles something, and it sounds as though his hand runs over his mouth. I can picture him threading his fingers into his hair.

“You’re mad. I get it. I deserve it, that’s the goddamn truth.”

Mad? Is he kidding me? I survived my freshman year at community college while pregnant, a newborn’s constant waking while pushing myself to workthreejobs, then I mourned him.Mourned!

“I’m not mad. I’m—” I take a deep breath, trying to fend off a screwed-up mixture of vicious anger and nervous breakdown. “I’m at work.”

“We gotta talk.”

What?My shirt is strangling me. My stockings are too tight. Coming unglued seems too easy, and I hurt, so deeply and so raw, that I’m shaking. Crumbling.

“Emma?”

Two options: talk or hang up. But I do neither. I’m in shock. Like clinical what-the-fuck-do-I-do-now shock. I swallow the knot in my throat and force my mind-mouth connection to forge something. Anything. “I’m here.”

I want to sound mature. Maybe even unaffected. At the very least, I want to sound as if the tornado that is my life didn’t start the night he walked away. The love of my life—whom I hate—has come back from the dead? All I want to do is kill him! Or maybe hug him. I don’t know.

“Hell, Ems,” he growls. “I’m sorry.”

My lips pull between my teeth as I fail to ignore the shivers skimming across my shoulders. He sounds like a man. Like sex and heat. His words coat me, holding me, and I hate my visceral response to just his voice.

But it’s been years… “You don’t get to call me Ems. Never. Not again. No one calls me that.” Even though it’s one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard. If a word could hug and forgive,Emscould do that.

Grayson’s breath drifts into the phone and whisks over me, stirring me to the point that I can’t stand. I head to the intern office space, and my chair catches me as I fall, wondering the whys and the nows of this call. No matter what I think, I can’t muster enough of a regret to hang up.

“Emma…”

As it turns out, my drawn-out first name has the same sinful effect as “Ems.” I hate it—and really don’t. “What?”

“I need a minute.” As fast as my heart rate picks up—I’m nervous and protective of my world—he tacks on a growly, “please.”

The word has just enough sweet Grayson Ford attached to it. Memories tumble through my mind, all ignited by his rough, graveled timbre. I pinch the bridge of my nose, knowing I should be angry. Ishould bea woman scorned. But I’m not. I’ve always had the hope that this call might happen. And God, when I thought he’d died, I fell apart.

“The guy you knew… he’s gone. But some things don’t change, Emma, and you saving me is one of them.”

My heart can’t decide whether to pound or clench. It’s hurting. I’m reliving the million pieces of my shattered heart that I’ve hidden. Despite his haunting memories and living paycheck to paycheck, my life is good right now. Maybe it’ll be better if he stays the unrequited dream-come-true that I dance for every Wednesday. At least that way, I’ll never know what it’s like to be devastated twice in a lifetime.

“Okay. I’ll lay it out for you,” Grayson says. “I have… regrets.”

That pulls me out of my head. “Regrets?”Regrets! “Are you kidding me?” My blood pressure rises, and I can’t even fathom a response. I just… he hasnoidea. Holy shit, I can’t breathe. “Shut up, Gray. Don’t say anything else.”

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