Page 134 of Built to Fall
“Do you want to?—”
He shakes his head, pulling me up with him as I stand. “That was enough for tonight.”
“Okay.”
Grant heads toward the bathroom. I can only assume what he’s going in there to do.
And he confirms when he says, “Give me a few minutes to sort this, and then you can take a shower if you want.”
I don’t say anything while he shuts the door behind him. Mostly because I’m trying not to imagine Grant jerking off while I sit naked in his bed. It’s too good of an image, and it makes me want to do things I know I shouldn’t.
Instead, I lie back against his pillow, hearing the shower begin running as my eyes drift shut. I must not fall asleep forlong because I stir back awake at the sound of the faucet cutting off.
A few moments later, the door opens again. He’s wearing sweatpants now, no shirt, and damp hair falling into his eyes. He looks casual—like nothing’s changed. But I know better.
Everything has.
And yet, I don’t even care that I’m still naked and he’s not. It doesn’t feel strange or awkward because Grant makes me feel completely at ease. Even these moments of vulnerability feel safe.
“You feeling okay?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s unsure if he’s allowed to ask.
“Yeah.”
He steps into the doorframe, leaning against it and crossing his arms while he continues to examine me, watching me as though he can read between my every blink and breath. “Good, because you deserved to feel that a long time ago.”
My eyes are begging to fall closed again when I get up and pass him in the doorway. He exits, I enter. The dance we’ve been doing for months, only now it’s choreographed with the feelings blooming in my chest when I look at him. Ones that make me wonder if I’m ever going to be the same, or if Grant has already forced himself into a crevice of my life, carving himself a home in my chest and making himself a permanent fixture.
I quickly use the bathroom, and when I crawl back into bed next to Grant, I’m only wearing my black lace underwear.
Grant lifts the blanket without a word, and when I crawl underneath, I’m instantly drawn toward the warmth radiating from his skin. He must feel the same way because his arm rounds my rib cage, pulling me in close.
For the longest time, I thought we were building a routine and nothing more.
But now, even in silence, every moment feels like a brick being laid carefully between us: our closeness, his skin against mine, and the echoes of things we’ve never said out loud.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
GRANT
The roaring of the crowd in the Yale football stadium is near deafening as we exit the field after one of the best games we’ve had all season. My pads dig into my shoulders as I jog toward the tunnel, the cheers chasing us all the way down.
Adrenaline is still heavy in my bloodstream as I make it out of the locker room and into the corridor outside, where all my friends are waiting. The hallway hums with voices and laughter, crowded with friends, family, and flashes of blue and white jerseys.
Savannah’s laughing about something Delaney said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder in that effortless way that usually gets her anything she wants. She’s practically glowing under the dim lights, the tiny rhinestones on her jeans catching every time she moves.
Kenzie is standing next to them, bouncing on the balls of her feet, looking back and forth between her phone and the locker room door.
Cam and Braxton head toward the three of them, their helmets swinging from their fingers. Yet, I’m stuck glancing around the room, looking for a person I’m not expecting to see.
Lina.
For the past couple of months, that girl has found a way to fill space in my mind that I didn’t realize I had to spare, and it’s only gotten more consuming since Martha’s Vineyard.
The way she sat across from me in the living room of the beach house and admitted she’d never come before made my entire body burn with resentment toward whatever dickhead she had been dating.
And only a few nights later, she was letting me give her an earth-shattering orgasm while she melted into my lap.
And it wasn’t just that. It was the way shelit upwhen we went to Martha’s Vineyard, like something inside her had finally breathed again after holding its breath for too long. It’s almost as if for the first few months I knew her, she was a shellof the person she usually was.
