Page 26 of Built to Fall
As I scan his body, I take in his tall frame, unbothered and entirely too confident. His hoodie hangs loose over his torso, but it does nothing to hide the way he’s built, like he belongs on a field somewhere, mid-game.
He looks down at me with a half-amused, half-concerned expression. “Will you back off the fence?”
I don’t reply. I turn my face back toward the wood instead, waving him off.
“Come on.” His hand wraps fully around my bicep, attempting to pull me away from the edge of the yard.
“Will you leave me alone?” I ask, my voice filled with venom as I rip my arm out of his grasp. “I don’t need your help.”
“Hear that, Sav?” Grant turns back toward the girl who I was talking with a few minutes ago. “She doesn’t need my help.”
Savannah slaps him in the arm. “Don’t be an ass.”
There’s a small smirk on his face, although a small glimmer of concern pokes through. “You’re drunk, puking in my backyard, looking like you’re about to pass out. Not exactly the best look.”His backyard? He lives in our apartment complex.
A bitter laugh rises in my throat. “No need to take up the gentleman act now.”
“Jesus.” He runs a hand down his face. “You’re really a pain in the ass, you know that?”
Savannah scowls at him. “Grant?—”
“Then leave me here,” I tell him with the same biting tone.
He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Instead, I feel one of his arms come around my back, while the other lifts under my thighs. He lifts me gently, too gently for someone who acts like I’m such an inconvenience, yet he can’t help himself and his apparent savior complex.
“Come on,” he says, voice low.
Grant Vandenberg is carrying me through the backyard, and for a split second, I’m okay with it. It feels like a paradox I can’t disprove or an equation where I can’t isolate the variable. It defies every logical part of me.
And I should know better. I should know better than to trust something that doesn’t add up on paper. But I’m also drunk, so maybe in some logical sense, my intoxication is to blame.
I push at his chest. “I said I’m fine.”
His grip only tightens on me. His tattooed hands firmly grasp my thighs, making it obvious that he’s not letting me go.
“You’renotfine.” His jaw ticks. “I just watched you almost eat shit walking down the steps of the deck before Savannah came over here. I might be an asshole, but I’m not the type to let a girl get taken advantage of because she can’t control her liquor intake.”
“I saw at least three girls doing lines of coke on the front porch. Why don’t you go take care of them?”
His body tenses. “I don’t mess with drugs or the people who do them.”
The shift in tone is out of character for what I know about him. All signs are pointing toward there being something deeperthere; I’m just not sure what. I won’t figure it out solely based on emotion cues, either.
“You do know steroids are drugs, right?”
“Why would I need those if I’m riding the bench?” he quickly retorts.
“Do you want me to come with you, or can you get her back safe?” Savannah asks from behind us, her two friends now with us.
Grant shakes his head. “I can handle her.”
“You wish,” I say with a pointed glare.
He sounds just as entertained. “Is that a challenge?”
I scoff, refusing to respond. In fact, part of me has forgotten that I’m still in his arms as he carries me through the yard and back into the house. “Where are you taking me?”
“Back to your apartment.”
