Page 179 of Breaking Point
“I just need you,” he whispers before going back to staring out the window.
The seven minutes passes by far too quickly. In no time, I’m turning left into a driveway that leads to a quaint two-story house. The door opens before I have time to cut the engine.
Allie, Grayson’s mom, steps out of the house. She’s wearing a standard white T-shirt and light wash jeans, her soft blonde locks cut at her shoulders. Even from the car I can see her eyes have welled with tears.
But she doesn’t move, doesn’t push him.
It’s as if she’s seen a ghost.
A tear rolls down her ashen face, her chest heaving as a man, no doubt Grayson’s dad, Carlton, joins his wife. His own eyes are puffy and red as he wraps a supportive arm around Allie.
Grayson looks down at his hands, his eyes filling with tears. “I can’t do it.”
The words are so guttural they cleave my chest in two.
“You can. I’m right here, Grayson,” I say, clutching his hand, surprised that he holds onto it tightly like a lifeline. “I’m right here. It’s going to hurt at first, but it will lessen.”
“But—” His voice cracks, clogged with emotion. “What if they look at me and all they can see is the person who took their son?”
Arrangement rules be fucking damned when he’s sitting in my car looking as sad as he is. Placing my hand on his cheek, I force him to lift his head to mine, to lock those baby blues filled with guilt on my pleading browns.
“All they see is you, Grayson. Their beautiful, kind, caring son.”
He sucks in a deep breath before ripping his gaze from mine and forcing it to look at his childhood home. I know the second he sees his parents because his chest caves.
I’m not sure what does it, but in the next breath his shaking hand lifts to the door handle and pushes it open in one swift fluid motion.
I watch, transfixed, as Allie and Carlton hold their breaths until their son steps out of the car. And then they can’t hold back anymore.
A sob tears free from Allie’s chest, one so devastating it brings tears to my eyes. She flies down the driveway, throwing herself into Grayson’s arms.
“Thank you,” she whispers between sobs. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Grayson wraps his arms around her, burying his head in the crook of her shoulder despite the height difference. The movement elicits more heaving sobs from his mom and uncontrollable tears.
Carlton is more slow about his approach as if he can’t believe the sight before him. But it isn’t long before he’s wrapping his arms around his wife and son and crying too.
Grayson couldn’t step inside his childhood home.
Allie and Carlton didn’t push him, especially not when it looked like he had been sucker-punched as he tried to step through the door. No one asked why, but my best guess is that he isn’t ready to face the memories that come with the house.
The dinner table that Drew won’t sit at ever again. The family photos along the walls, the bedroom from Drew’s teen years. I don’t blame Grayson. Memories are beautiful, but they can turn on a dime.
It’s nowhere near the same, but after my dad left, I couldn’t gohome for weeks. My brain struggled to process that his boisterous laugh wasn’t going to greet me, and then my thoughts left me wondering if any of it was ever real for him. So I understand Grayson’s aversion.
He took a huge step today seeing his parents; he can take his time with the next.
Allie suggested a new family-owned restaurant that had opened in town and that’s where we are now, filling our bellies at five o’clock with shared plates of pasta and a large Margherita pizza.
Allie smiles at me over the top of the pizza, her eyes, so similar to Grayson’s glancing between me and him on my right. “So, how long have you two been dating?”
The pasta that I placed in my mouth goes down the wrong hole and Grayson, to his utter delight, rubs circles on my back. “The thought of that shouldn’t make you want to die, Blaze,” he whispers in my ear.
Before I can respond, Grayson is handing me a glass of water and turning to his parents. “Actually, Bella and I have a mutually beneficial agreement and despite my attempts to make her actually fall for me, Bella is sadly just my assistant.”
Allie and I are both looking at Grayson like he’s grown two heads.
“An arrangement?”
