Page 54 of Things I Wish I Said
I glance behind us to find Mom peering out the living room window. She offers me a little wave, which I return with one of my own and an eye roll.
“You’re right.”
Grayson smirks, his expression smug at being right, which is surprisingly . . . hot.
I refocus my attention, trying not to dwell on the warmth of his hand or the rough scrape of his calluses on my palm as I catch sight of his car and gawk.
I still know very little about Grayson, and even less about his family, but I can glean a lot about him from his car because the sleek black BMW tells me they have money. Lots of it.
I whistle, and Grayson grimaces as if embarrassed. “It was a graduation present,” he mumbles.
“Damn.” I think about the blanket my mother gave me. It was a patchwork quilt made of all the soccer jerseys I’ve worn since I was a child for every team and tournament I ever played in up until that point.
I absolutely loved it.
Until I didn’t.
Now every time I look at it, I get depressed.
A surge of self-consciousness falls over me as I wonder what Grayson thinks of my house, the tiny dining room table, and the beater car I drove in to his game.
He doesn’t strike me as judgmental, but it’s hard not to draw comparisons when they’re so blatantly obvious.
“Maybe we should’ve stayed and hung out awhile longer,” he says, drawing me from my thoughts. “I think it was going really well.”
I pause in front of his car, eyeing him with a raised brow because I know what this is about, and it’s not about pleasing my mother. “And skip the party?”
When he doesn’t answer, I laugh and poke him in the chest, but there’s zero give. It’s nothing but muscle. “Yeah, I’m onto you, and we’re not skipping this party.”
His hopeful smile fades.
“The first rule of thumb when it comes to lying,” I say, trying not to stare at his mouth, “is not to oversell. The shorter, the better. And trust me, it did go well, which is exactly why it’s time to leave.”
“Yeah?”
He seems pleased by this, and I wonder if I’m wrong. Maybe he doesn’t just want to skip the party.
I'm not sure how to feel about that. I should be glad he’s as invested in this as I am, but for some reason, this knowledge stretches inside my chest like a balloon filling the space where they took a chunk of my lung, with something warm and fuzzy I don’t recognize.
Something more dangerous than cancer.
“My mother let me out of the house to a party with people she doesn’t know where there may or may not be alcohol. That’s practically a damn miracle.”
“I guess you’re right.”
I round his car and Grayson follows, opening my door for me and waiting until I’m inside to shut it. “Such a gentleman,” I tease.
He answers with a smile, and I let myself imagine what it would be like if this date were real—if Grayson was actuallyinterested in me. If things were different and I weren’t sick, I might stand a fighting chance. What’s scarier is that I’d want to.
Ripping my thoughts from the gutter, I glance around me, looking for some imperfection—something about Grayson De Leon I can’t stand, but find nothing. His car is meticulously clean and smells of leather and cologne with a hint of cigarette smoke I shockingly don’t mind.
“Are you sniffing my car, Sinclair?” Grayson asks, a hint of amusement in his tone as he pulls out into the street.
“It smells like you.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Definitely a good thing. “Jury’s still out,” I say.
