Page 69 of Falling Into Forever
Brutal, unrelenting stares.
Then this bear of a man does the last thing I expect. He laughs. Loudly. “Good enough,” he says and a smile slides across my face like a proud parent.
This is the side of small towns I was never part of before, and witnessing it now is fascinating. But as much as I want to follow the other drama they’re now discussing, something about a yoga studio owner and Miller, their voices become muted when my gaze catches on Saylor, sitting alone at the bar.
She’s as far away from the crowd as she can get, but she’s turned sideways, so the tiny dip of her lip is more pronounced. When the magnetism we wear like a tether calls her to me, she glances over her shoulder, and there’s no mistaking her sadness.
She shifts her focus from me to Cassie standing in front of the crowd, and the chasm between Saylor and life has never had a more heartbreaking visual.
“Well, this was one hell of a welcoming committee.” Harrison chuckles.
Pinning Saylor with my gaze, I say, “Welcoming committee? It felt more like an interrogation.”
I hear a rumble that means Grady is holding in a growl. When I turn to him, his neatly cropped beard enhances the twitch of his jaw. “This is the kind of welcome you get when those who care about you are sick of you fucking up your life for a stupid-ass reason.”
“And,” Harrison says with a playful shrug, “all the ladies are in the book club. We’re bored. Plus, you deserve a little heckling after the shit you’ve pulled. Consider it your initiation back into town.”
These guys are something else.
“What they’re saying,” Adam says while pushing his glasses up his nose, “however ineloquently, is people around here missed you. Keep that in mind before you run off again.”
“Since when did you all become therapists?” I ask, but there’s a hint of wry amusement in my tone too.
“When everyone forgot what matters in life.” Grady stares straight ahead as he speaks, but the ghosts he keeps hidden shadow his expression.
He’s not only talking about me—he’s talking about himself. Then he blinks, and all emotion is erased from his gaze. “Deal the cards, Harrison, and don’t fucking cheat. I’ll be back with beers.”
He stands abruptly, and I watch him walk away. What the hell was that about?
Grady hides behind his gruff exterior, but one thing is clear—he cares about everyone, even when he doesn’t want to.
“You heard the man. Spread out and put your money where I can see it. The girls took the round high-tops to the tasting room, so we’re stuck with the jury table.” Harrison chuckles then waggles his brows at me. “Now, tell us how you plan to get the girl.”
I groan. “When the hell did you turn into a teenage girl?”
James shifts uncomfortably in his chair and says, “If you love her, fight. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t.”
He has no idea that I’ve already learned that lesson the hard way.
CHAPTER19
SAYLOR
“Were you nervous about writing this story or secretly hoping he’d read it and come home?” Mrs. Winters asks.
“No, Mrs. Winters.” Even moving across the room hasn’t stopped her incessant questions.
No one told me until tonight that over sixty percent of this book club are also members of Senior-Cycle. Something must happen when you hit seventy that activates yourno fucks left to givebutton, because everyone my age gives me a wide berth.
Well, everyone except Cassie, but she has the people-pleasing gene like Dante.
I don’t suffer the same affliction.
“But the sexy times in the gazebo during a rainstorm. Someone must know if that actually happened,” Mrs. Walker says, fanning herself.
Mr. Walker sits beside her, pretending not to be interested, but he reads these books faster than anyone, and I can see his detested hearing aids from here. Plus, he’s my best customer.
“What did Dante think when he read them?” someone else asks, and sweat trickles down my spine.
