Page 92 of Falling Into Forever
Kate: How the hell is this helping?
Me: She’s happy, Kate. Let her be happy and let me spin this in her favor.
Kate: …
Me: Trust me. I love her and I’m not going to let anything hurt her.
I watch the three dots appear and disappear six times before she replies.
Kate: Fine.
Shaking my head, I flip back to the web page I had open. “TMZ has the pictures already.”
Grady leans into my space to watch as I scroll.
Someone caught a picture of us after I got Saylor with the chocolate balloon. We’re face to face, smiling, and I swear the love shines over us like a halo. But it’s her eyes and the story they tell that gives me goosebumps.
“You can’t fake that kind of love,” Grady says. His words are thick with emotion, and he pulls back to stare at the clouds moving overhead.
“No, you can’t,” I reply, then scroll to the next picture. This one shows Poppy from behind, but I’m focused on the expressions Grady and Lena are wearing.
I turn to him, then back to the picture. If Saylor and I were emitting love, these two are shouting something else entirely, but it’s not hate on their faces. What the hell is it?
Holding my phone up so Grady can see, I ask, “Do you know Lena?”
His eyes pinch at the corners before he focuses on me. When he sees the picture, he pauses for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for a landslide of emotions to cross his face. “No. Not any—no. I don’t knowher.”
I watch him closely, but he shuts down quicker than Saylor.
“Listen, Grady. I don’t want to break this truce or bro bonding…”
“We arenotbro bonding.”
“Fine, I don’t want to disrupt whatever this is,” I say, gesturing between us. “But Lena is my family. The only real family I’ve had since losing Saylor and Ainsley. If something’s going on…”
“There’s not. I told you. I don’t knowher.”
The way he says it has my spine tingling. “If you don’t know her…”
“I knew her brother. A long time ago, when I lived in California. Before I moved home.”
My brows rise in surprise before the rest of me catches up. “That’s a hell of a coincidence. How do you know Asher?”
Grady shakes his head, then stands. “Not that brother. The other one. Luke.”
He walks away, leaving me more confused than ever. Lena doesn’t have a brother named Luke.
I stand too, ready to talk to Lena, but Harrison intercepts me before I reach the porch.
“How did I miss the party? I saw the photos online. What the hell, man? My pretty face would look great on TMZ. Luckily, there’s a few rando’s still hanging out in the front.” He kisses his fingers like a chef’s kiss and I chuckle. Does anything ever bother this guy?
“It was impromptu,” I say, trying to get around him. But the thing about Harrison is he has a way of getting you to do things before you realize you’re doing them.
Which is how I end up on the beach with him, building a makeshift fire pit, while Grady and Lena deal with the throng of people Harrison invited over.
“You know, you’re not supposed to invite people to someone else’s house.”
“Nah, Sassy doesn’t mind. It’ll be a warm-up for the Fourth of July. She hasn’t been to that in years. Consider this a pre-party to help acclimate her to us again.”
