Page 5 of Triple Play
“Sure there is.” He takes a drink from the bottle of bourbon he’s carrying but doesn’t offer it to me. He just stares at the fire like it holds answers.
He’s different tonight. He has been different for months, actually. Since Mason died.
I don’t know what to say about that. About the fact that his identical twin is gone while Grant walks around like a ghost of himself. So I don’t say anything.
We sit in silence. The party noise fades behind us—Teddy’s drunken laugh, someone’s terrible playlist, the sounds of people who aren’t carrying the weight of dead brothers and unspoken feelings.
“You ever think about running away?” Grant’s voice is rough. He still hasn’t looked at me.
“From what?”
“Everything.” He takes another drink. “Just… getting in a car and driving until you run out of gas.”
My heart clenches painfully in my chest. “Yeah. Sometimes.”
He finally turns to look at me. His eyes are ice-blue even in the firelight, red-rimmed and exhausted.
“You’re too smart for that, though.” He says it like an accusation. “You’ve got your whole life mapped out. Pre-med. Then medical school. Saving the world one patient at a time.”
“Someone’s gotta do it.”
“Why you?”
“Why not me?”
The corner of his mouth twitches, almost forming a smile. “Stubborn.”
“Pot, meet kettle.”
This time he does smile. It’s small and broken, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Then he hands me the bourbon.
I take a drink. It burns going down, warm and reckless. I hand it back, and our fingers brush. The contact lasts half a second, but my skin lights up where we touched.
He notices. I see it in the way his eyes drop to my hand, then back to my face.
“Elise—”
“Don’t.” I don’t know what he’s going to say, but I know I can’t hear it. I can’t hear another person tell me I’m too young, too naive, or too much.
“You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” He shifts closer, his thigh pressing against mine. “It matters.”
My pulse is hammering. “Grant—”
“I think about you.” The words come out quiet. Raw. “More than I should.”
The world tilts.
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair. It’s longer than usual, like he’s been too tired to cut it. “I shouldn’t. You’re Teddy’s little sister. You’re nineteen. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, and I’m—” He stops, swallowing hard. “I’m a fucking mess.”
“You’re grieving.”
