He did his best to ignore the little voice in the back of his head that kept trying to suggest that he was really avoiding turkey and mashed potatoes because honoring the family tradition would only highlight how alone he was.
I like being alone,he reminded himself.
He was just sliding the steak onto his plate beside a thick slice of garlic bread and a mountain of roasted broccoli when the doorbell rang.
He’d only heard it once or twice before when he was expecting deliveries, and the sound was too loud, echoing in the mostly empty living room.
Grayson put down the plate and strode for the door, looking forward to yelling at whatever salesman had the audacity to bang on a man’s door on a holiday.
But when he opened it he froze in place.
“Hey,” the girl said.
She was really bundled up against the cold weather, with a puffy jacket that made her almost shapeless and a hat crammed down on her head, hiding her yellow hair. But she had that same look of guilty pleasure on her face that was there when she’d eyed him at the club. Like shewas already telling him she was ready to make bad decisions.
He’d thought one of those bad decisions might bring him some relief, but he’d only felt sadness and shame the next day, and he hadn’t repeated that particular mistake since.
“Brianna,” he said.
“You remember me,” she said, looking a little surprised.
Did she really think he acted like that all the time? Shame over his bad behavior began to tug at the other guilt that swirled in his chest, and he cleared his throat to cover his discomfort.
“Come in,” he heard himself growl, though he couldn’t imagine what she was doing here.
She saw my scars. She shouldn’t want anything else to do with me.
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “No, thanks. I uh, just wanted to drop him off.”
Him?
It was only then that he realized her shape was from more than just a puffy jacket. She held a big duffle bag in one hand, and she had a bundle strapped to her chest.
A bundle with a baby in it.
Grayson blinked, thinking maybe he was imagining things. But the baby was still there. He was very small, but he had chubby cheeks and blue-gray eyes.
Once Grayson started looking at him, he found it hard to look away.
“We, uh, got up to more than mischief that night,”Brianna joked weakly. “And I just… well… I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mama.”
The smile was gone from her face now.
Ice water ran through Grayson’s veins as he thought about that chubby, gray-eyed boy in the arms of someone who wasn’t ready to be a parent.
A million questions swirled in his head, the most pressing one revolving around how it was even possible for a baby like this to be his if he’d only spent that one wild night with her in late spring.
“What’s his name?” he heard himself ask instead.
“Leo,” she said softly, her eyes pleading. “He’s two months old, and he’s no trouble at all.”
Graysonhighlydoubted that was true. From what he knew, babies were loud, smelly, needy, and they kept you up all night.
“Ah,” Leo said suddenly, and smacked his lips.
“I know you’re doing pretty well for yourself,” Brianna murmured, not even glancing down at her son. “But if I get it together I can try and send some money for him.”
“No need,” Grayson said firmly.
