Which is why his being in love . . . lust? . . . with Quinn hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d never even suspected it. Much like when Quinn floored me all those years ago, when she had told me that either she or I would have cheated eventually, Gray being in love with her for all those years was equally as astonishing to me.
He was my cousin. Family. But more importantly, he was my best friend. And because of that, he knew that I was struggling, and being who he was, he was willing to let me come to terms with them in my own time, or not at all.
It was the latter that scared me. Gray was cold to the point of arctic at times.
I needed the contrary grumpy asshole in my life. By my side. I wasn’t willing to lose him, but at the moment, I wasn’t ready to act like nothing happened either. Sure, it’d been two years since Quinn dumped my ass, and in truth, I was basically over it. It sucked balls to know someone had cheated on you; the hurt and the betrayal were real. Then you find out a few months later that she’d miscarried, and even with the hardest heart, I couldn’t stop hurting for her.
Quinn became a shadow of who she used to be, and now, slowly, I could see the old Quinn coming back, with Gray being a constant by her side. She’d always been sassy, quick-witted, and yeah, occasionally an out-and-out bitch. But not to us. Quinnwas loyal to those she loved, and she had never once shirked from being a Devil. Or I thought she’d been loyal, until she told me that she slept with someone else. Then her loyalty was in question, but the whole gut-wrenching betrayal had stayed with me, too.
But when she miscarried, I realized that pride was one thing, but seeing someone I cared about, would always care about, hurting . . . that was too much. When Jett told me at the beginning of freshman year that he wasn’t sure her story of her loss rang true, he asked me to do some digging. She’d been evasive about how many weeks pregnant she was. I wasn’t asking her, and she wasn’t sharing the information with Jett.
Which was an alarm bell for us all.
When Gray started pressing too, she clammed up and shut us all down. Since our breakup, she’d been present but no longer really in our circle. She’d been shut out, and my cousins had done that for me.
Or so I thought.
Eyeing both my cousins as they spoke to the girls in the kitchen, I realized they had both lied. Jett had never really cut Quinn out — that much was now obvious — and Gray . . . well, he had stood back, but now I understood it was for completely different reasons.
And Quinn? I watched her laugh at something Ava said as she diced the chicken breasts and then dipped them in a marinade she’d quickly made up. Her dark hair was in some fancy braid. Her loose sweater and dark jeans fit her perfectly. She’d always been gorgeous, but what I noticed more as I studied her was that she was happy again.
Chewing the inside of my cheek as I watched her interact with our friends, I realized she deserved to be. I was so done with the bitchiness and the insults between the two of us. No one should go through what she had. If I tried, if Ireallytried, Icould maybe see how she and Gray fit. Were they actually perfect for each other? Probably. It was obvious that they were the real deal, so maybe I needed to loosen up with my own drama.
Movement caught my eye, and my gaze landed on Gray. He raised an eyebrow at the perusal of his girlfriend, and I thought of everything I had just said to myself. The mature rationalizations I had just gone through.
Gray smirked, and I really wished I were a better man, but nah, fuck him. I wasn’t ready to forgive and forget. My cousin could go fuck himself before I forgave him.
When I turned my attention back to the main kitchen, I saw Red watching me, and cocking my head to the side, I waited. The others were too busy making food, and I saw Red glance at them before she looked back at me.
“We have that assignment due tomorrow.”
She wanted to talk to me about schoolwork? “Yeah.”
She shifted in her stool so she was facing me more, and my eyes dipped to the V in the sweater she was wearing.
“Have you done it?”
“Done what?” When I heard the impatient sigh, I knew she knew I’d been checking her out. “The assignment? Yeah, finished it earlier.”
Red nodded, and I thought that was it until she surprised me. “Would you want to look over mine?”
I saw her uncertainty, and I wondered what her angle was. Was this a peace-making exercise? “Is it shit?”
She rolled her eyes as she looked at me, exasperation evident in her face. “No, I just want to make sure it’s as good as it could be.”
“And you’re asking me?”
“Well, you’re, you know . . .”
“Better? Smarter?”
“Sucha jerk.” Her jaw clenched as she went to turn away from me.
Reaching out, I caught her arm gently. “Show me when we get back, okay?”
Wetting her lips, she looked like she was waiting for the punch line. “Yeah?”
“Sure, I’ll look over it when I watch the game.” I saw her frown, and I couldn’t imagine what she had to complain about now.
