“Within reason.” He winks.
“You do know that a visit from me will disturb your extremely peaceful solitude, don’t you?”
“I make exceptions.”
I smile right at him, not even attempting to hide how him issuing me a ticket to his inner circle hits me and sinks deep. I’m an exception. I have exclusive access to the world that is Greyson Stone—the man behind the walls.
We clear our plates and take a walk to the pond, which isdown a few winding streets from Greyson’s home. The neighborhood is built in an area that has hills and gulleys, so homes are set apart on their own individual property without any regard to how they align with other properties. Roads dip and curve, unlike the perfect grid of neighborhood streets closer to town. The breeze gently lifts the branches in the massive trees overhead. They’re practically bursting with new spring growth.
On the way to the pond, Greyson’s hand finds mine.
“Is this okay?” he asks thoughtfully, rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand.
“You’re cheating. You can’t caress my hand and ask that at the same time.”
“I think that’s well within the rules.”
“Hmmm,” I say, rubbing my thumb across the back of his hand.
“Yep. In bounds,” he says with a smile down at me.
We walk the rest of the way like that, hands intertwined, a familiar, comfortable silence between us.
When we get to the pond, Greyson says, “So, this is the pond.”
I laugh. “I think you need to work on this part of the tour.”
“It’s a pond.”
“Right. Well, maybe, work on the presentation.”
“More adjectives?” he asks, pretending to be weary.
“Tell me what it was like the first time you saw this pond.”
He glances at it, eyes roving the glassy surface, taking in the greenery around the edges. Then he looks at me. “It was hard.”
I tilt my face up toward his, not saying a word. Giving him room to expound or not.
“Here I was about to buy my first home—in my twenties—not even required to make a down payment and securing aVA loan. And Zach would never …” His voice catches in his throat. “It didn’t feel fair.”
“It’s not,” I agree.
He nods. His eyes look moist, but he doesn’t cry. He just turns to face the pond and we stare across the water together, his hand clinging to mine with a grip that’s simultaneously tender and firm.
“I’m not always thinking of Zach when I come out here,” he says after a little while. “Sometimes I take a walk at sunset. I’ll come through my woods and circle out the other road and then I stand here and think, or just listen to the sounds in the stillness.”
We’re quiet. I want to hear what he hears when he’s out here alone. The spring peepers make their high, peep-peep-peep from the pond edges, accompanied by occasional deeper croaks from bullfrogs. Birds call from the cattails. Robins chatter. The flutter of wings or a fish flopping splashes the water.
“I like it,” I say.
“Me too,” he says.
And he has that look—the one that says he wants to kiss me. And I want him to.
I turn, pulling our interlocked hands behind me and resting his palm on my back. Then I lift on tiptoes, looping my hands around his neck.
“I want to kiss you,” I say, my voice practically a whisper.
