Page 106 of Worth the Risk

His steps falter. “I see you a lot of days.”

“But you saw me and acted like you didn’t.” It’s stupid to be hurt by it, but I am. I had spent all afternoon talking to Zoey about him, acknowledged out loud for the first time that I had feelings for him. Then when I waved to him, hoping he would come out so I could introduce him to Zoey, he looked at me as if I had done something to him or, even worse, as if he didn’t even know me, and damn it if it didn’t really hurt my feelings.

His only response is to grunt again.

“Did I do something wrong, Grayson?”

“Nope.”

Sick of being ignored, I walk over to where he is busying himself snapping cushions onto the chairs of the patio furniture. “What’s your problem?”

For the first time, he straightens and turns to look at me. I see confusion. Hurt. Uncertainty. And when he speaks, his voice is a low, even tone. “You just reminded me of someone I used to know.”

Past tense? Reminded?

“We’re back to this again?” I throw my hands up in frustration.

“You don’t know the half of it, Princess.” His derisive chuckle forewarning of a storm waging beneath the surface.

“Grayson, what in the ever-loving hell are you talking about?”

“You don’t fit in here.” Confused, I reach out to touch his arm, and he steps back so I can’t. He can spew any words at me—I have tough skin—but that action hurts more than I want to admit. “You and your friend in your designer clothes and loaded shopping bags . . . you don’t fit in here. Isn’t there some fancy party you need to attend or something?”

“You aren’t making any sense.” But he is. He’s making perfect sense. He saw me with Zoey last week, and instead of seeing two ladies having fun, he saw Claire. He saw what he thinks is my getting bored of Sunnyville and preparing to move on. I know exactly what he saw, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

“Sid.” He hangs his head for the briefest of seconds and sighs, defeat in every part of his posture. “It’s probably best if you just go. I’m in a shitty mood, and I’m dealing with crap that makes no sense to you and . . .” His words fade as he turns from me, laces his hands on the back of his head, and paces to the end of the yard.

“I’m not Claire.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Goddammit, Grayson! I’m not Claire!”

“Aren’t you, though?”

“Fuck. You.” Every part of me screams the words that my lips speak in such an even tone.

When he turns to face me, his expression is stoic, at best, emotionless at worst, and I scramble for how to fight with someone who looks like the fight has already been taken out of them.

Then my thoughts click into place. The lie. The lack of communication after we’d been talking daily. Nightly. Every moment in between. It all makes sense. He wasn’t? Was he?

“You were testing me, weren’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You lied about Luke being sick and canceled our dates to see how I’d react.”

His chuckle is condescending. “Well, your little tantrum right now pretty much proves my theory right.”

“Your theory?” I yell as rage riots within. It all makes sense. The sudden disappearance of Grayson and him blaming it on Luke. His accusations that I’m like Claire. He wanted to see if I’d bail on him like she did.

When he was the reason he couldn’t see me.

“Yeah. Your little tantrum because I haven’t been at your beck and call proves me right. You only think about you. You only care about you. You’ll get mad if I have to cancel because something happens with Luke.”

“I wasn’t mad at you at all until now! Until you lied to me to try to prove I was like Claire. Until you didn’t trust me.” I scream. “You can take your theory and shove it up your ass. You can take the homemade soup that I made two different times because the first batch was horrible that’s sitting on the counter in your house and shove it right along with your theory. I was worried about the two of you because Luke had been sick for so long that I tried really hard to make something for you when I don’t cook.”

Tears burn as they well in my eyes, but I blink them away. I will not give Grayson the satisfaction of seeing me cry over him.