Page 70 of Worth the Fight

The scanner goes off behind me. Some call. Somewhere. I shake my head at the fact that the Malones seem to bring work with them everywhere.

“I know,” Betsy says and laughs when she realizes what I’m shaking my head at. Thankfully, the chief is oblivious to my reaction since he’s homing in on what dispatch is relaying. “That damn scanner is like an extra appendage for all of my boys, but you get used to it. What’s worse is that when they’re out on the line, you find comfort in hearing it because you know what they’re doing. It’s ten times better than the horrors you’re imagining in your head.”

I hold her eyes and nod. She’s right . . . and yet, it’s still funny that on this rare occasion when all three of her sons are off duty, they are still, in a sense, on-duty.

“What can we say? We’re creatures of habit,” Grady’s dad says, surprising me when he reaches back and turns the scanner off. “Are you having a good time, interrogation notwithstanding?”

“I am, thank you. It’s just what the doctor ordered.”

Betsy and the chief look to where Grady has tackled Luke to the ground and is tickling him before looking back toward me. The smile, the joy, on his face causes a flutter in my chest I try to ignore, but can’t. “It most definitely is,” Betsy murmurs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DYLAN

“Are you glad you came?” Grady asks and pulls my attention from where Luke and Grayson and a few others are taking bets on who can clear the longest distance by swinging from the rope into the water.

“Yes. You?” I murmur as Luke flies with a shriek through the air and lands with a huge splash into the water.

“Yes. I’m glad you came too.” There’s something about the way Grady says the words—suggestion riding shotgun with playfulness—that grabs my attention and doesn’t let go. He sits beside me on the dock with a smirk on his lips as we let our toes dangle in the water, feet lazily kicking back and forth.

His comment may have suggestion written all over it, but there hasn’t been a single moment during the course of the day where anyone who looked at us would have thought there was anything more between us than roommates.

I study him and wonder how this works. Are we just going to ignore the fact that we had sex two nights ago and never talk about it? Are we not going to acknowledge that every time we look at each other, I stare at his lips because I want him to kiss me and he undresses me with his eyes? Or do we sit here and ignore the sexual tension that increases with every accidental touch of a hand or brush of our bodies against each other’s?

“What?” I ask after he never looks away and I’ve grown self-conscious under his silent observation.

“How come you haven’t braved the lake yet?” he asks, making me cringe internally.

So much for doing a good job of hiding from the water, or more importantly, having to wear a bathing suit in front of everyone. Luckily, my eyes are hidden behind my tinted lenses or else he’d probably see right through every excuse on the tip of my tongue.

“No reason.” I try an excuse anyway.

“He really did a number on you, didn’t he, Dylan?” There’s so much compassion laced with a hint of anger on my behalf that it opens the door to the hurt and lays down a welcome mat for it.

I sigh. Then start to speak. Stop myself. Then try to explain. “It wasn’t so much Jett as it was every other woman who wanted to be with him.”

“You mean every other woman who wished she were you so they’d tear you down with lies to justify why they couldn’t hold a candle to you? You mean those women?”

It sounds stupid when he says it. It’s even worse that despite it sounding stupid, the women were still successful in affecting how I saw myself. See myself. But at the same time, it isn’t exactly hard to look at the proof—Jett screwing what’s-her-ho—to reinforce the way I feel.

Add to that, I hate that Grady’s observation means so much that a mixture of shame and wounded pride makes my eyes burn. “They’re not lies when they’re the truth.”

His sigh is audible, and the shake of his head reads almost disappointed. “That’s not how I see it.”

“C’mon, Grady. I appreciate you trying to make me feel better about myself but . . . I’m not blind here. I know my body isn’t like the Hollywood crowd. I’m well aware that when the media used to take pictures of Jett and me, he radiated on the page while most of them Photoshopped the hell out of me. The ones that didn’t, told a nasty story to justify why rock-god Jett Kroger was with someone who didn’t meet the public’s ideal for him.”

“The media doesn’t know shit. That I can tell you. Heroine chic is the furthest thing from sexy. And it’s women who do this. They’re the ones telling the men what they should like when they don’t know shit other than their own insecurities. You really want to know what a man likes?”

“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

“Sure am. Men like women who eat. They like women they can take to dinner and won’t push food around on a plate because they’re afraid to be seen actually putting food in their mouths. You know, like we all have to do in order to survive. Men like women who are muscular and strong and don’t look like they’ll break if we toss them around in bed.”

“Whatever,” I say with a roll of my eyes, but the smile on my lips is genuine.

“Men like women who are confident, who know how to handle themselves, and who don’t fucking care if their thighs touch or not, because it isn’t when they’re pressed together that men are thinking about. It’s when they’re spread apart that we’re hoping for. Crude? Yes. True? Hell, yes.” My laughter rings out at something I should probably find offensive, and yet the context in which he’s saying it—to explain to me why I have a bad self-image—is endearing. “You have this confidence I can hear clear as day when you sing in your room and work through a song, but it disappears the minute you’re asked to go to the lake because you might have to wear a bathing suit.”

“Grady . . .”