“Have you ever been camping?”
Meredith blinked at the two cocoon-like bags, one blue and gray, the other green and yellow. “Um… no.” She giggled nervously. What the hell was he doing?
Her giggles made him smile. “I love to go camping. It’s fun by yourself, but it’s even better with someone else.” He tossed her the green and yellow one. She caught it and looked back at him, frowning.
“You want to go camping now?”
Gray nodded, a wicked smile lighting his eyes. “Right here.” He pointed to his bed.
“What?”
“I want you to stay with me tonight, Meredith, but I know it’s not fair if I ask you to sleep in my bed,” he said, his eyes locking on hers. “But if I offer you a way to stay where I can’t touch you, but I can still lie next to you and talk to you… and look at you…”
This time, she had to close her eyes and breathe deep. The piercing look he gave her was too much.
“…then it’ll be the best night I’ve had in months.”
She opened her eyes again. The thought of lying next to him — even if she couldn’t touch him — warmed her from the inside out.
“I guess I’m sleeping in a sleeping bag.”
A few minutes later, her efforts to scoot into hers left them both in fits of laughter. Gray got into his by, of all things, unzipping it first, climbing in, and zipping it back up again.
“Why do you have two?” she asked, settling into the silky cocoon and noting with a little spark of joy that it smelled like him.
Gray rolled onto his side and propped up on his elbow. “Yours is rated to thirty-five degrees, and mine is rated to fifteen.”
“You go camping when it’s fifteen degrees?” There was no disguising her shock, and Gray laughed.
“Not often. I usually use that one,” he said, nodding to hers. “But when it is below freezing, this one is definitely necessary.”
Meredith shook her head. “I can’t imagine sleeping outside when it’s freezing.”
“It’s the best time to go when it’s cool in the daytime and cold at night.” He grinned at her. “It’s comfortable to sit by the fire until it’s time for bed… not many bugs… no snakes.”
“Ew.” Meredith shuddered, kicking her feet inside the sleeping bag and hoping Gray hadn’t missed any stray critters on his last trip.
“It’s clean. I promise,” he said, laughing.
“I don’t think I’d make a very good camper.”
“Well, you look damn cute in that sleeping bag.”
Meredith’s eyes bugged, and she bit her lip, unsure how to respond.
“Sorry,” Gray said, shaking his head. “That wasn’t very platonic. I’ll try harder.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered, meaning it. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t going to be easy. He’d come up with a creative way for them to stay together, and Meredith felt lucky.
And a little high to be in his bed at all.
“I do hope you let me take you one day,” he said. “Camping, I mean.”
She gave the idea some thought. “I’d be willing to give it a try.”
Gray looked pleased. “It’s fun. The dogs love it. Oscar would love it, too.”
Meredith’s breath caught at the mention of her son. He would want Oscar to go with them? Just the fact that he thought to include Oscar made Meredith want this distant, hoped-for future all the more. Could it really be hers?
Happiness — a reckless and dangerous emotion — bubbled up inside her. Meredith knew not to let herself trust it just yet, but it was so tempting.
“I’d like to take you other places too. Namely on a real date,” he said, eyeing her solemnly. “Is it okay to say that?”
She tried to keep her breath even. They were playing with fire. Playing pretend, though her feelings were so real. But this was just talk, right? Not promises.
“I think we can talk hypothetically,” she conceded. “Hypothetically, where would you like to go?”
“A hypothetical date?” he teased, his eyebrows climbing along with her pulse. “Oh, that’s easy. If I get to take you on a hypothetical date, we’ll go to La Bouteille d’Or in Paris.”
“La-what?” she asked, feeling at once like an idiot.
But he just laughed again, making her cheeks grow hotter. “La Bouteille d’Or. It means The Golden Bottle. It’s my favorite restaurant in Paris.”
“Okay, well, Mr. World Famous Author, I’m a simple girl. Despite two years of French in high school, I don’t remember much, so you’d have to order for me.”
“Oh, sweetness, I was already going to order for you because when we go to La Bouteille d’Or, you have to try the carré d’agneau.”
“See, now, you’re just showing off,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Carré d’agneau is rack of lamb. Bet you didn’t think I’d know that.” Meredith wasn’t about to explain that she knew this only because she’d had to act out a restaurant scene in French class sophomore year.
Gray shook his head, chuckling, and crooked a brow at her. “You said you were a simple girl, but I don’t believe that for a second. Simple girls don’t carry around copies of Ian McEwan books in their purses, and they don’t know how to take care of someone who’s having a seizure.”
Her breath hitched.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’m paying attention. They don’t listen to indie folk bands like Bon Iver, either. Thanks for introducing me to them, by the way. I’ve downloaded all their albums.”
Meredith blushed again, thinking of the day he’d caught her singing “Blood Bank” in his kitchen. “I didn’t tell you I was listening to Bon Iver,” she said.
“Like I said, I’m paying attention.” The look in his eyes made her stomach somersault. “So, back to this hypothetical date. Before the carré d’agneau, we’ll have the crab avocado, and for dessert, the crème brulée.”
It may never happen, but Meredith was enjoying the game they were playing. “I’ve never had crème brulée,” she said idly.
Gray’s focus lasered in on her. “You’ve never had crème brulée?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Not much experience with French cuisine. My family’s idea of eating out was Mexican or pizza.”
“Okay, you need to try crème brulée. Like tomorrow.”
Meredith giggled. His wicked smile returned.
“You think I’m joking.”
This made her giggle more.
“I’m not joking. Let’s go to Bonefish Grill tomorrow night.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he blazed on.
“Before you say no, this is not, I repeat, not a date.” His faux stern expression was absolutely adorable. “When we do eventually go on a date, you will know it — And you won’t be driving.”
“I won’t be driving?”
“Tomorrow night, you’ll be driving. Because this is not a date. You’ll be driving me to the place I want to go for dinner, and you’ll be joining me because asking you to wait in the car while I eat ahi tuna steak and crème brulée would be exceedingly rude.” He kept going despite her increasing giggles. “When we do go on a real date, you will not be driving. Even if I have to hire a chauffeur.”
Her giggles stopped then because she wouldn’t put it past him to do just that. And date or not, she’d get to be with him tomorrow night. Meredith had no idea how they were supposed to negotiate this strange and evolving relationship, but she wasn’t about to say no to time spent with him.
“Okay. Bonefish. Tomorrow night. Not a date. Got it.”
His look of mock authority became one of genuine pleasure. “Perfect,” he said, smiling.
Their eyes locked across the expanse of the bed. They looked at each other for longer than they should have, but Meredith couldn’t bring herself to look away. Gazing into his eyes was indulgent, and she was greedy for it. She took what he gave, and the feeling of being seen, of being fathomed, poured through her, filling her all the way up.
But
with each passing second, Gray’s look grew more heated. And she felt each scorching degree. To save them from themselves, she needed to cool it down.
“H-how many times have you been to Paris?” she asked, almost panting by the time the banal question came to her rescue.
Gray blinked, seeming to find his grounding again. “Three.”
She tried to keep her mouth closed and show the least amount of surprise. But three?
“Wow. All since your first book?”
“No.” Gray grabbed one of his pillows and stuffed it under his head. “I did go once after my second book was published. That was part of a European book tour. The time before that was a summer abroad after my junior year of college, and my first time was when I was fourteen.”
This time her jaw dropped. “You went to Paris when you were fourteen? Jeez, the furthest from home I went at fourteen was to vacation Bible school.”
He laughed. At least she’d made him laugh. He may have said she wasn’t simple, but next to Gray Blakewood, she totally was.
“I was with my family. I wasn’t negotiating Paris by myself.”
A family trip to Paris. People really did that. It sounded amazing. “Your whole family went?” she asked softly.
Gray nodded. “I was fourteen, Bax was twelve, and Cecilia was only nine. I don’t know what my parents were thinking. The jetlag made us all cranky, and on our first day, Cecilia had a meltdown in Notre Dame. They had to ask us to leave.”
Meredith found herself laughing along with him, even as his eyes turned wistful.
“It had to get better after that. How long were you there?” Now, she reached for one of his pillows. Meredith tucked it under her head and curled onto her side to face him.
“Two weeks,” he said, grinning. “It got better, but I think as a family we liked to retell the awful stories. Cecilia used to love to remind Bax about how he’d puked in the tour bus on the way to Versailles.”
“Oh, God, no,” she said in horror.
“‘That’s what you get for eating nothing but crepes,’ she told him — that morning and a thousand times after,” Gray said, his eyes slanting to the left, pulling him into the memory. “Bax insisted it was carsickness, and he proved himself right — in his own mind, anyway — by eating a steady diet of banana and Nutella crepes the rest of the trip.”
The story made her laugh, and watching her, he laughed until the bed shook. Even with his head nestled in the pillow, his eyes lit with humor, their blue sparkling and making her short of breath. Gray was such a beautiful force and so full of life. He made her feel like pure helium.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HE CAUGHT HIS breath and wiped his eyes, shaking his head. “My God, I haven’t laughed about that since she died.”
He said it so easily, but as soon as the words were out, his felt the weight of all they’d lost. Again. His brows pulled together, and he struggled and failed to keep his smile aloft.
Meredith’s eyes, forever gentle, held his. “How did she die?” Her voice was soft, but in asking, Gray knew she was brave, and he didn’t mind the question.
“She killed herself. Sleeping pills.” He said it fast so his throat wouldn’t close, but that didn’t stop the agony of the memory. That Sunday morning when a hole opened in the universe.
Meredith’s hand made a fist under her chin, and she squeezed her lips together. “I’m… so sorry,” she offered, never taking her eyes from his. This, too, he knew was brave. Only a handful of people he knew could manage it. And the strength of her gaze made him want to say what he’d never said to anyone.
“You know what the worst part is?” he asked her, ready to search her face for judgment. Meredith gazed at him a moment before shaking her head. “I had no idea what she was dealing with. She was always the most fragile. She was the one we looked after and protected, but I had no clue what was really going on inside her head.”
Her journals damned them all, but none more than Gray. Yes, they knew she was so afraid of the world that she almost always avoided leaving home. But what they didn’t know was how she thought of herself as a human failure. How she blamed herself, thinking she held everyone back. How she was certain Gray and Bax and their parents would be relieved to have her gone.
How had he not seen it?
“I was living in New Orleans, letting my parents pay my way. I was trying to crank out this crap first draft — this coming-of-age bullshit — and I saw my sister at least once a week.” Gray shook his head. “I’m supposed to be the observant one.”
Meredith surprised him when she reached across the space between them and took his hand. His lungs filled, and he realized then he’d been holding his breath.
Meredith always made it easier to breathe.
And then she blew him away. “It wasn’t your fault. She knew you were the most observant one,” she said, speaking with conviction. “That’s why she saved her strongest face for you.”
“What?”
She gave his hand a little squeeze. “If you were the most observant, then you were the one she had to fool. Wearing a mask once a week is easy.”
Gray blinked. What the hell?
He pictured Cecilia the last time he’d seen her — a week before she’d died. Sunday dinner in his parents’ formal dining room. She’d been almost giddy about telling him she’d finished reading Anna Karenina. The excitement in her eyes had been so vivid. Almost wild.
Almost wild.
Gray’s eyes shot to Meredith’s. “Are you saying my sister played me?”
He watched her blanch, and then he heard the outrage in his voice that still hung in the air. Gray was about to apologize, but Meredith rallied.
“I’m saying that if what she carried was too much to share, then hiding it from you was her only option.”
Gray stared at her for a long moment, a chill, new and unwelcome, sliding down his spine. “How do you know that?”
She quailed. “I-I mean, I don’t, but—”
The chill spread when Meredith pulled her focus down to his knees.
“Yeah…yeah, you do,” he said, frowning. He covered her hand in his. “No one’s ever said that to me, and that thought has never crossed my mind, but hearing you say it now, I know it’s true.”
He willed her to look at him. The room fell silent around them. Gray reached out and tucked a knuckle under her chin.
“So now I have to ask. How do you know that?”
Under his finger, the pulse in her wrist jackhammered. Her mouth worked, but no words came. He realized without a doubt that they were no longer talking about his sister. His self-blame had deserted him, leaving room for a kind of feral alertness.
“You said wearing a mask is easy. Do you wear a mask?”
Gray watched her surrender, and she met his eyes. “Every single day.”
Now his pulse jumped, and he squeezed her hand. “Why?”
Meredith swallowed. “For the only person who’s paying attention.” Her voice sounded stretched thin, and Gray saw the struggle in her eyes.
“Who’s that?” Gray asked, frowning.
“Oscar.”
God, I’m such an idiot.
“Why—” Gray paused. Was he intruding? Would she resent his asking? His sense of unease was too great. He had to ask. “—why do you have to wear a mask at all?”
“Because he can’t know.” A weary resolve shone in her eyes. She looked so unbelievably tired. “They’re the only family he has, so he can’t know how much I hate living there.” She closed her eyes, and he watched a look of distaste pass over her face before she shuddered.
What the hell?
“Are you safe?”
When she didn’t immediately answer, Gray sat up and gripped her hand tight in his.
“Meredith, are you safe?” The timbre of his voice rumbled like thunder. Meredith sat up too, the distance between them narrowing a little.
“Yes,” she said, nodding quickly. “Yes, I’m safe.” She seemed intent on reassu
ring him, but her efforts only made him more uneasy.
He frowned, studying her face for a long moment. It told him nothing. “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
He watched her weigh the question, and she took entirely too long to respond. “I don’t know.”
Hell, no.
Gray shook his head. “I don’t like that answer.”
She tried to give him a stubborn smile, but it wobbled on her lips. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t, but it’s honest.”
Gray felt like a pair of hands were closing around his throat. He wanted to make demands. He wanted to tell her she had no business living in a house where people mistreated her. He wanted to insist she let him take care of her.
But he had absolutely no right to say any of that. After his reckless kiss, he was lucky she agreed to stay on as his assistant. He was luckier still that they could remain friends. The fact that she might want more gave him hope — a lot of hope, if he were being honest — but nothing was guaranteed.
Instead, he forced himself to lie back down, but he kept his eyes locked on hers and her hand tight in his. If she was going to let him hold it, he wasn’t going to miss a moment. Following his lead, she lay down too, and she didn’t pull away. In fact, they were closer now, but empty space still separated their two sleeping bags.
The realization of this strange and wonderful development descended on him, taking away some of his worry. If she let him get this close, maybe it wouldn’t be so long before she let him in.
He tested the waters.
“Promise me that if you ever need anything from me — anything at all — you’ll ask.”
Hesitation etched her features. “Gray—”
“Promise me.” He was pushing his luck, and he knew it, but they were talking about her safety. He hated the thought that she lived with an asshole ex-boyfriend. He hated it more than he could show, but he could wait for her to sort out her own affairs.
As long as she was safe.
He held her gaze for a long time. She must have sensed his resolve because she sighed once and nodded.
“I promise.”
THE DOGS’ WHINING woke him.
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