Keeping You (Destined Love #3)

18. Grayson

CHAPTER 18

Grayson

O nce I’m out the sliding glass door, Micky’s quick on my heels as I make my way across the backyard to the tree line. When I’m past the first few trees, I drop to knees, the weight of everything bringing me to the ground. My lungs are tight, and it’s hard to take in air. I grasp at my chest as a sob leaves me. I haven’t cried in years, but I can’t help it. Being home and seeing Rebecca, especially seeing her with her husband and son, it’s too much. Everything I’ve bottled up for years is being pulled out of me at once, and it’s almost more painful than the initial pain I felt over ten years ago.

There’s a reason I never stick around town for very long when I come to visit my parents, because the longer I’m here, the higher my chances of running into Rebecca are. She’s a reminder of my failures that I’ve tried my best to never revisit. After a few minutes, my sobs subside and I settle on the ground and lean against a tree. Micky nudges my hand and lies at my side, his head resting on my thigh. I have no idea how I’m going to last the rest of the week here. I can’t devolve into this mess every time I see her. But this is a small town; there’s no way I can avoid her.

Knowing I need to return to the house, I push off the ground and clean off my pants before I make my way out of the trees. When I step into the backyard, I see Hannah and Chloe sitting on the back deck laughing while playing cards with drinks. Dad is prepping the barbeque, and Mom walks out of the house with a plate of food and joins the girls. Micky runs and joins them, begging for food as soon as he’s at their feet. As much as I wish I could enjoy this, Hannah here with me and my family, for the rest of my life, seeing Rebecca reminded me I don’t have that luxury. Maybe when we get back to the city, I should just sign those papers like Hannah wants and we should go our separate ways. It will be better for her. She’ll be able to find a man who can be everything she needs him to be and not the broken failure I am. Hopefully, it will allow her to find the sense of peace she had at the pond the other day.

I join Dad, and he asks me to grab the burgers from inside. I find them on the kitchen counter and reach for them as I hear the sliding glass door open behind me.

“You good?” Hannah asks.

“Yeah, all good.”

Her hand reaches out and grabs my arm. It’s a comforting gesture she’s never done to me before, and it has me wanting to breakdown and tell her everything, but she doesn’t need my burdens on top of her own.

“Grayson, you can tell me. Are you sure you’re all good?”

I turn and plaster on my practiced fake smile. “Yeah, all good, Han.”

Her brows pinch, but she drops her hand, and I take the burgers out to Dad. She comes back a minute later with a refreshed drink for herself and hands me a beer. I accept it and take a long drink. The entire time I’m with Dad, I feel Hannah’s eyes on me, but I keep my perfected all’s good attitude. Dad tells me about the shop, and we talk about some of the cars he’s worked on recently. He never begrudged me for not wanting to take over the shop; he knew my career aspirations lay elsewhere. But we have always enjoyed talking about cars. It was something Dad and I did just the two of us when I was growing up. Neither Mom nor Chloe were ever interested, so every once in a while, Dad would take me to the shop with him and we’d spend the day together.

When the burgers are done, Dad and I join the girls.

When we’ve all made our plates, Mom says, “I heard the two of you were down at the parade earlier.”

Hannah smiles. “Yeah, it was great. I didn’t get to see them growing up. We don’t have them in the city. I enjoyed watching all the kids have a blast collecting candy and spraying the firefighters.”

“I’m glad you had fun. You’ll have to come see it every year,” Mom says.

Hannah’s eyes dart to me, and I watch as her smile stays in place, but the warm genuineness of it fades. “Sounds great.”

I’m grateful she doesn’t tell Mom she won’t be here next summer because she’s planning on divorcing me.

“What else did you guys get up to while in town?” Chloe asks.

“We did the little street market. There were so many cool booths. I got a gorgeous necklace and matching earrings, and we took some funny photos.” Hannah pulls out her phone and passes it to Chloe, who then passes it to Mom. Mom passes it to Dad, and I catch a glimpse of the screen and see that her phone is open to Instagram, not her photo app. Did she post pictures of us to her social media? Why? If she believes this marriage won’t last past this summer, why is she sharing photos of us to her friends and family in such a public way?

I take a sip of my beer as I try and mull over what this could all mean. She let me hold her hand as we wandered around the market, and now she’s posting pictures. Does this mean she doesn’t hate me as much as she did before?

“Grayson?” Dad’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.

“Hmmm,” I say.

“The guys will be here at 6:30 p.m. to go with you to get the barn ready before we do the fireworks.”

I nod. “Sounds good.”

When we finish, I volunteer to clear the table and Chloe offers to help. In the kitchen, she faces me, resting against the counter as she takes me in. She knows something, probably from the small town gossip.

I sigh. “You know.”

She nods. “Yeah, Brinley saw you guys at the street fair. She wanted to give me the heads up.”

I’m not surprised it was Brinley. She’s been Chloe’s best friend since high school, which also means she was around when everything went down. If you were in this house, there was no escaping it, no matter how much you may have wanted to.

“I’m fine,” I say.

She shakes her head. “Grayson, you’re not fine. When you got home, you abandoned your wife with no explanation. I’m also guessing that if I were to ask Hannah if she knows about Rebecca, she’d say no. How long do you plan to keep this secret from your wife? It’s eating at you. You keep saying you’re fine. You’ve said for the last fucking decade that you’re fine, but you’re lying. You never come home for more than a couple days, and don’t give me any more of the you can’t get enough time off work bullshit you keep spewing. You avoid this town because you know there’s a chance of running into her and having to confront your past. Well, it’s time. I miss my brother, and I’m tired of the bullshit. It’d be nice for you to come visit more. Mom and Dad miss you, too. Do you know how much it pained Mom to guilt you into coming for a week this year when she knows how much it hurts you?”

The emotions that fill Chloe’s eyes have my knees wanting to give out.

“I love you. You’re my big brother, and you’ve always supported and loved me. You’ve always been there to protect me. Now I’m going to do the same for you, because if you don’t pull your head out of your ass, you’re going to lose your wife. You need to face it all and tell her.”

I stare at her, not sure what to say. She’s just offloaded a ton on me, and I don’t know how to process it all.

After a few seconds, I pull her into me and kiss the top of her head. “Chlo, you know I love you more than anything, right?”

She nods against my chest. “Back at you.”

We stand like that for a minute before we break apart and finish the cleanup in silence. When we join everyone back on the deck, Mom pulls us in for a card game. One of Mom’s favourite things while we were growing up was family game night. Cards, board games, charades, we did it all. Mom was really big on doing things together. I guess that’s why Chloe and I ended up so close as we got older.

I watch Hannah as we play, and she’s having a blast. I realize she must not have done this a lot. With her parents being divorced and her mom being her mom, she wouldn’t have sat around a table laughing while playing games just because they wanted to spend time together. Realizing how different Hannah’s and my childhoods were is like a stab to the gut. She deserved so much better.

Around 6 p.m. we clear the table and begin preparations for everyone to arrive for our family’s annual Canada Day evening backyard bash. When Ryder, Leo, and Colton show up, the four of us make our way to the barn where we keep the horses. A year after I got a full-time position at Vancouver Memorial, I started paying for full-time care for the horses. I knew Mom and Dad were getting too old to do all of it every day and Chloe was working. It would have gutted Chlo to have to send the horses somewhere else to be taken care of properly, so I took care of it.

The guys bullshit as we walk across the property to the barn. We’ve been friends since childhood, and I know they’ve stayed close with my family since I’ve left. Chloe told me the three of them offer to help with the horses every Canada Day. I’m still lost in my thoughts by the time we reach the barn.

“Grayson,” Ryder calls, pulling me out of my head.

“Hmmm?”

“Leo was asking you about your wife,” Ryder says.

“What about her?”

“Well, let’s start with the fact that you just showed up in town married. We know your parents didn’t attend a wedding, so why don’t you tell us how you ended up married,” Leo says.

I walk past them and pull the barn door open.

“Look at him, once again ignoring the big things,” Colton says.

“He did it with Rebecca, and he’s doing it again,” Ryder adds.

I turn and glare at Ryder. “Don’t you dare compare my marriage to Hannah with the situation with Rebecca, they’re two entirely different things,” I bark out.

“How? You’re ignoring both situations,” Leo couters.

“Firstly, Hannah and I aren’t eighteen. Secondly, marrying Hannah wasn’t a mistake. We may have been drunk in Vegas, but I will never say that marrying her was a mistake.” I shake my head and move to the horses, grabbing a brush from the wall on my way. I start brushing Miley, Chloe’s favourite horse. The guys follow suit and start working on the other horses.

“How else is it different?” Colton asks.

I run the brush over Miley’s fur a few times, trying to find the words to put to the situation. “I don’t regret Rebecca, but we were young and let things get away from us. With Hannah”—I let out a deep breath—“we’re adults, and since waking up married, I’ve thought this out. I’m not some teenage boy full of hormones. Hannah’s strong and fierce, funny and smart, too. She’s fucking gorgeous. She’s extremely independent and loyal to a fault. She’s softer than she lets everyone see. She’s someone I want in my life.”

“Are you happy?” Ryder asks.

I stop brushing Miley and really mull over his question. I’m not sure it’s an easy yes or no answer. I’m happy that Hannah is living at my place, but it sucks that she’s in my bed while I’m sleeping on the couch. I know I asked her to give our marriage a shot, but now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just sign the divorce papers so she can find someone who can give her everything she deserves. The things that might destroy me if I tried to give them to her.

I look up and find all the guys watching me. “It’s complicated,” I say.

Colton asks, “How?”

“There’s just a lot of history that we’re working through.”

“What would make your answer a yes?” Ryder asks.

I think about his question as we work together getting the horses brushed and their blankets put on before closing all the doors and windows to the barn to help keep it as quiet as possible for them once we start setting off the fireworks.

The more I think about Ryder’s question, the more I wonder if I can ever answer yes to being happy with Hannah, because I don’t think I can ever truly make her happy. If we continue trying to make this marriage work, she’s going to be the one unhappy. Knowing that she’s not happy is going to kill me. Hannah deserves the world. She deserves someone who will kneel at her feet and worship her like the goddess she is. Someone who can give her everything she wants in life.

When everything is locked up, we make our way back to the house where more people have gathered for dinner as we wait for it to get dark. I find Hannah with Chloe and her friends playing cornhole, laughing and drinking. Hannah tosses her head back as a loud and beautiful laugh leaves her. Her blonde hair cascades down her back in soft curls, and the sun shimmers off it. When she looks at me, it’s with an unadulterated smile, and I tell myself that for the rest of the week we’re here, I’m not going to worry about our future; I’m going to enjoy the present.