Grayson had never heard his brother talk like this. “And now you have Libby,” he told Nash. Grayson thought back to the heirloom ring that Nash had given him. His throat tightened. “I’m not ever going to have a Libby.”
“Bullshit.” Nash stared him down. “You know how to love people just fine, Gray. We all do. The proof of that is right here.”
Grayson’s father hadn’t wanted him. His mother had never really been there. The old man had been more concerned with forging them into what they needed to be than what they needed. But Grayson had always—always—had his brothers.
“I don’t want to break again.” Grayson could admit that to them now.
“Pretend your heart is a bone,” Xander advised. “When has a broken bone ever slowed a Hawthorne down? Give it time, and a fracture just heals stronger.”
Grayson could see the Xander-logic there. Still, he turned to Jameson. “Do you remember what the old man said to us that Fourth of July when he caught us up here with Emily?”
“All-consuming,” Jameson murmured. “Eternal. And only once.”
“You know what I think, Gray?” Nash finished his whiskey and stood. “I think the old man was full of shit.”
“Breaking news,” Xander intoned. “Full report at eleven.”
Nash ignored him. “And your broken heart—right here, right now,” he continued, his gaze locked on Grayson’s. “That’s not about romance. It’s about family. It’s about you being scared that if you let someone in—anyone, in any capacity—they’re going to leave you. And you can’t let that happen, so you leave first.”
Grayson’s grip on his own glass tightened. “That’s not true.”
Except it was. Wasn’t that what he’d done with Avery?
“You left Phoenix,” Xander pointed out in his most helpful tone.
Grayson shook his head. “Gigi made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with me. Savannah will feel the same, once she knows what I did.”
“So you left,” Nash said, cocking a brow.
Grayson slammed his glass down. “I can’t make this better! I can’t explain myself to them. I can’t apologize. I can’t do a damn thing, not without putting Avery at risk.”
Jameson leaned forward, snagged Grayson’s glass, and took a drink. “Then maybe you and Monsieur Belly”—Jameson nodded to the drawing on Grayson’s stomach—“should have a chat with her.”
CHAPTER 91
GRAYSON
That night, Grayson went swimming—not to forget this time, but to stall. It didn’t work. He felt Avery’s presence the moment she stepped onto the patio. He took one more lap, then pulled himself out of the pool.
Avery eyed the drawing on his torso. “I’m not going to ask.”
Grayson bared his teeth. “Please don’t.”
“Jameson told me about your sisters.” Avery gave him a look, one of those very Avery expressions that was worth a thousand words. In this case, her eyes said, I’m sorry you’re in pain. The set of her mouth said, You should have called me. The delicate line of her jaw said, You continue to be one of the most infuriating men on the planet.
Grayson couldn’t argue any of those points, so he rebutted her verbal statement instead. “I didn’t tell Jameson that much.”
“You told him enough,” Avery shot back. “If I could go back in time to when your father kidnapped me, when Mellie shot him—I’d call the police.”
Regret. Grayson recognized the depth of emotion in her tone all too well.
“Toby and Oren took care of it,” Avery said. “But I shouldn’t have let them. Calling the police would have led to a media circus, but we would have survived.”
Grayson brought his eyes to hers and didn’t speak until he was certain that she wouldn’t look away again. “We do that,” he told her quietly. “Survive.”
Avery smiled, a barely there hint of a smile, and Grayson realized suddenly that for the first time since he’d met Avery Grambs, there was nothing tense or painful about standing this close to her.
She’d told him once that they were family. Maybe a part of him had been running from that, too.
“What do your sisters think happened to their father?” Avery always had a way of cutting straight to the questions that mattered most.
“I don’t know for sure what they believe,” Grayson told her. “Popular consensus is that he skipped town. I think they think that he’s capable of that now. They know he’s under FBI investigation.”