Play It Safe

Chapter Twenty-Four Nothin’ Better Than You

Nine thirty the next morning…

I was returning from having breakfast with Lash, walking down the hall toward our room.

I’d lost Lash for the day. Gym, Jacuzzi, sauna, shower, haircut at the house salon, professional shave and manicure. Just his time at the gym would be over an hour. He had a popular club in Vegas that took a lot of his time but he liked to work on his body and he didn’t often have the time to get a good workout in. Rarely a sauna. Never a professional shave and manicure.

It was cool that after taking his time to deal with my business he was going to get something he liked out of it.

I’d also lost Brutus for the day. Even though he worked at his body too and Lash was footing the bill, Brutus’s activities didn’t involve long gym visits and salon services. They involved a smooth, mocha-skinned beauty who worked hotel reception that he eyed up, nailed down and with whom he was currently behind closed doors with a Do Not Disturb sign. Today was her day off so they had lots of time.

Brutus got his own treat.

As for me, I was at a loss for what to do. My life did include regular spa treatments. We had a pool at home I used often. I spent a lot of time shopping because I liked it and could afford it and my life was generally stress-free. That was, when the people of Mustang weren’t paying me threatening visits or firing at the defenses I built around my heart with bazookas.

I was looking forward to getting back to that.

But for the next couple of days, I wasn’t sure what to do.

Yes, there I was. Me. Except for drifting through the club fake flirting with men, my life was a vacation.

Fancy that.

I decided I’d order up room service, slip into something comfortable, call up a bunch of movies and spend my time lazing in bed with a movie marathon.

I didn’t do that at home and I thought that would be awesome.

I slid my keycard in, the light went green, I pushed down the handle and slid the card out. Then I pushed open the door.

Then something warm and hard was at my back pushing at me and the door.

I started to cry out, twisting around, my shoulder slamming into something solid, my head jerking back and I saw him.

Gray.

The cry strangled itself in my throat and I didn’t struggle as Gray pushed us in until we cleared the door then he stopped, facing me, shutting the door behind him and standing in front of it.

I took three quick strides into the room and whirled.

Shit. He looked good.

No.

He looked fucking great.

Time had been kind and I shouldn’t have been surprised, I knew it would be. The way he was made, there was no other way it could be. But I also saw photos of his Dad at his house. His father never lost it either.

It wasn’t like it had been thirty years. Gray was just thirty-three.

But he wore it well just as he’d wear fifty-three, sixty-three and, if he was lucky, eighty-three.

“How did you find me?” I asked, tearing my gaze from all that was him to look into his blue eyes.

“Dollface, you came to Mustang and made a splash. It was impossible not to find you.”

It happened and he kept speaking but he saw it and when he was done talking his brows shot together.

My body had jerked like it took a blow.

And this was on his first word.

Dollface.

“Ivey?” he called, his voice softer, a thread of concern drifting through it.

I pulled my shit together and straightened my shoulders.

“Get out.”

The concern vanished and his face got hard again.

“Oh no, we’re gonna talk.”

“You and I don’t have anything to talk about,” I informed him.

“Twenty-four hours ago, you’re right. We didn’t. Then you strutted your ass through two counties laying a thick trail of your man’s money and gettin’ in everyone’s face about it, especially mine, so now we do.”

“It’s done, there’s nothing you can do about it so just leave and move on,” I advised.

“You’re right again, Ivey. It’s done and there’s nothin’ I can do about it but that don’t mean I got nothin’ to say about it. I’m gonna say what I gotta say and you’re gonna listen.”

Really?

Why couldn’t these people just leave me alone?

“Is this necessary?” I snapped.

“Yeah, to me, yeah. You, Ivey, you waltz into Mustang and bail my shit out usin’ another guy’s money? What the fuck?”

“Gray –”

“That was not cool,” he cut me off, his voice starting to go rough with building fury. “Shovin’ your man and his money in my face, Ivey. That… was not… cool.”

“It wasn’t his money, Gray, it was mine,” I shot back, Gray leaned back and the surprise showed on his face. I took that and went with it. “So you can stop being macho man rancher cowboy pissed off that another man sorted your shit. Now you can start being macho man rancher cowboy pissed off that a woman sorted your shit. But, for God’s sake, do it somewhere else.”

“It was his money,” Gray pressed, the surprise moving out of his face, the fury back in.

“It wasn’t, Gray,” I pressed back.

“It was, Ivey, you live with him, you fuck him, he uses you and your hair and your ass and your legs to make the money he pays you so it’s his money. Christ, all these years, you never learned. It just got worse.”

Melted steel shot through my veins encasing my spine and as it did I lost my mind.

“How dare you?” I hissed.

“Pretty easy,” Gray clipped back.

“You have no idea how it is between Lash and me.”

He leaned in, expression, posture and, when he spoke, his tone telling me his anger was escalating right along with mine.

“Darlin’, you forget, I saw you. You swayed your tight ass right in my face. I paid three hundred dollars for the seat at that show as did a hundred other men around that stage. You can talk for a year and you will never convince me that the man you fuck gave you all that money. He’s using you just like your brother. Except unlike your brother he gets to fuck you a different way and you’re so goddamned stupid, you let him.”

“You don’t know how it is,” I snapped.

“I know exactly how it is,” he bit back.

“No you don’t, Gray. Lash is gay.”

I was so furious at the way he was speaking to me, what he was saying, it just slid out.

And a miracle didn’t happen a nanosecond afterward where my words evaporated before they hit Gray’s ears. I knew it by the shock that settled on his face.

And I had to instigate damage control, pronto.

“You can’t tell anyone,” I whispered.

Gray stared at me and didn’t say a word.

Frantic, I rushed to him and repeated, “You can’t tell anyone. No one knows. No one but me. You can’t tell anyone.”

Gray looked down at me, still speechless and I lifted a hand, curled it into his tee and leaned into him.

“Gray, you have to promise me, not a single word. He trusts me. I’m the only one in this world he trusts. I know everything about him, he knows everything about me. The only reason he gave me that gift was that he trusted me to keep it safe.” I leaned deeper, rolling up on my toes. “Please, please, Gray. He’s my best friend in this world and he trusts me. You have to promise me you won’t breathe a word to anyone about what I just said.”

Gray’s eyes moved over my face and when they did they took their time but he still said nothing.

“Please,” I whispered, feeling the tears shimmering in my eyes, hearing the desperation in that one word and Gray’s hand came up, fingers curling around mine at his shirt, holding it tight and warm.

“Ivey, who am I gonna tell?” he whispered back.

“No one, please, promise me,” I begged and his fingers squeezed mine.

“I promise, darlin’.”

I stared in his eyes searching for any sign he was lying to me and when I saw none I sucked in breath.

Then I realized I was leaning breasts to his chest, my hand curled in his shirt with his hand holding mine so I yanked my hand free and took two steps back.

Gray watched me do this and he kept watching me even as I stopped. His face held no fury. No residual shock.

But he was still studying me, eyes alert, something working at the back of them.

I heard a phone ring, it was coming from Gray’s ass but he ignored it and I did too.

I pulled in another calming breath, let it go and with it got my shit together.

So, being together, calmly I told him, “I don’t understand what made me do it but I did it and it’s done. If it wounds your pride, I’m sure you’ll get over it. But Mrs. Cody was kind to me, eventually, in her way and I didn’t like that she would not be in a clean place where she liked being. And Mustang was kind to me in its way and I didn’t like that it was losing its legacy. So I had the means to do it and I did it. Please accept that, move on and I will too.”

His phone stopped ringing only for it to start up again.

But he ignored it and kept looking at me.

When his phone quit ringing again without him speaking, I started, “Gray –”

“She’s in there,” he interrupted me on a murmur, “just saw her.”

I felt my brows draw together and I asked, “Sorry?”

His phone started ringing again, he muttered, “Fuck,” reached to his back pocket, pulled it out, looked at it, flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Janie. Now is not the time.”

I stared at him, really wishing he still wasn’t so beautiful, really, really wishing I hadn’t blurted out Lash’s secret and lastly wishing that he would just go away and I could get on with my movie marathon.

That marathon would most assuredly include a couple of boxes of Kleenexes but whatever. I’d survived before, I’d survive again.

I just had to hold it together in the now.

I moved across our large room that started with a kind of sitting room. This led through a large open doorway to another room that held a king-size bed off which was a huge, pristine bathroom that was at the end of a wall that was filled with cabinets, cupboards and a built-in wardrobe. There was a mirror behind a shelf covered in various-sized crystal glasses, a mini-bar that wasn’t so mini, a safe behind a cabinet, shit like that. It was spacious, comfortable and elegant. A serious upgrade and it was sweet.

No half-measures for Lash, ever.

I sat on the end of a chair, crossing my legs, my spike-heeled, strappy-sandal-shod foot bouncing as I heard Gray say into his phone, “Yeah, I found her. I’m with her now.”

Great. Janie and Gray were talking about me.

I put an elbow to my crossed knee, my head in my hand and kept impatiently bouncing my foot waiting for this to be done, him to be gone and me to be free to have nervous breakdown number five gazillion as pertains to Grayson Cody.

Then Gray’s back shot straight before I saw his body freeze.

Oh no.

My body froze with him.

Then he whispered, “What?”

He listened.

I waited.

Then his eyes came to me.

Oh no!

What was Janie saying?

“Say again?” Gray asked into the phone softly. He listened again, I stared as his face changed to something I didn’t get but whatever it was scared the hell out of me and as I did this I tried (thankfully successfully) to force myself to keep breathing. “Right,” he said quietly then again, “Right. Later.”

He flipped his phone shut and turned to me.

“What?” I asked when he didn’t say anything but he didn’t answer, just looked at me with that expression on his face that scared the shit out of me. “What, Gray?” I pushed.

“You wrote me a note?” He was still talking quietly.

Shit.

This again.

I stood and crossed my arms on my chest. “Yes, Gray. Seven years ago I stole off in the dark of night but before doing it, I wrote you a note. This happened seven years ago and those words are the only words I’m going to give this shit. It’s over. It’s been over for seven years. I’m not going over it.”

It was like he didn’t hear me and I knew this when he asked, “You came back?”

Okay, now, he really didn’t want to get into this.

“Listen, you said what you had to say, we had it out, now can you just leave?”

“You came back,” he stated, again not listening to me.

“Gray, I asked relatively nicely and I’ll do it again. Please leave.”

“You came back,” he repeated and I uncrossed my arms from my chest, planted my hands on my hips and snapped, “Yes, I came back.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

I took a step back because I had no choice. His words came at me in a roar, a wall of sound that was physical, beating into me.

“I –” I started, thrown, stunned, scrambling, unable to think.

“Why the fuck didn’t you come to me, Ivey?” His voice was deep and rasping, it was so abrasive.

“Gray –”

“Why the fuck didn’t you come to me?” he shouted and once again, I lost it.

“Because I saw you, you asshole!” I shouted back, leaning in. “I saw you with a pretty brunette walking down the sidewalk, smack in town, your arm around her, holding her close, smiling in her face. Like only three months before you’d hold me!” I kept shouting. “I knew about Cecily and Nancy, all of them, all the way back to Emily, all your history. Twenty-five and Mustang’s resident player who played me. So do not stand there and pretend you didn’t get my note and do not stand there and bullshit me that this is about me leaving. This is about you and your pride and needing to get something off your chest. Whatever. You did it. Now get the fuck out.”

“I wasn’t with another woman, Ivey,” he ground out, his eyes locked to mine, his burning.

“Bullshit, Gray, such fucking bullshit. I saw you with her. I was not seeing things. It was not the dead of night. The sun was shining. You were smiling. Do not… bullshit me.”

“I wasn’t with another woman,” he repeated.

“Do not bullshit me!” I leaned forward to shriek.

He didn’t move, not a muscle, just stared at me.

Then he whispered, “Brunette.”

“Yes, Gray, she was a brunette. Switching it up again. Cecily was too.”

His eyes held mine and I noticed his chest was rising and falling deeply (just like mine) then he tore his eyes away from me at the same time he tore his fingers through his hair. Then he dropped his hand and when his eyes came back to me it took everything I had to keep my feet at the pain etched in his features.

“I didn’t get any note,” he whispered. “And that girl was my cousin Chandler. She went to Auburn back then. She was back for summer vacation. Outside Audie, she’s the only cousin I like. Fuck, I’m closer to her than I am Audie. Closer to her than anyone but Gran.”

Every word hit me like a blow, each carrying too much force I couldn’t stop myself from swaying back. I hit chair and steadied.

“You should have come to me,” Gray said softly but each word held at least a ton of weight.

I couldn’t process that. If I gave those words time, they would crush me.

Instead, I whispered, “I left you a note.”

He shook his head. “I was outta my mind when you disappeared. Looked everywhere for you. Janie and I went up there. Swept clean. Nothin’ there but the stuff you borrowed from me.”

My heart was beginning to race and something was crawling in my belly, tearing at the lining, trying to get out.

“That isn’t true,” I said quietly. “I packed in a hurry. I left clothes behind. Books. Shoes. I told you I’d be back.”

“There was no note, Ivey. There was nothing left of you at all.”

It was my turn not to hear him.

“I told you I’d be back,” I whispered as that thing tore through the lining of my stomach, infiltrated my system, rushed to my brain.

“Baby, there was no note.”

“I told you I’d be back,” I repeated in a voice so soft there was nearly no sound because in that instant it hit my brain, all of it.

It never made sense.

Until right then.

Casey.

And all that acid leaking out of my shredded stomach drenched my system, I couldn’t hold it back anymore so I turned and dashed straight to the bathroom. I hit the tiles painfully as I fell to my knees, sliding. I tagged the toilet and barely got the lid up before I let fly.

Breakfast. Gone.

My back arched and bowed with the strength of sick pouring out of me but I could vomit forever and never get it all out.

It ran in my veins.

It was me.

Vomit. Sick. Filth.

Fucking Casey.

My stupid, fucking, loser, dickhead, user, asshole brother.

“Ivey, baby, Jesus, you’re scarin’ me,” Gray’s voice whispered from close, his hands shifting my hair away from my neck. I couldn’t endure his touch so I lurched away.

Throwing myself on my ass in the corner, pressed between the wall and tub, I saw Gray crouched by the toilet start moving to me.

My arm flew out straight, palm up toward him and I cried, “Don’t!”

He stilled.

“Don’t,” I whimpered, dropping my arm.

Then I looked at the wall, reached out, grabbed a towel from the rail, pulled it down and gathered it close like a security blanket, holding it to my body, the edge of it to my mouth.

Gray closed the toilet lid, flushed it, sat on it and leaned his elbows into his knees before he begged, “Dollface, talk to me.”

“He had money,” I told my bent knees, curling them closer, wrapping one arm around.

“Get outta that corner, honey, come with me. We’ll talk in the other room.”

I didn’t move.

“He had money. A lot of money,” I semi-repeated.

“Ivey –”

My eyes stayed glued to my knees. “I thought he’d stolen it. Now I don’t know. I don’t know where he got it.”

Gray was silent.

I kept talking.

“He said they were after him, us. They’d beaten him badly. I saw that. But months we were on the run. He never pushed the hustle. Never asked for money. Never dropped a con. I looked through his stuff and found the money. I just thought he stole it.”

“Please, baby, let me come to you, get you off this floor.”

I ignored him.

“I never saw them. He told me they were following us but I could spot a tail. I was better at it than him. He was acting weird. All over me. Never left me alone. Never. Never let me get near a phone. Twitchy. God, so damned twitchy. It freaked me out.”

“Right, Ivey, I’m comin’ to you.”

I kept ignoring him even as my ass was suddenly off the bathroom floor, Gray’s was on it and mine was in his lap.

I held my towel to my mouth, looked into his eyes and kept talking.

“Something was up with him,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Gray whispered back, holding me close, holding my eyes, his holding clear concern as he kept his gaze locked to mine.

“I never got it. Never. In the end, I thought he’d made his play just to get me back so we could go on the hustle again because he couldn’t make it without me. But I don’t think it was that. I don’t know what it was but all that money, Gray. I don’t think it was that.”

“So you got shot of him and came back to me,” Gray said quietly.

I nodded vaguely. “I promised you in the note that when the danger was gone, I would. But I can sense danger, Gray, and as we ate up the miles, town to town, state to state, days into weeks, I never felt it. We weren’t being followed. Casey lied to me. The way he was acting, all over me, all sweet to me, but watchful, jittery, it wasn’t right. I couldn’t get a lock on it then I thought I figured it out. I stole his car, left him behind and I went back to you.”

Gray closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tile.

Then he opened them and looked at me. “And you saw me with Chandler.”

Tears filled my eyes and I nodded.

“Fuck, baby,” he whispered, staring at me.

“I thought you saw my note and didn’t care. I thought you moved on. I thought you didn’t want my hassle. I thought you didn’t care I had bad men after me. I thought,” a tear slid out of my eye, “I thought you didn’t care.”

“I loved you, Ivey, and I thought you cleared out on me.”

“I wrote you a note.” My voice broke on those words.

He pulled in breath then sighed.

Then he asked, “That fuckin’ brother of yours, he have the opportunity to grab that note?”

I thought about it and nodded but added, “He couldn’t grab my stuff, though, Gray. And I left stuff. Not a lot of it but it meant something to me. I worked for it, earned it. My skirt, my dress, my heels. I wouldn’t leave that behind. I wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“Fuck, I wish you’d have fuckin’ come to me,” he growled.

“Casey said they had guns. Said they’d shoot you. I couldn’t go to you.”

“Okay, then, I wish you’d have fuckin’ come to me when you got back.”

“You were with another woman,” I reminded him.

“She was my cousin, Ivey, and you knew me better than that.”

“You were my first kiss,” I blurted, he blinked and his arms spasmed around me.

Then he whispered, “What?”

“You weren’t just my first lover, Gray, you were my first everything.”

That pain I saw earlier slashed through his features and his arms again spasmed but stayed tight around me.

I kept talking.

“I wasn’t experienced enough. I thought I wasn’t…” I shook my head. “I was a pool hustler virgin who you’d given her first kiss at age twenty-two. You were too good for me, I knew it and I figured you figured it out too so you moved onto better.”

“Baby, fuck,” he hissed on a near snarl, his eyes narrowing and his arms going super tight. “there was nothin’ better than you.”

And right then, yes again, I lost it.

Six words that held the impact of a nuclear bomb disintegrating years of work building a wall to protect my heart. All of that gone, demolished, rubble at… six… words.

There was nothin’ better than you.

But I didn’t lose my temper or lose my mind or blurt my beloved friend’s secrets.

I lost hold on my emotions. Tears sliding from my eyes, body wracked with sobs, I fell face first into his shoulder and just cried.

Gray gently pulled the towel from my grasp, got up from the bathroom floor and took me with him. Then he moved us out of the bathroom as a whole. Then we were down on the bed, Gray’s back to the headboard, me held close, his arms tight, his knees cocked, cocooning me in all things Gray.

All things Gray.

I wanted to glory in this. I wanted to burn it in my brain so I’d have it forever. But I didn’t have it in me. All I did for a long time was just cry.

Shit. Just like always.

All these years, years of tears and Grayson Cody never leaked out of me.

Still crying, suddenly I felt his body tense then we were up. He held me close with one arm around my back but carefully dropped the arm behind my knees. My sandals hit floor but he held me tight to him, his body still tense and I would know why when I heard, “What the fuck?”

Lash.

My face, still stuffed in Gray’s chest, turned and I saw Lash.

The problem with that was Lash saw me.

And he lost his mind.

Quickly advancing, he whispered menacingly, “What the fuck?”

“Calm, man,” Gray warned, his arm coming up, held straight, palm down, a caution at the same time a placating gesture.

“You did it to her again. She used up every fuckin’ penny in her savings account to cover your ass and here you are and here she is, a fuckin’ mess again because of you,” Lash shot back and as he spoke, Gray’s body got tighter and tighter.

“Lash –” I whispered, shifting to go to him but Gray’s arm locked tight.

“Calm down and I’ll explain,” Gray ordered.

“Fuck that, let her go and get the fuck outta here and for fuck’s sake, if you ever gave even one, little, microscopic shit about her, stay out of her life,” Lash returned.

“It is not what you think,” Gray told him.

“It’s exactly what I think, asshole. You did not pick up the pieces. You probably enjoy your birthday when every year that fucker comes around, she locks her shit down so tight so it doesn’t come flyin’ apart it’s a wonder she can move. You do not take her back day and night, keepin’ the wolves at bay so she won’t get a wild hair up her ass, let one of ‘em in, give so much of her heart there’s nothin’ left so they can destroy her again. Do not fuckin’ stand there with her in your arms, her face red and wet and tell me I don’t know what this is. I know what this is, motherfucker, and I know you need to get out.”

“I thought she was yours,” Gray lied quietly, for Lash, for me and I felt something warm glide through me, shocking my system as it drifted through a cold I thought would never go away.

But Lash’s head jerked, realizing what he gave away before he covered.

“Rue’s not anyone’s. She’s Rue’s.”

Gray let it slide and told him, “Somehow, we got played.”

“What?” Lash clipped.

“Somehow… we got played,” Gray repeated with an added hesitation and some emphasis.

Lash crossed his arms on his wide chest. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“I see, she’s with you, that what’s gonna go down next is not gonna go down well with you but before she took off, Ivey left a note I did not get explainin’ what went down with her. I thought she bailed on me. She did not. So someone played us. We don’t know who but Ivey just figured out her brother was more than likely involved. Knowin’ her brother, and I don’t know you, man, but I hope you’ve been saved meetin’ that piece of shit, this is undoubtedly true. This rocked her and it’s rocked me. Worse, Ivey came back and saw me with my cousin. She didn’t know it was my cousin but it was. Chandler’s livin’ in Denver now but I show Ivey a picture, it’ll prove what I say is true. We got played then there was a misunderstanding and we lost seven years to that shit. So what’s gonna happen next, you love her like you obviously do, you’re gonna have to give her and at the same time you’re gonna give it to me.”

Lash was staring at him clearly as stunned and thrown as I was, pain also in his face, understanding, heartbreak, all of this for me but Gray didn’t give him any more time.

His arm that was still held out toward Lash, a gesture of holding him off as well as pacifying him came to me, his hand cupping my jaw, tipping my head back until he caught my eyes.

Then the pads of his fingers dug in and the look in his eyes, the burn there, burned through my insides.

“We cannot take this further with him here. But we gotta talk about this, Ivey. We were played. I don’t know who or why or how but I got some good fuckin’ guesses. Someone took you away from me and used Casey to do it.” His faced dipped close and that burn in his eyes grew hotter corresponding to the heat in me. “Never before, never since have I felt for any woman, fuck, anyone the way I felt about you. I want that back. I want my girl back. She’s in there, Ivey, I saw her and you got it in you to give her to me. But you gotta make that decision, dollface. You gotta think about it, make your decision and I hope when it’s made, you’ll come to me. You know where I live. I’ll be waiting.”

Then I lost sight of his deep blue eyes with their beautiful russet tipped lashes when his face moved in close. He touched his mouth to mine then he let me go, strode by Lash, through the room and disappeared out the door.

My eyes moved to Lash who was twisted and looking at the door.

Then he twisted back and his eyes came to me.

Mine again filled with tears.

“Fuck,” I hissed, lifting my hands to cover my face.

I felt Lash’s arms close around me and heard his whispered, “Babe.”

“Fuck,” I repeated, that word breaking.

Lash’s arms got tight.

More tears came.

Lash had forgotten to take something to the gym and came back for it thus missed his Jacuzzi, sauna and salon appointment so he could deal with me.

Fuck.