Take a Chance

Harlow

Three months later . . .

Only nine months. Just nine months. I could make it nine months. I would hide in my room and only come out when she wasn’t here. Classes would start soon and I would have my courses to distract me. Then Dad would be home and I’d leave this place behind me. I could do it. I had to. Dad hadn’t given me any other option.

The house was quiet. The loud sounds of Nan having sex with some idiot had woken me up around two this morning. I had put on my Beats and cranked up my favorite playlist. At some point I had fallen back to sleep. Because the music had been pumping in my ears when I woke up this morning, I wasn’t sure if I was home alone or not. It was after ten and the house was so quiet, I was pretty sure no one was here. Besides, Nan didn’t seem like the kind to have a sleepover this late.

She screwed them then tossed them.

I threw back the covers and ran my hands through my hair to tame the tangles before stepping into the hallway. Silence was all that met my ears. I was safe. I could eat. Nan hadn’t been here when I arrived last night, but I knew she must have noticed my car outside. Dad had an Audi waiting on me when I had landed at the airport.

After finding the house, I had gone to buy some groceries, then unloaded my food and luggage. Dad had bought this house for Nan with the understanding that I would stay with her for nine months while he was on tour with Slacker Demon. She wanted a house in Rosemary Beach, Florida. He had supplied a big one. Dad did everything big. Which was good for me. I could hide from her more easily. Unfortunately, there was only one kitchen.

I walked down the hallway and headed down the winding staircase, which spiraled past the top two floors before ending at the bottom floor. My bare feet made very little noise as I walked across the hardwood planks. I had just opened the fridge to get my organic milk when a door opened and closed somewhere in the house.

I froze and considered shoving the milk back in the fridge and hiding. I wasn’t ready to face Nan yet. I needed coffee before I dealt with her. The heavy footsteps on the stairs weren’t Nan’s. Which made me even more nervous. Facing some strange man wasn’t appealing, either. I wasn’t dressed. I still had on my pajamas. Pink satin polka-dotted shorts and a matching tank top were all I had on. I glanced around for a hiding place, but before I could figure out what to do the footsteps landed on the bottom floor.

I was stuck . . . unless I hid behind the counter while he escaped. Maybe he wouldn’t come this way. The front door was past the kitchen, but the back door was just as close to the stairs. I set my milk carton on the copper countertop and waited. The footsteps weren’t heavy anymore. I barely heard them. Straining my ears, I tried to figure out where they were going.

It wasn’t until it was too late to hide that I realized he was barefoot and headed my way. My eyes locked with Grant’s as he stepped into the kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. He stopped when his eyes met mine. We stood there silently, staring at each other. The realization that he was the one who had woken me last night made my stomach knot up. I didn’t want to think about him in bed with Nan.

But the realization doused me like a bucket of cold water. Grant was still sleeping with Nan. All that stuff he’d said to me was a lie. He had made me a promise, one I hadn’t asked for and he had never intended to keep.

“Harlow?” he said, his voice thick from sleep. He’d been up most of the night. He must’ve been exhausted.

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I hadn’t expected him to even be in Rosemary Beach. But he was here . . . and he was sleeping in Nan’s bed.

I was an idiot.

Three months ago . . .

A knock on my bedroom door interrupted my favorite scene in a book I had read at least ten times. Annoyed, I laid down my Kindle. “Yes?”

The door opened slowly and Grant Carter stuck his ridiculously beautiful head into my room. His long hair, which curled at the ends and tucked neatly behind his ears, made a girl want to sit and just play with it for hours. I often wondered if it was as soft as it looked. His eyes twinkled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, so I forced a scowl on my face. I never scowled, so it was a new thing that I reserved just for him.

It wasn’t really fair. I disliked him on principle. He had been nothing but nice to me, but the fact he was in a relationship with Nan was enough for me to not like him. If a guy could like Nan then something was wrong with him.

“I ordered Chinese. Want to help me eat it? I got way too much.” His blue eyes were so hard to look away from. They had been my downfall since the first time I laid eyes on him. That had been before I knew he was Nan’s Grant.

“I’m not hungry,” I replied, hoping my stomach didn’t growl and give me away. I had been meaning to fix myself something to eat, but the book had sucked me in. Seeing Grant always made me want to escape into one of my stories where guys who looked like him fell in love with girls like me. Not girls like Nan.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, pushing my door open and walking into the room with a tray covered in boxes from the little Chinatown place my dad loved so much. “Help me eat. Just because I dated Nan doesn’t make me tainted. You act like I’ve got a damn disease—and I’ll be honest, it hurts my feelings.”

Really? Was I hurting his feelings? I hadn’t meant to. I didn’t think he would really care. Besides, he was the one who ran off cursing the night we met when he found out who I was after he had made a move on me.

“Dated?” I asked, surprised with myself. “You’re here waiting on her to show up. I don’t think that’s past tense.” I sounded like a schoolteacher.

Grant chuckled and sat down beside me on the bed and set the tray down on the bedside table. “She’s my friend. I’m checking in on her. Not dating her. Besides, I just got word that she’s back in Rosemary.”

See, that. Just that. He was her friend. What normal person was Nan’s friend? None I knew of. “She’s sleeping with the members of Naked Marathon. Surely you’ve seen her in the gossip magazines on Sellers’s arm. Last week she made the news with Moon, and there was all kinds of talk about her breaking up the band. Which isn’t going to happen.”

Grant opened a carton of sweet-and-sour chicken and stuck a pair of chopsticks in it, then handed it to me. “Sweet-and-sour or honey chicken? You pick.”

I took the sweet-and-sour. “This is fine. Thank you,” I replied.

His smile grew. He hadn’t expected me to take it.

“Good, I wanted the honey,” he replied with a wink. I hated that my stomach fluttered. I didn’t need that to start happening. Grant was on the other side of a line that I wasn’t going to cross.

“It isn’t my business who Nan is screwing. That’s over between us. I’m just checking in on her. Making sure she’s not about to go off the grid again. She’s home now, so it’s all good.”

Why would he do that? What had she done to earn that kind of protectiveness from someone like Grant? “That’s nice of you,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say. I took a bite of my chicken.

“You’re gonna hold that against me, aren’t you?” he asked, studying me in a way that only made me want to squirm.

“You can protect who you want, Grant. We’re just sharing some Chinese food. Doesn’t matter what I think.” I replied before putting more chicken in my mouth.

Grant frowned and then a small smile touched his lips. “I feel like we’re doing this crazy-ass dance around each other every time I get around you. I don’t play games. It ain’t my thing, sugar. So let me be blunt,” he said, setting his food back down on the table and turning his body so that he faced me completely. I tried to calm my racing heart. What was he doing? What was I going to do if he got any closer? Guys didn’t flirt with me. They didn’t come into my room. I was Kiro’s weird, awkward daughter. Didn’t Grant get that?

“I don’t want you to hate me,” he said, simply.

I didn’t hate him. I shook my head. “I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do. I’m not used to people hating me. Especially beautiful girls,” he said and flashed me a wicked grin.

He had called me beautiful. Did he really think that? Or was he feeling sorry for me because I was so socially inept?

“Harlow, do you realize that you’re breathtaking? Just looking at you can become addictive.”

Wow.

“That confused, flustered look on your face is all the answer I need. You don’t have a clue how amazing you are. That’s a shame,” he said, reaching over and taking a strand of my hair and wrapping it around his finger. “It’s a real shame.”

I wasn’t sure that I was breathing. My entire body had shut down. I couldn’t move. Grant was touching me. And even though it was my hair, it felt so nice. I dropped my gaze to his hand and watched as his thumb gently ran over the hair he was holding.

“It’s like silk,” he said in a hushed voice. Like he didn’t want anyone to hear him.

I just watched him. What was I supposed to say to him?

“Harlow,” he said, leaning closer to me. I could feel his warm breath on my skin.

“Yes,” I choked out, watching him closely as he moved toward me.

“I think about you. I dream about you,” he said in a husky whisper against my ear. I shivered and felt my grip on my chicken loosen. God, please don’t let me dump my food on myself.

“You’re too sweet for me, but damned if I care,” he said, then pressed a kiss to the skin under my ear. “I don’t want you to hate me. I want you to forgive me for being with Nan. It’s over.”

The reminder of Nan was enough to snap me out of my trance, and I jumped up from the bed and walked across the room to stand far enough away that I felt safe.

I didn’t look back at Grant. I kept my back to him and stared out the window. Maybe he would just leave. I felt my face grow hot. I had let him get so close. I had let him kiss my neck. What was I thinking?

“I shouldn’t have said her name,” he said in a defeated tone. He was perceptive. “Will you tell me what I can do to prove to you that I don’t want Nan? That she was a moment of insanity and weakness? I was being a guy and she was there. I made a mistake.”

He wanted me to forgive him about as much as I wanted to be able to forget Nan. I liked Grant. No . . . I fantasized about Grant. Since he’d cornered me at Rush and Blaire’s wedding reception he had made it into my nightly fantasies. Even if he was someone I was afraid to trust. I liked looking at him. I liked hearing his voice. I liked the way he smelled and the sound of his laugh. The way his mouth curled up on one side when he was amused. I also liked the tattoos I saw peeking out of the collar of his shirt. I wanted to know what they looked like.

“Can I have a chance? One to prove I’m not like Nan. I’m a pretty damn good friend. I just need you to give me a break.”

I was typically a forgiving person. My grandmother had taught me to forgive. She had raised me to be a kind person and reminded me that everyone deserved a second chance. One day I might need a second chance myself.

I turned around and looked at Grant. He was still sitting on my bed. The dark blue T-shirt he was wearing fit his arms tightly and outlined the ripples on his chest. It also highlighted the color of his eyes. How was someone supposed to not trust him? “I’d like to be your friend,” I said. I wasn’t sure what else to say.

That crooked grin appeared. “You would? You’re going to forgive me?”

I nodded and made myself take a step back toward the bed. “Yes. But don’t . . . don’t . . . do that again.” I said, reaching up and touching the skin that still tingled from his lips.

Grant let out a defeated sigh and nodded. “That’s gonna be hard, but I won’t. Not until you ask me.” He stopped and patted the spot where I had been sitting. I walked over and sat back down. Grant leaned forward. “But Harlow,” he said.

His sexy male scent made me want to inhale deeply. “Yes?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t about to touch me again. I seemed to forget myself when he did.

“You will ask me,” he replied.

I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could he stuck a piece of honey chicken in my mouth. “Don’t say it. I’ll just get to say I told you so when you ask me. And I really hate to gloat. Especially to a girl I want to make smile, not slap me.”

I managed to chew the chicken before the laughter bubbled up and escaped. He really was adorable. What he didn’t realize was I could never give in. It wasn’t fair to him. He didn’t know the truth and I didn’t want him to know. It changed how people looked at me. I couldn’t stand the idea of Grant looking at me the way others had.