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If I don’t like somebody, they know it. There’s no point in playing games. It’s a waste of time.
Euphoria: A feeling you get from a good fuck, or from stepping off of an airplane after spending almost an entire day strapped into a seat so tiny only your left ass cheek fits.
I'm not new to touching Gracie by any means, but this feels new. This touch is public—unrestricted. And fuck, that makes it even hotter.
The damage left behind the first time I yanked her claws free of me is still there today.
It’s not common to see a millionaire pro-hockey player walk around looking like a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, but I’ve stopped caring about shit like that a long time ago.
It’s pretty clear to anyone who comes across Gracie Hutton that the woman is a fucking spitfire.
Everyone has their “thing” that helps them focus. Something that gives them the strength to drag themselves up off of the ground and walk on their own two feet again. Something that sends jolts of happiness through your entire body, lighting you up with the feeling that you crave whenever it's not there. Something that makes all the horrible stuff you've gone through in your life nothing but a slight tingle living in the back of your mind. That something for me is throwing my fist in someone's face. In a boxing ring, mostly.
Oakley has been nothing but a great friend to me, even when we both knew I didn't deserve it. Bringing me to family dinners, always calling to check in on me regardless of his crazy schedule, and what do I do in return? Fuck his sister. In a giant fucked up way of saying thank you.
The pain shooting through my cheek is nothing compared to how I feel after hurting Oakley and destroying one of the most important friendships that I have ever had.
But the only thing I'm sure about right now is that no matter how much we go through together, it will always be us against the world.
“Let me in,” she murmurs quietly, inching closer to me. The seconds flick away slowly around us. “You wouldn't like what you would see.”
They say that to let go of your past and move forward, you need to start by accepting whatever it is that you're holding onto so tightly.
There's a reason why we distance ourselves from the memories that haunt us. We do it to protect ourselves—to
Nobody expects anything from you when they know there isn't anything for you to give. Or at least that's what I have worked so hard trying to prove to everyone around me.
Gracie Hutton deserves everything that I could never give her. She always has and she always will.
I know love isn't easy, but is it supposed to be this hard?
Close your mouth unless you want me to fill it, Gracie.
Fuck. What are you doing to me, Gracie Hutton?
“Where does that leave you then? What's your so-called addiction?” I ask curiously. My skin flares when he turns and locks his eyes with mine. “You, Gray. I think I'm addicted to you.”
Those eight words might not have been an obvious declaration of love, but I know better than anyone that to Tyler, they may as well have.
“Want me to just drop the damn thing?” “What?” I nearly choke on a cough. “Do you want me to drop the towel? It seems to be obstructing your view.”
“Shut up. You're not a shitty person,” I scold him. “You have a shitty attitude, sometimes sure, but you're a great person. You just do a good job of hiding it.”
using my lap as her own personal stool like she has been for the past half-hour. Not that I mind. I'm more comfortable now than I think I have been in a long time. Maybe ever.
“You've opened up a part of me that I didn't even know existed, Gray. I know that doesn't mean as much to you as what you said, but it does to me. It means everything.”
The rugged, broken, shadow of a man only seems to light up for me, and my God, the beams are so bright that the sun wouldn't dare challenge him.
“That's cool. Why is he here? In your kitchen? When you're wearing the same amount of clothes you do when you make coffee every morning after I fuck your brains out?”
He's mine. I always knew he was, but fuck does it feel good to hear.
I can't hold the things he did before we had any sort of relationship against him unless I want him to do the same.
I get to feel him hold me like it would cause him pain–both physical and emotional–to ever let me go again.
This is the first time I've left her side since I told her I loved her and fuck do I wish I never had to be without her again. I had denied myself the ability to accept my feelings and act on them for so long that I think I'm trying to make up for the lost time.
But dammit, she's my mom. And no matter how many times she tosses me to the side like a used tissue, I have to keep trying to save her from herself and this life she continues to live. She can't keep going on like this.
“You've already made my world as bright as it can possibly be. There isn't anything that you and I could go through now that could possibly dull its glow. And that's a promise.”
His past taints his present and future, but I will do everything that I can to help him get past this. To help him heal.
She's my light—my guide as I walk through the darkest parts of myself, always leading me back home. Back to her. Where I should have been a long time ago.
She's supposed to be the better half of me. She's not supposed to sink to the level I've been trying so hard to stay away from. That's not who she is and I won't let her follow my shit example.
We didn't say goodbye to her. Why say goodbye when it wasn't goodbye? Not forever, anyway. We said, see you later, instead.
I figured if this is my chance at a fresh start then I want to do it right, with as little baggage as possible. Both mentally and physically,
I've known you for years—treated you like a son without knowing that you've been my blood the entire time. That's the sick joke!”
