A Broken Forever(56)

Kacie's head snapped toward me. She knew all too well that wasn't a name anyone she knew ever called me. "What?" She asked for clarification.

Before I could react Tyler held the card out for Kacie to take. She read it once, then twice before giving me a puzzled expression. "GR? How do you know that's Greyson Rose?" I damn near let out a relieved sigh as Kacie focused her question on Tyler instead of me.

Not that my victory would be long lived. "Grey claimed to be GR when I was trying to figure it out."

Now I had all of Kacie's attention. "Why would you assume the GR is for your name? Does anyone even call you that?"

Tyler thrust a finger toward Kacie, "My point exactly!"

"Yes, I'm not making it up." I felt my defenses spring into action. Picking up our phone and dialing Stefan's number to prove to them the flowers were for me, was becoming very appealing. Of course then I would have a whole slew of new questions.

"Who calls you that?"

"Richard," I stated as matter-of-factly as I could. This topic was getting ridiculously out of hand and it was just about my name. If I were to bring up Stefan I would never hear the end of it.

"Since when?" Kacie questioned, not one to believe quite so easily.

"Since forever, it's a pet name that I don't like being called by everyone. He uses it between the two of us and if you don't believe me, fine. Leave the flowers right up here for everyone, there's no room at my station anyway."



       
         
       
        

I could hardly believe the look on both of their faces' they weren't able to hide their shame. "Sorry, hun." Kacie was the first to speak up.

"I guess I just never heard it, so I naturally assumed you were … "

She paused for lack of a better word, but Tyler was right there to fill in the blanks. "Full of shit." Kacie shrugged her shoulders but nodded apologetically.

"It makes sense though, having little names for each other."

"Yeah," was the only response I mumbled out.

"Anyway, whatever, they're yours-now spill!" Tyler's eyes pressed into the counter top as he greedily leaned forward to soak up the gossip.

"Spill what?" I asked, not quite on the same wave length.

His mouth gaped open, "Seriously?? The man probably spent about two hundred dollars on these-he had to have done something!"

"Oh yeah," I finally remembered the whole reason for the conversation and why the flowers showed up. Kacie's interest was piqued once again and I felt my skin heat under her glare. I wasn't sure why I got the feeling she was watching everything I did, but that was exactly the way it seemed. That she was going to go run and report every single word I said to someone else.

I was never one to dive into my personal life for topics to discuss with my friends, but if my story wasn't solid I knew it would bite me in the ass later. And not in a good way. As uncomfortable as it might be, I decided to get as realistic as I could.

"Well, okay, Richard came home last night and we haven't spent actual time together lately. Either my ankle has been hurting, my car's been messed up, or he has been in the hospital at work. He was scheduled to work a 30-hour shift and wouldn't be home until about the middle of the day today. Well he showed up and I was blown away and he said it was because it was time we just had a night to be together."

"Holy swoon!" Tyler yelled out, fanning himself elaborately with his hand.

Kacie laughed, and I began feeling euphoric, almost addicting sensation bubbling up inside of me. I've known those girls who gossip to their friends every chance they had and I never understood them-until now. Even though this story was true and personal it was becoming a necessity to get the words out. To watch their faces for reactions and to see if my responses were right.

Richard had never before done something like he did this morning. He has never left me in the shower, or purposely didn't tell me things while feeding me lines of crap. It was foreign, and I hated it but now I needed to know if they thought my reaction was fair.

"Right!" I called out, responding to Tyler before pressing on. "So anyway, we make passionate love and it has been so long since we did that. It was incredible and when we went to bed everything felt so … wonderful." The word surfaced on a sigh. "When I woke up this morning I decided to do something special for him because he came home early from work for me. So, I go make him breakfast, and I never make breakfast. But I make it look really nice and I hear him wake up and the first thing he does is jump into the shower."