Just One Regret(14)

“You’ve been in my dreams. Perhaps later, I can tell you about them.” His other hand slides up to my hip, and his thumb grazes my skin just above the waistband of my yoga pants. I took my cue from the men on how to dress for the day and I’m wearing a simple, fitted light blue shirt and my favorite black yoga capris.

“Grayson,” I whisper, his name a breath on my lips. “You said friends.”

His lips brush against my earlobe, teasing me with a small nip of his teeth. “I lied. I want more. I want you.”

I swallow down the whimper fighting its way out of my throat and jerk my head back. Tilting my chin up, I stare into his oceanic eyes. They’re dilated, and knowing he’s already turned on, wanting me, sends heat to my sex.

“It could be a mistake,” I whisper.

“It could be the best decision we’ve ever made.” Then his lips are on mine, kissing away logic and reasoning and turning me into the emotional idiot I’ve always been around him.

A harsh throat-clearing sound echoes in the small space.

Grayson separates from me and takes a small step back, giving me space to breathe and think. Which is dangerous.

With him around, I’m only thinking of naughty things that I shouldn’t even be considering.

Not until the truth is laid bare.

“Give the girl some space,” Lynx teases when I’m able to make eye contact with the rest of our group. I had completely forgotten they were in the elevator with us, but it’s clear they’ve all been watching.

Sarah shoots me a concerned look and I shake my head.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

I feel the weight of everyone’s stare on my heating cheeks and look down at my shoes for the rest of the ride.

Then I stay silent for the ten-minute car ride to the indoor paintball park. It’s just a mile off the strip and easy to get to, although traffic in Las Vegas is apparently akin to a go-kart race. Cars barely seem to give each other space when changing lanes, and the horn-honking is incessant.

Since the men came back from the bar, they’ve been more tense and quiet than I would have previously thought humanly possible, so it’s only Sarah’s idle chatter that creates background noise to my wandering thoughts and the quiet rock tunes filtering through the SUV’s speakers.

Every moment we spend in the SUV, every breath I take, suffocates me more than the last. When we finally pull up to the paintball park, I jump out of the vehicle and gasp my first real deep breath that I’ve had since we got back to the hotel.

Now that Sarah knows for sure, now that the truth is coming out, I imagine the secret I’ve been carrying for six years falling like well-lined dominos.

Everything is going to topple, one after the other, until the entire course I’ve laid out for myself has all come tumbling down.

There’s no way to fight it anymore; everything will come to light.

I stumble at the thought, realizing that what I’m doing is wrong. Horribly wrong.

If Grayson wants a friendship with me, or anything with me—even if it’s just for three days—he deserves to know the full story.

“Everything okay?” he asks, coming up next to me and wrapping his arm around my lower back.

I jump from his touch like he’s burned me.

“Yes. Of course.”

No. Of course not. Last night, it was easy to avoid the truth. To skip over the parts that would have revealed the fact that I’d given birth to his son.

I answered his questions by glossing over them, making my life seem much duller than it truly was. It wasn’t a huge stretch. After I handed our baby boy to the adoptive parents, just moments after delivering him, I had turned to Sarah.

She’d wrapped me in her arms while I sobbed.

And I never saw our baby again.

“Um, actually—” I stop mid-sentence and reach for his bicep. “I need to tell you something.”

His eyes flicker around the SUV and to our small group of friends waiting at the entrance. “Now?”

I shake my head. “Later. After this, I guess.” My hands go back to my ponytail. I fix it, smoothing out stray hairs that I know don’t exist.

Grayson frowns, his eyes searching me. “Okay. Yeah, definitely.”

A knot forms deep inside my chest. In a few hours, Grayson will know the truth I kept from him. I press my hand to my chest to erase the growing ache, but it’s pointless. The fear and pain at having to relive everything are too deeply imbedded.

“What was that phone call about earlier?” I ask to change the subject.

“Nothing,” Grayson clips and begins walking us toward our friends. “Nothing important.”

He’s lying and it’s obvious.

But since I have secrets of my own, I don’t press him further.











“I can’t believe I’m going to shoot a gun.” My trigger finger is shaking. I’ll be lucky to get out of this small indoor park without shooting myself in the foot.

“It’s not even real.” Grayson’s amusement can’t be hidden. His sandy-blond hair is pulled back into some sort of half-ponytail, keeping it out of his eyes.

The men have been distracted. Whatever happened earlier has made all of them uptight and on edge.

Landon hasn’t winked at me once.

Lynx isn’t flirting with Sarah.

In fact, they all seem to be avoiding one another. I’m hoping whatever has made them upset is enough to distract them. At the very least, I’m hoping it throws off their aim.

“So what’s the plan?” I ask.

The indoor park is small and not as intimidating as I was expecting. There’s a maze of inflatable towers and walls that I know we can hide behind, but even with the assurance that the paintballs don’t hurt—much—when you’ve been hit, I can still feel my adrenaline spiking.

“Take out Landon first,” Grayson says, reaching out to readjust my grip on the gun. He flashes me a crooked grin that makes butterflies flutter deep in my stomach. “And don’t get dead.”

“Don’t get dead. Helpful.”

He chuckles and waves Sarah over. “Us three against them. You ready?”

Sarah cocks her gun, engaging the first pellet, and purses her lips. “Let’s do this.”

In the far back corner, Lynx and Landon are ready to go. Plastic protective glasses are pulled over their eyes. They’re standing with their guns ready to fire and staring us down.

It’s stupid how nervous I am. These aren’t real guns, for crying out loud.

I shake off my nerves, letting go of the trigger to wiggle the tingling sensation out of my hand. “Okay. We got this.”

I sound braver than I feel. Mostly I just feel stupid. I’m sure I look ridiculous with the glasses over my face.

“Hey!” Landon shouts from across the park. “You losers ready?”

“Loser,” Grayson mumbles. “I haven’t lost shit in five years and I’m not about to lose now.”

“That’s the spirit,” Sarah chirps. Her hip bumps into mine. “Ready!”

We wait for a signal from a man behind a glass window. He also checked us in. It’s not even noon and his eyes are half-lidded and bloodshot. I imagine him smoking a joint, completely forgetting we’re here.

If someone gets injured, he’ll be too stoned to call for help.

As soon as the buzzer goes off, I dive behind the first tower I can find. Pellets zoom over my head. Grayson and Sarah take off running, hiding behind a larger barrier. I watch, awed with the speed at which Grayson moves and ducks out from behind the wall just long enough to fire his gun several times.

“Shit!” someone shouts, and I bend down further.

“Fire, Kennedy!” Sarah yells, running to an inflated wall closer to our enemies.

Right. Aim and shoot. A monkey can do this.

Swallowing down my trepidation, I peek out from behind the corner—only to duck back as soon as pellet slams into the wall I’m hiding behind.

“Holy crap,” I mutter at the loud splattering sound. “That’s gonna sting like a bitch.”

And I refuse to go home with welts covering my skin. All around me, everyone else is shouting, cajoling each other, and swearing up a storm when they get hit or close to being hit. Sarah already has yellow paint dripping from her forearm, but it’s her infectious, wide smile that lights a spark inside me.

I can do this.

Pain is temporary.

“Ahh!” I shout, jumping up and aiming my gun in the direction I last saw one of the twins. I press the trigger, barely feeling the heel of the gun kick back against my shoulder. Then I run to where Grayson is, two barriers away, shouting like a woman on a mission and firing my gun in all sorts of crazy directions. I’m pretty sure I hit the ceiling and the floor but nothing close to an actual target.

I’m almost to where Grayson is hiding, watching me while shaking his head, when a sharp sting hits my hip.

“Dammit!” I shout and jump behind Grayson. “They got me!” I look down to see a large pink splotch of paint sinking into my yoga pants. “That hurts.”

“You okay?” he asks, and I blink at the concern in his eyes. When I nod, he wraps a hand around the back of my neck and pulls me to him. His kiss is forceful and quick, but I’m still gasping for breath when he pulls away. “Good. Now let’s shoot the cocky fucker.”

He stands, fires, and ducks. I laugh when I hear one of the twins let loose a string of curses that would make a sailor blush.