I snort. “You’re making this way too easy.”
His shoulders relax and he grabs another pillow. This time, I raise my arms in time to catch it and chuck it back at his head.
“Not a virgin, either,” I assure him. “But I am just as obsessed with you as if you were my first time. You’ve probably found that altar to you I keep in the storage closet. And, God, when you made me come the other afternoon, it took everything I had not to declare my undying love on the spot and request that you scratchMolly loves Grayinto my skin using your fingernails.”
I wink as I catch up to him, shoving another pillow into his middle. This time, though, Gray’s shoulders don’t quite relax as he catches onto my teasing. There’s something strange in the darks of his eyes, and one corner of his mouth still hangs in a half-smile, as if his brain has sent conflicting emotions to his face. My breath catches as I take in the sight of him, and I step back.
“Uh—”
“All jokes aside, I think you’re as ready as you can be.” Gray clears his throat and steps away from me, too. He turns to take in the lobby, shoving his hands down in his pockets as he looks up at the freshly installed lightbulb overhead. “You need me to recruit any basketball players to help you get the tables and chairs set up in here this weekend?”
“All good, I think. Well… maybe.” I shrug and keep my head down, trying to ignore the pinch in my chest at how he’s so noticeably pulled back from our flirting and returned to business.
All at once, a hundred tiny memories course through my brain.
Gray at our house, getting ready for his Homecoming Dance with Hunter. Him letting me fix his bow tie, then holding my eye for just a moment before reminding the room that he needed to pick his date up in time.
Gray at an after-game party his senior year, drunkenly confiding in me in someone’s kitchen that he was nervous about leaving home for college. We’d talked for the longest stretch we ever had, but when Hunter and his friends had filed back into the room for the next round, Gray’s face had changed. He’s started laughing with them, and singing along with some frat chant one of the boys knew.
Gray on the last night before he left town for good. The last night I would ever see him before he was standing with Lindsey in The Daily Buzz. Every kid in our school had been hugging each other and sniffling, like Gray’s departure for the big city marked a departure for all of them, even though most would be home from UGA on the weekends or stick around town to attend community college. He’d hugged me for the first time that night. It had lasted longer than I expected, and when I’d breathed in the scent of him, he’d smelled exactly the way I’d imagined when I closed my eyes and lay in bed at night. But then he didn’t look at me when it was over. He’d mumbled “bye” and moved on to the next friend.
On instinct now, I reach out and grab his hand. It’s like there’s this sad little engrained part of me that knows I shouldn’t let him wander too far. Part of me that knows the attention I’ve been getting might have been a long time coming, but a lifetime of habit between us can catch up just as fast.
“Hey.” I pull him toward me and slide my hands into his back pockets. “I couldn’t have done this without you. I want you to know how grateful I am.”
Gray’s looking at me now with all the attention I craved a moment before. He reaches up, his thumb and index finger lightly pinching the fleshy lobe of my ear. I shiver, heat instantly pooling between my thighs.
“You know, I’m not sure this place looked this good in its heyday. When my grandma ran the inn, there was a lot of paisley on every furniture piece. None of it matched.”
Gray’s lips quirk up at that. “What did you do with the old stuff?”
“Sitting in storage,” I say with a shrug. “Think we should burn it all as part of our bonfire at the party?”
He laughs. “All that paisley has got to be toxic to the environment.”
“Maybe I’ll keep it,” I say with a shrug. “Then when I finally get the funds to build a new wing on this place, I can put the old furniture in until new stuff arrives. It’ll look all dated and creepy and give the high school kids reason to think the inn is haunted or something. Little Haven needs more local flavor.”
He doesn’t laugh like I expect him to. Instead, Gray tilts his head the slightest bit. Just taking me in.
“A new wing?” He repeats. “You’ve got big plans for this place, then?”
“Gotta grow something of my own, just like we talked about. Right?” My heart swells in my chest at the memory of one of our first conversations, at the idea that we had something in common. Gray was building his career in basketball and I was building up the inn. We were each carving out a small part of the world as our own. We’re the same, him and me, and I get a weird surge of pride from that.
But his fingers twitch on my skin, and that corner of his mouth falters again. My stomach sours as fast as it swelled.
The desk phone rings loudly, interrupting whatever tension just developed between us.
“Shit, sorry.”
I break our hold, jogging over to the counter and standing on my tiptoes to reach over the linoleum for the landline. The ancient green phone is bulky and awkward as I balance it between my shoulder and my ear while I fumble for a pen and paper.
“Little Haven Inn, this is Molly. How may I help you?”
“Molly!” I recognize Burt Lacey right away, the elderly baker from a shop down the street. He makes a frustrated noise and mumbles something to someone on his side of the line that I can’t quite make out.
“Burt?”
“Molly, I just had a big order cancel on me at the last minute. I’m up to my ears in pies and cookies that suddenly aren’t needed because thebride’s sister decided she’s an amateur baker, never mind the deposit and agreement…” He sighs, and there’s more muffled noises, like he’s shuffling paperwork. “Anyhow, they need to go somewhere. Would you like them for your party? Free of charge, obviously.”