Last True Hero (12 page)

Away from the table, away from the girl.

Just away.

A
fter I drop Dare off at his house, I head home to change before I text Grisham back. I pull into my driveway and groan a little because I can see that my oldest friend has chosen the impatient route, rather than waiting for me to text him back.

Grisham's pristine, shiny black Audi A5 is sitting in the driveway. But he's nowhere to be seen, which means he's inside with my parents.

I trudge up the walkway and into the house, closing the door quietly behind me. Voices drift toward me from the kitchen, so I make my way to the back of the house.

When I walk into our ornate kitchen, Grisham is seated in an upholstered, high-backed barstool at the island, while my mother stands across from him looking delighted. The Admiral has put in a rare appearance as well. He stands at the other end of the counter from my mother. They all look up as I enter the room.

“Berkeley.” My mother's frowning, which puts her Botoxed forehead in some serious danger. “Where have you been all day? You've been keeping poor Grisham waiting.”

Grisham shoots me an apologetic half-smile. “I wasn't trying to rush you, Berk. I'm just anxious to talk to you, and I figured I'd come on over and scoop you up.”

The Admiral's two cents boom across the granite countertop. “Why didn't you tell us about Grisham's proposal?”

Now I grit my teeth and stare at Grisham pointedly. He told my parents? He
knows
better! He knows better than anyone that keeping my parents in the loop is strictly against my policy. Now I would have to deal with their reaction to my refusal that much sooner. Dammit, Grish!

He reads the look in my eyes and averts his. Oh, he's going to get it. And he's fully aware of his impending doom.

“Momma, Daddy. Grisham and I need to talk. So I'm going to go shower and change, and I'll be right down, Grish. We're going
out
.”

He nods, and I escape up the stairs. I have no qualms about leaving Grisham alone with my parents, now that he's spilled the beans. They all get along swimmingly, they're like a second set of parents to him. Just like his are to me. Everyone is going to be so disappointed in me, and our mothers are going to milk their heartbreak until the cows come home. Well, it can't be helped. I'm not going to marry a guy I'm not in love with. There's more to life than that.

Maybe at one point in my life, I would have considered it, just to make everyone around me happy. It would make my parents happy, Grisham's parents happy. It would make Grisham happy, because there's always been more to our relationship for him than friendship, even though I've never lead him on. But would it make me happy? Long ago, I could have probably convinced myself it would in the long run. But not now. Something in me has changed since I graduated from college. I have a goal of designing for my own firm that's actually in my grasp, if I reach for it. And Dare…holy hell. How could I go into a platonic marriage with my best friend now that I know what true heat, true passion feels like? When Dare looks at me, he sets my skin on fire. Then he touches me, and my entire body bursts into flames. When his lips touch mine, what's left of me just melts into a puddle of want at his feet. No one has ever had that effect on me. If I didn't have to go and let Grisham down easy tonight, I'd be whining in Mea's ear about what it all means.

I can't act as if my dreams haven't begun to shape my future. I can't act as though being with a man like Dare hasn't changed my vision of what I want out of life.

Once I've showered, I leave my hair damp and hanging around my shoulders in curly tendrils and throw on a pair of white shorts and strappy sandals. My mother will pass out if when I leave the house with Grisham I look anything less than like the princess she thinks I should be. My brown blouse pulls the amber out of my eyes and plunges in a low V in the front.

When I come back downstairs, my parents have disappeared and Grisham is still waiting for me at the island in the kitchen. His blue eyes run over every inch of me, making my skin feel tight because, well, he's
Grisham.
One time I shoved a mud pie in his face for refusing my elegant play-cooking when we were eight.

“You look amazing,” he says. The genuineness leaks out of his words, and I smile at him.

We walk out of the house together.

In his car, I squirm as he drives through the town. I always feel a little vulnerable when I ride with Grisham. I'm used to riding around town in something akin to a tank, and now that I've ridden with Dare, I get the same feeling of protection when I'm up in his truck. Whether from the size of the vehicle or from the presence of the man, the jury's still out.

“You eaten?” asks Grisham, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

I shake my head.

“Well, then I'm taking you to dinner.”

I nod this time. We don't say anything else as he directs the Audi to a nice restaurant that overlooks the ocean. Grisham's only been to See Food a few times, and I know it's not his usual scene. Grisham, like me, has grown up with the finer things in life. But where I'd rather things be simple, he craves all things expensive and fine. But it's just a part of his personality that I understand, despite the fact that it's not my ideal. I do
get
Grisham, even if I don't claim him as mine.

We're seated at our white cloth-covered table and scanning our menus before he asks.

“So, you're going to turn me down, aren't you?”

I close my menu and open my mouth just as our waiter comes to stand beside our table.

He rattles off the specials in a smooth, knowledgeable voice, and I listen without really hearing him. When the man asks me what I'd like to order, I look up at him blankly.

“She'll have the mahi-mahi,” says Grisham matter-of-factly. “Side of parsley potato mash and grilled asparagus. I'll have the porterhouse with steak fries. Thank you.”

He orders for me so seamlessly that I smile in response. “You know me so well.”

His eyes are such a bright, clear turquoise that most girls would be in danger of falling overboard into them. But I'm still too stuck on another pair of eyes of a vastly different color to be enthralled with Grish's.

He leans toward me, his expression earnest. “I do know you so well, Berk. And I want you to remember that while you're breaking my heart. No one has known you as long as I have, or knows the ins and outs of the feisty girl you are like I do. I know what you look like when you're ecstatic about something, and I know what you look like when you're devastated. I can read you like a book, and that's because you're the best chapter of the best book I've ever read. I know you think I'm not the guy for you, but you're wrong, Berkeley. You're so damn wrong.”

His eyes fall to his clasped hands after that, and mine fill with tears. God, I really do love him.

“But I'm not in love with you, Grish. Don't you want that? You deserve it. You deserve to meet a girl that falls into a heap at your feet, that can't wait for your hands to meet her skin. You deserve a girl who's yours and only yours.”

He raises his eyes and narrows them. “Who are you into, Berkeley? I noticed you didn't answer your mom when she asked you where you were today.”

I sigh. “I was out with a guy. A guy that I like very, very much.”

Grisham sits back in his seat. His cheeks are flushing a brilliant scarlet, a sign that he's upset. “So you're not picking me because you want someone else? That's fucked-up, Berkeley.”

I reach across the table and grasp his large, warm hand in mine. “No, it's not. Don't be angry with me, Grisham. We've been friends for too long to let it end like this. You're my best friend, you always have been. And you always will be. But that's all we can ever be.”

He doesn't say anything else until our food arrives, he just holds my hand silently, tracing small circles on my skin.

When we finish our dinner, he finally meets my gaze. “I think since you shattered my world today, you should at least go out with me while I drink my sorrows away.”

I can hear the teasing tone in his voice, and I know that we're going to be okay. There's never been anything that Grisham and I haven't been able to get through to the other side of, and now I know this will just be another one of our scrapes that we manage to survive together.

“Okay.”

We drive down the road to one of the busiest bars on the strip. I move to open my car door, when Grisham reaches over the console and grabs my arm.

I look at him questioningly, and his face is lit green by the interior lights on the dashboard. “I didn't say I was giving up, Berk. You know I'm not a quitter.”

Well, shit. That I'm not expecting. Grisham is an extremely competitive guy, and apparently I've just lit the ultimate fire under his ass. The determined gleam in his eyes lets me know that I'm playing with a man who is used to winning at life, and I sigh in frustration.

“You have to respect my wishes, Grish.”

He nods. “I do. But you also have to respect my right to do everything I can to change those wishes.”

“Gah! You are so stubborn sometimes. And this is the worst time for stubborn Grisham to make an appearance!”

He grins, his perfect rows of teeth on display. “I love you, Berk. I gotta do everything I can until the fat lady sings.”

Silently, I thank the navy powers-that-be that he's going to be moving to San Diego in a matter of days. Then I give him a sardonic grin.

“I'm going to need a drink, then.”

I walk into the very crowded bar, and Grisham leads me with a hand on my back to a secluded table. He gestures me into a seat, and I roll my eyes dramatically at him before I sink into it. He signals the waitress and orders himself a bottle of something imported, and an enormous margarita for me.

I narrow my eyes at him. “You think getting some tequila in my veins is going to change my answer? You're such a rookie, Grish.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “Even if it doesn't change your answer, it's just fun to watch you get loose. It always has been. And I'm usually too buttoned up to get loose with you. If I have to leave the Audi in that lot out there and call us a cab later, I will.”

My eyes grow wide with mock shock. “Grish, what are you saying? Leave your precious baby here to fend for itself? I'm shocked at you!”

“The things I'll do for you, girl.”

I'm suddenly jerked to attention when a deep, rough voice that I've come to know so well greets me. “Hey, Berkeley.”

The familiar rush of heat to my core that comes from hearing my name roll out of Dare's mouth accompanies a light feeling of excitement from the surprise of seeing him here. But when I look up into his eyes, they're full of hurt that I can only assume comes from seeing me here with Grisham. My desire to reassure him is instant and overwhelming.

“Dare, this is my
friend
Grisham.”

I can see the relief wash over his face and the beginning of a smile when Grisham decides to take matters into his own stupid, stupid hands. He stands up and offers his hand to Dare.

“Grisham Abbot,” he says puffing out his chest like a penguin. “Berkeley's
friend
, for now. But if I have anything to say about it, she'll be my
fiancée
soon. You are?”

I will kill him. I will murder Grisham Abbot tonight by running him over repeatedly with his beloved Audi, and they will never,
ever
find the body.

The look on Dare's face is enough to terrify me, and it should absolutely be making Grisham wet his expensive pants. But Grisham just stands there, not allowing his gaze to leave Dare's face. I'm trying to stand, to get my damn chair to scoot away from the table, but my limbs are so heavy with dread that I'm having trouble making them work.

And then Dare is moving away from the table, walking quickly as the sea of bodies parts before him.

I finally stand, and slap Grisham hard on the arm. “Grisham
Avery Abbot
! You did that shit on purpose!”

He shrugs, plopping back down into his seat as the waitress wearing a bikini top two sizes too small brings our drinks around. “What? Who was that guy?”

“He's the guy I've been seeing! But you knew that, didn't you?”

He shrugs again, and I want to slap him repeatedly in his smug face. “How would I know that? He's not your type, Berk. You don't do dark and dangerous. What is he, an MMA fighter?”

“He's an ex-Army Ranger, Grisham, and now you've pissed him off. Your funeral!”

He reaches for my arm as I turn away from him, but I pull it out of his reach. Then I hurry after Dare.

When I catch up to him, his wounded expression is enough to send my pulse racing to the moon and my heart to clench so tight within my chest it hurts.

“Let me explain,” I plead.

We're standing just outside the bar, still too close to the waiting line of people for my taste. I move over into the shadow of the brick wall on the opposite side of the door, and I sigh in relief when he follows. He leans against the wall, staring at a spot just over my head. His face is hardened, and I would think he wasn't affected if it weren't for the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

“Dare,” I say tentatively. “Grisham is not my fiancé. He's not even my boyfriend.”

His light-green eyes flare as they finally lock on my own. “Then you and he have a communication problem. Because he sure as hell thinks there's more to it than you do.”

I nod, a little frantically. “Grisham and I have been best friends for…like, ever. Our parents go way back, and we've just been thrown together our entire lives. My parents are very…controlling. They've always thought they could decide every detail of my life, and I've had my work cut out for me carving things out for myself. Well, the latest thing they've decided is that I'm going to marry Grisham and become a navy officer's wife just like my mom. And so a few days ago, Grisham proposed.”