Chapter One
"Make sure the basket doesn't get too heavy," Claire warned as she covered their leftovers from dinner in clear wrap. "We need to be able to carry it all the way to your house."
"Nana said she needed more flour."
She balanced three bowls in her hands and kicked the fridge open. "It's in the corner, right over there," she motioned her head towards the furthest end of the kitchen.
Stu hopped down the stepladder and focused the tiles as he walked over, making sure he only stepped on the blue squares.
The two of them were preparing a basket for Ellen. Stu wanted to make sure he had something to give his grandma. Today was her birthday, and the middle of winter didn't provide for the greatest variety of fresh produce or herbs. The two of them made it work with milk and several bags of wool from Claire's sheep that grew like weeds in the colder seasons. Ellen would certainly enjoy spinning the wool into yarn and dying them into her choice of colors.
He dragged out a package of flour and it made a solid poof as it fell to the floor. Stu hauled it between his small arms and Claire shut the refrigerator to help him out, but he whined and insisted he was strong enough to do it on his own. She let him carry it to the counter and showed him how to properly transport the powder.
She fetched a plastic bag from under the sink and joined him as he stood, dancing on the steps.
"We don't want this to get all over or else your grandma would get upset. What you need to do," she whipped the bag in the air to open it fully. "Is carefully put the bag of flour in here so it's safe."
Stu slowly dropped the heavy package into the plastic bag and watched as Claire loosely tied it up and made it into a handbag. She brushed her hands together, fixed her hair that was falling from its ponytail, and glanced at the stove for the time.
"We'd best get ready, bud."
He hopped off and raced to the coat rack and looked around for all of his belongings. There were toys he always left here that laid in a special basket by the couch, but some days he'd bring a little something extra to carry back and forth.
While he did that, she wiped down the counters, rinsed the rag out, and tidied up the living room. The television was still playing his cartoons and she clicked it off. He started rambling about the episode and how he'd already seen it a few times with Elli.
She smiled and helped him put on his gloves to make sure that each finger went where they belonged, tucked his pant legs into his socks before stuffing them in his light-up boots, rolled his hat above his eyes, helped put his coat on, and zipped it up.
It was the middle of winter and the town has recently been hit with an icy blizzard that left everything with a burning chill and crunchy ice.
Stu enjoyed eating that kind of snow the most.
Slipping on her own padded boats and thick coat, she grabbed her purse and Ellen's gifts. "Which one do you want to carry?" she held up the basket of wool and the box of milk bottles while moving the bag of wrapped flour down to her elbow.
"That one!" he pointed at the milk.
"You sure? It'll get really cold when we go outside."
He nodded profusely, "I have my gloves on."
She showed him how to carry the box and warned him to be very careful and not break or shake them up. When he promised not to, she adjusted her grip on the gifts a final time before they left her house.
Once the front door was locked, they marched through the tall, icy snow.
"Make sure you don't lose a boot," she called out. It was at least easier than this morning as they retraced their already-made foot-holes that embellished the snow. Stu made a game about it and enjoyed switching from his tiny ones to her adult-sized prints.
On the way, they met Manna and Duke, who were going to visit Basil and his wife. They walked up the street together.
"Oh, I just love the way the moon and stars make the snow sparkle!" Manna giggled, pressing a furry-gloved hand to her rosy lips.
"I like how no one could see you if you threw a snowball at them!" Stu laughed. "One time I did that to May."
The couple smiled and Claire started to lag behind. They were all friendly towards each other, but her irrational fears kicked in and held her back from being involved in their conversation. The mere thought of her input caused her heart to race.
Duke patted the younger boy's hat, "This thing sure is snazzy. Where'd ya get it?"
"My Nana made it for me. She knits a lot. One time, she knitted me a hat and I accidentally put it in the laundry with my sister's stuff and it turned pink and shrunk so she had to make me a new one."
Manna smiled, "I like this one. It has neat zig zags on it."
"Yeah, it's cool," he agreed and waited a moment, turning towards Claire. "Why're you going slow?"
"I'm just enjoying the snow, is all," she reassured him.
"How's your farm holding up in this weather?" Duke asked, his well-gelled hair gleaming with the streetlight.
Her throat tightened. "Fine. I tend to my animals more."
"I bet they produce better milk," he motioned towards the box in Stu's hands.
"Sure," she agreed, though, that wasn't always true. Stu took back control of the conversation, much to Claire's relief, and went on about how it was his grandma's birthday, how his sister baked a cake for them to share when he got back.
As they reached the library, Stu quickly said goodbye to the couple and kept walking. Claire bid them a simple farewell by waving, but Manna put a hand on her shoulder. They were both tiny women and it wasn't a stretch, unlike the height of her six-foot husband or supermodel friends.
"Wait, Claire."
Manna exchanged a look with her husband, "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine."
"You look tired. Are you sick?"
"No, I'm…" she looked at how far ahead Stu was getting. "I've gotta go before I lose him. Have a good evening, you two."
The snow crunched under her fleeting steps as she raced to reach the kid. He was in his front yard, carefully making his way up the stoop. Since his hands were all full, he waited for the farmer to make her way up and open the door herself.
A wave of warmth covered them, along with happy greetings from both Elli and Ellen inside. The smell of vanilla and baked goods was heavy and made Stu even more excited. Each of them made sure to stomp as much snow off of their boots as possible before making it in and closing the door.
Stu unceremoniously got out of his garments, one by one, letting them stay soaked on the wood floor and carefully making it over to his grandma.
"Happy birthday, Nana!" he screamed, plopping the gift down on her lap. The older woman cooed with joy and clapped her hands, taking out each of the bottles and inspecting them with grace.
Elli helped Claire at the door to put all of Stu's cold and wet attire by the fireplace. As they finished and she placed the basket of wool on the tabled, along with flour on the counter, she turned to face a smiling nurse.
"How was he?"
They both admired him and their grandma in the corner, looking at the milks and listening to how Stu explained watching Claire milk the cows that afternoon.
"He was great, as usual."
"Yeah? That's good," she ruffled with her choppy, dusty brown hair. "How are you?"
"I'm alive," she kept her eyes glued on Ellen.
"Just alive?"
Claire crossed her arms as she became more self-conscious, "Isn't that enough?"
"It's a start," she reasoned.
The blonde swallowed something thick in her throat, "It's been rough lately."
Elli leaned on the counter and blocked their view of the others across the cottage, giving the two of them privacy, "Anything in particular going on?"
"I, uh," she looked at the floor and traced the tile pattern with her eyes. "I'm not sure."
Elli was well aware of Claire's state. Being the town nurse, fiancée to doctor, and on top of that, her best friend, it was easy to keep up with her well-being.
The doctor had been her therapist for three seasons now, and her depression still lingered and put a stop to normal life activities someone her age should be doing. Elli loved Claire whole-heartedly and was grateful for their friendship everyday, but Elli was not naive enough to think that every day was a guarantee with her.
"How are you?"
"I'm really great," Elli smiled sadly. "I wish you could say the same."
"I'm sor–"
"Don't apologize to me, Claire!" she hissed and swatted her arm. "Come on, let's have cake. I want to see you smile tonight."
"I can't," she looked at the old grandfather clock they had. "I have an appointment tonight."
"Claire, sweetheart," Ellen called from her rocking chair. Each of them looked up and out of their corner. Stu had brought the milk to an end table and was washing his hands, getting ready for the celebration.
She excused herself from Elli and walked over, hugged Ellen for a long time and pulled away.
"Happy birthday, Ellen."
"Thank you," she made a motion at the gifts. "For everything. I am very excited to be able to make more things now. You look like you need a scarf."
"Yeah? Well, it's my pleasure, really."
Her wrinkles relaxed and her old eyes searched into Claire's heavy ones. They shared a moment of silence that often loomed over them, the kind of silence that spoke louder than words could. It was knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
Ellen reached out and cupped one of Claire's calloused hands in her own, "Tell me you're staying for cake and tea."
"I'm sorry," she sighed. "I have to go for an appointment."
Sadness and disappointment lowered her soft smile, "How am I ever going to thank you for all of these lovely things if you always run off before I can stuff your belly?"
She smiled sadly, "I'm sorry. Another time, I promise."
"I am holding you to that, dear."
Claire bent down and pecked her wrinkled cheek and wished her a happy birthday one last time before backing away towards the door.
Stu bolted out of his seat and shouted at her to wait and have cake with them, which made her even gloomier to have to leave them. She just crouched down to his level and hugged him close, telling him how she would see him another day.
The last thing she caught sight of before leaving was the kitchen, where her best friend was frowning with arms folded.
She took a deep breath once she was alone outside and shoved her hands into her coat pockets. She knew Elli was supportive of her, more than anyone else had been in her entire life, but she knew it was difficult to watch her always shy away and back down from social events. It was hard to go places without a best friend. Claire knew that. It was hard to stay at home, too.
The walk was short and the dim light from the clinic welcomed her in. Dr. Trent was behind the front desk on the computer, typing things away. When the bell chimed, he looked up and greeted his last patient of the day with a warm, sincere smile, "Hello, Claire."
She returned a grin and made her way to the private room that had comfy chairs and two loveseats. Her coat fell from her shoulders and she slung it over the rack and carefully made her way to her normal spot on a loveseat, tucked in the corner that was clear of any awkward decorative pillows and blankets.
Trent followed her in, his lab coat and stethoscope gone. He was in black slacks and a gray button down, still looking very formal. He seemed to be having a good day, as far as she could tell from the few fleeting moments of analyzing him. He took his usual seat and cleared his throat.
"How are you doing today?"
"I'm alive."
"What did you do?"
Claire kept her eyes on the floor and she recalled the day's events, from watching Stu and tending to her animals, making them food and gathering presents for Ellen. Nothing the doctor deemed important enough to go into depth about aside from asking how she was left feeling.
"Empty. I feel bad," she frowned. "Not from today. I feel awful lately, like there's this heavy blanket on my skin that's just kind of suffocating me."
"What do you think it's from, what's caused it?"
She shrugged, "No idea. I'm stumped. Physically, I feel dreadful. It's like... how my mind was feeling has now spread all over, like I am tired with the kind of exhaustion that can't be cured with sleep."
The chair moaned as he leaned back in it, "Have you been doing anything to pacify that feeling?"
"I've tried sleeping, exercising, being with Elli or Stu. It still stays with me."
"I meant, have you done anything different?"
She looked up, "What do you mean?"
"Well," he met her eyes. "Sometimes, when we are stuck in a comfortable routine, along the way we realize that it's not that comfortable at all. It hurts us more than helps us, and with you, I think you might need a new agenda."
"Like what?" she shifted, curious and intrigued.
"Like, you could change things around. You could start trying to go out more. You could bring Elli if you need to, to start out, but as you gradually get to feeling more safe and adventurous, you could go alone and branch out to more people."
The thought of having to be more social made Claire visibly cringe and sink deeper into the cushions.
Trent took a few steps back to explain why socializing was important to her health and improving on her emotions. He talked about the possibilities of meeting more people, being able to experience more emotions, unbiased experiences and words with strangers that could potentially be new and exciting.
"And I know all of this is easy to talk about. No one expects you to be perfect the first few times, and it will be hard. Being able to socialize with others is a key skill in life, and it's like riding a bike. You've gotta practice to get better at it. You're bound to fall off and hit the ground before you get the hang of it."
Claire nodded.
She expressed how she thought it might be awkward to start branching out when the town was already as small as it was and the people had their pre-made assumptions about her. He reminded her that everyone's opinions and judgment tended to be self imposed. It was her own mind that needed to be open for change. Nothing in life was set in stone.
"I…" she played with her ponytail and tried to gather up the right words. "I'm afraid. I don't like people. When I'm around them, I feel overwhelmed, like my mind is absorbing all of them and it makes me go numb."
"A side effect of this depression, if you will," he added air-quotations while he said side effect, "Is that you will feel things more strongly for the rest of your life. You'll feel others' pain more acutely than anyone else. You'll feel a stranger's pain as if it were your own. It's something we can talk about more next time."
She glanced at the clock, and sure enough, their session was coming to a close. She stood and gathered her coat and Trent left her with some last words and scheduled their next session. In the meantime, he asked her to work on getting out of her "funk" by making the uncomfortable be comfortable.
The lonely farmer was back outside and standing on the icy stoop before too long. The moon was higher, the sky was darker, and the streets were bare of people.
After the sessions, Claire always felt exhausted. Trent said a good therapy session was supposed to do that. She was hyper aware of how strongly her emotions were. It ranged from rock bottom beatings to giggling fits. Strangely, though stricken with fear, she was filled with a new feeling of adrenaline.
Meeting people was something she dreaded. She avoided it at all costs. It was not something that came naturally to her, despite the world's expectations. Dr. Trent was right, though. Her routines were comfortable. They made her feel safe because she knew what to expect.
Her routines bubbled her in like a test answer and she became extremely accustomed to her surroundings and normal situations, and to the people who she allowed in.
The things she avoided, what she'd denied herself the opportunities to experience, were things she'd long ago convinced herself were for her own good to avoid. When she was in her environment, she was content. She had control and a sense of security.
It came with a severe lack of spark. Her days were lifeless and boring in blunt honesty. She was a caretaker to her friends and farm and that was it. The only time she felt taken care of was in therapy.
What about feeling like an equal? She wondered. Was there a possibility of a friendship out there, beyond her loving Elli, Ellen, and Stu, that she could have a sense of being an equal being to? Where the give, give, give and guilt stayed at the door?
Claire started walking when the cold began eating her face.
Her thoughts drifted. In life, she came in contact with a lot of bodies, handshakes, smiles, laughter, and friendly moments, but a friend was something different. Making a friend―was it making or allowing? She didn't know.
There had been a lot of different ways that friendships had started and some of them seemed pretty vague. Sometimes, it had been a smile that she didn't expect and didn't know she needed. Sometimes, it had been a slow build, sometimes a chase, but there was usually a moment where it came into focus: a pat on the back, and invitation, a secret. Then there it was, she had a friend.
Recalling times in her past when once upon a time, she let those kinds of things happen, she could feel that moment in her face all over again. It was as if she were trying to hold her mouth in place. Like a smile, but she didn't want to react too much, didn't want to ruin it. A tingle of blush and maybe some more fear.
She could be pretty awkward sometimes, especially if she cared about something. She didn't know why exactly, but thinking about it all, walking home in the moonlit night, made her sad.
She stopped under a streetlight and brushed off a snowy bench before she sat down.
She thought that maybe it brought sadness because when she looked harder at something so essential, like having friends, she was scared by how much she'd overlooked or neglected it.
There were some things that she cared about much less but paid a lot more attention to.
While stuck in deep thought with the fear and adrenaline in her, she clenched her hands into fists and made a secret promise to change that.
Claire hunched over and held her face. No one had hurt her in a long time, mostly because she wouldn't let enough people close enough to allow them to give her pain.
She took a deep breath and clutched her face tighter before letting it go and staring at the moon. It was a slim crescent tonight, nearly lost among the flare of stars.
The moon was something she envied. The moon didn't have to be full for everyone to love it.
She sulked when she thought about it enough, the ways her father had always mentioned it. He was an angry man, a poor man. He lived on scraps and never learned to trust people. He used them instead.
There was no note left next to his body when he chose to leave the world on purpose that told her where he was going or why.
Dr. Trent and her had talked about her father a few fleeting times. It was still too painful to vocalize just yet.
She didn't want to dampen her lighter mood and looked back down to the ground, the crushed, dirty snow, covered in dozens of mixed patterned boot prints.
An echo in the distance caused her to look up.
The street in front of her from where she sat at the intersection was home to the inn, where the lights illuminated the street and townsfolk liked to mingle. Before she could realize what she was doing, a very bold Claire that had been hidden in her skin for years came out and was carrying her down the walkway and to the building.
It was easy to walk and go in. The warm fireplace hit her rosy cheeks immediately. Hot, steamy food coated the air. People were talking and laughing.
Coming in was such a simple act she hadn't done in a long time, and never alone. When she came to her senses, seeing all the faces crowded around tables and the bar, the voices booming, laughing, talking, she froze.
She was already overwhelmed. The amount of people here, fifteen or twenty, were more than she could handle. There were too many. The walls seemed to be shrinking in on her by the second, too, and her breathing accelerated.
Her mind was berating her heavily for making such a rash and stupid decision, and her legs were stuck. She felt like a trapped animal within her own body. It made her sick. She couldn't do this. Not alone. Not any time soon.
Her feet finally responded and she swiveled around, but a hand caught her elbow before she could barge out.
"Howdy, farmer!" a lady shouted. Claire stiffened and turned to face her.
Ann. The most rambunctious and insane woman Claire had ever come face to face with. They'd never actually talked, because watching the redhead from afar was enough to tell her to stay away. Ann was a ball of never-ending energy that bounced all over her family's inn, waiting tables and arguing with the kitchen staff.
Claire hadn't responded, but Ann was already dragging her across the room, weaving through occupied tables until settling on one near the stairwell, small and close to the counter.
"How's this?"
Frightening, awful, stupid, unacceptable. "Fine."
"What can I getcha?"
She didn't remove her coat because she didn't plan on staying long. She'd be out the moment it was socially acceptable to pay. "Water and a beer, please."
"Gotcha," and she was gone.
Claire sunk into one of the two wooden seats, the one that had her back to the wall and let her watch the people. She scolded herself like it was a mantra. How stupid of her to do this—too soon and all alone. It was a bad, bad thing.
She hugged herself, clutched her purse to her stomach, and bit her lip. She hated herself desperately.
Her eyes stayed on the loudest group of people, a mix of young men and women she didn't recognize. She knew everyone in town, which meant they weren't locals. They didn't look local, either. They were all tanned and boisterous. Not rudely so, but enough to know that they didn't need to have a care in the world over here.
Ann set the drinks in front of her and went to tend to the couple that owned the supermarket. Claire scanned the area for their daughter Karen and sipped religiously on her water.
She left the glass on her lips and gradually relaxed when she realized no one was going to even realize she was there. She felt almost invisible. It didn't feel like anyone was going to judge her as harshly as she feared for obviously being outside of her element.
She was alone in this crowd. Her perceptions marked her as much as her solo entrance did through the door.
She continued to survey the men and women seated around her on aged wooden furniture. Every time someone looked at her, she would be aware of it if she opened her mind to that feeling, but too often the sensation was like breathing; she did it all the time without thinking about it, so after a while she didn't even recognize it happening.
She sat in the wooden chair and worked on actively avoiding looking at the eyes of the people around her. She took everything in but their eyes.
She was comfortable enough in her corner of solitude to shake off her coat and drape it along the back of the chair. He beer remained untouched and Ann came around twice more to refill her ice water.
Just seeing these people was enough for her. It was a change and exciting in a weird way. It was a step, and a big one as far as she was concerned.
Her focus wandered to the bar, where Ann was laughing loudly with her boyfriend and a few friends. Karen was doing impressions of someone, presumably Rick from their way she pretended to be a chicken at one point. Claire found herself giggling while her lips rested on the brim of the glass.
Then one of them met her gaze. Ann's brother. She felt her cheeks heat immediately, and even more when the man nudged his buddy and nodded towards her.
No. No. No. Nope. No.
This wasn't part of the plan. Her arms came in and she balled up, looking around the room as quickly as possible to find some sort of purchase for her interest.
The moment passed.
Claire blushed more, realizing how horribly she'd reacted to something so simple as eye contact. She scolded herself for being childish. Stupid freak.
Strangely enough, Claire found herself looking back and stealing glances at the group for a second time as Ann and Karen led a majority of the conversation.
Claire's eyes drifted to Ann's brother again. His name escaped her. They'd never talked, but she knew he took care of her tools when they needed to be fixed or if she needed new ones.
He was a larger built man. Tall, even while leaning over the counter. He had a dirty, worn hat that covered his ginger hair. Everything about him should have screamed bad and intimidating.
He didn't, though.
She admired him from afar, mostly his arms that flexed through the old t-shirt he had on. He was very built.
Wanting to admire his face, her gaze wandered up and again, he turned to meet her eyes.
Her heart hiccuped and she looked away and sipped her water all over again. This time, she giggled and pretended to look at another table.
Waiting another minute to look back, Claire casually scanned over the crowd until she reached the bar. She didn't waste time reading into their group again and her eyes went straight to him.
He was already looking at her, and for fleeting seconds, they held the contact. Her blush was hot and distracting, and she was self-conscious because of it. He didn't seem to mind in the slightest and winked at her. That immediately caused her to look away and gawk into her drink.
She sucked on a chip of ice to soothe her hot cheeks. Her ponytail was draped over her shoulder and touched her leg, the long locks hiding her expression from him.
It was a game the two of them played happily like children for the next ten minutes. She stopped finding ways to be slick and just plain stared at him, his strong, angled features that would smile, letting her know that he knew she was looking.
So she teased him the same way, letting parts of her face be seen past the ponytail, depending on the angle she was at.
With another sip of water, she took a deep breath. This time she was determined to keep eye contact with him, long enough so that he would have to look away first.
She hated that the simple act took this amount of courage. Loser.
Baby steps. It was part of recovery, she told herself. It was about getting better.
She inhaled deeply and lifted her gaze to meet him again.
He wasn't there. He was gone. Her heart pinched. A heavy fog of disappointment settled onto her, which was quickly beaten down by resentment towards herself.
How dumb had she been to think this game would go on forever? Claire gnashed her eyebrows together and frowned, upset with herself for being so foolish. She was just looking at a guy, for Goddess' sake. It literally meant nothing. He probably–
"Can I join you?" A deep voice interrupted her inner rant.
She stiffened and glared up at the intruder of her private sphere. How the night could get any more embarrassing was beyond her. She didn't need strangers stabbing their way into her safety zone.
The face she was met with was not who she was expecting.
It was him.
Her jaw swung from its hinges like a screen door in the summertime. She was a gaping goldfish. He was a looker from afar, but up this close, being able to smell the smoke and ash on him, eyes shadowed from the brim of his hat, caused her heart to slam on the acceleration double time. He was a strange sort of beautiful.
"I'll take that as a yes?" he chuckled, taking the spare seat only a few degrees away from her. She felt dumber, realizing she hadn't responded to him and had the audacity to stare like an idiot.
"I'm sorry, yes."
"You own that farm down by the creek, don't you?"
She nodded and drank from her water. Her blush was going to be never-ending tonight.
"Gray," he held out an expecting, calloused hand.
Lungs heavy and brain feeling swollen from all the over-thinking she'd done in the past hour, Claire slipped a small hand from her water cup and slowly brought it into his.
His skin was warm, rough, and dry. It felt really, really good to have contact with and she watched intently as his larger palm and fingers went from a normal shake to weaving them together and keeping their hands settled on the table, beside her untouched beer as it leaked with heavy drops of condensation.
"Yours?"
She went back to his eyes, "What?"
"Your name?" he smirked, amused.
"Claire," she was feeling stupid again. She seemed rude to him already and it irritated her.
"I was just wondering," he played with their connected hands, bringing them closer to him. "If we were going to play this game of cat and mouse all night."
She decided then that his skin really felt great. She happily let him keep her hand while her other carefully put down the water and went to hold the side of her own neck. Her shoulders bounced with a shrug. There wasn't really a way for her to properly respond.
"You don't come here often."
It wasn't a question. She looked down, "I don't."
"Too many kids to take care of?"
Her eyebrows raised and she met his blue eyes, "Excuse me?"
"Kids? A lucky husband?"
Was he insinuating that she had children? A husband? A family?
An awkward, choked laugh left her, "No. No, I don't have either."
His smile grew, "Lucky me then. You come in for tools and stuff at the blacksmiths every now and then, don't you?"
She nodded.
"My grandfather owns the place."
She knew that. "Do you like it there?"
He shrugged, "The old bastard gets grumpier by the day, but hell, I've learned to deal."
Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth and she thought about his answer. "But that doesn't answer my question."
"I guess it doesn't. Yeah, I'm okay with it. It's what I was raised to do and I can't see myself doing anything else," he scooted closer to her. "Now I'll have to keep my eye out for when you pop in though."
She tried hiding her rosy cheeks by reaching for the water again. "It's wintertime. I don't use tools."
"Shame," his foot touched hers. "Guess you'll have to come in for other reasons, then."
"Like?"
In a second he had leaned in so close to her that she could taste his scent. His nose nearly crossed hers as his free arm claimed the back of her seat as he smiled.
Her eyes bugged out. Her body froze and yet went into hyper-drive, rigid with fear from the proximity of a stranger. She was never this close with anybody. This man knew how to cross boundaries like they were banners at the end of a racetrack.
"Like to see me."
"Oh."
She was tense. Gray stayed close to her, arm casually draped around her chair, crafting a whole new private bubble for them to share.
It took more than a few minutes to get used to the feeling of being affectionate to this standard with a stranger. Something about him wasn't red lights and sirens and danger flags.
He carried an ease and familiarity. Could there be familiarity with a person she only shared admiring glances and a single handhold with? It certainly seemed so.
People struggled to be friends with Claire because she was awkward. She didn't hold a conversation well.
Gray happily led their talk, easy, like he knew she needed it. Maybe it was painfully obvious how unskilled she was in the field.
Work was an easy topic for them, and it led into a stream of random things.
"You see this?" he let go of her hand and pointed to a pearly scar on his neck. "A vampire bit me once."
She laughed, "Shut up."
"What? You don't believe me? I swear it was a vicious vampire that I fought off with my brute strength." He rejoined their hands. "It was crazy."
"Yeah, okay," she rolled her eyes. Daring, she reached a free hand up and stroked the blemish. "How'd it really happen?"
"My sis was messing around in the kitchen and we got in a fight, and she burned me."
Her jaw dropped, "Oh, my."
"Ann's always been a crazy bitch."
Claire smiled. Her eyes fell and drifted down his features to where her hand had floated, just above his pectorals. He radiated a kind of warmth that was homely.
His nose found a spot in her hair, and he pressed his side to her so that she rested against his shoulder.
"You know, for a farm girl, you don't smell bad."
She snorted, "Thank you."
"So… you don't come here often."
"I think we established that already."
"I'm just wondering why, is all."
Her face turned into his broad shoulder and she inhaled deeply. She repeated a calming mantra in her head. "I'm not good with people."
Hot breath tickled her ear as he whispered, "You're good with me." Then laid his lips on her earlobe.
She was aware of the double meaning in his words, but wasn't aware that he caught them.
"Maybe it's just you who's good with me."
"Maybe. But not a lot of people like me," his lips crawled, lingering on her jaw.
Her breathing seemed so much harder suddenly. "Why's that?"
The arm he had on the back of the chair slipped down and held her waist. Shivers ran up her spine and uncertainty colored her skin. "I'm an asshole. Most times a fuck up, too. I can be a selfish man."
Any thoughts she had were erased as their intertwined hands were undone and his hand crawled up her arm, gently going on the natural curve of her bones until meeting her shoulder and giving it a squeeze.
Between his hand making its way further up and to her face, and his lips inching closer to her own, Claire was a crumbling mess.
No. No. Nope. No.
Gray moved his head back slightly and looked at her, his eyes hooded. "Can I tell you something?"
She could do nothing but nod. His stare prowled down her face, coming to a dead stop at her mouth.
"I really, really want to kiss you right now."
Fuck. "Uh…"
"I know I shouldn't…and I don't usually kiss…but hell, I want to." He trailed his thumb slowly across her mouth. "I want to find out what your top lip tastes like." He licked his own, "And then compare it to the bottom." He exhaled heavily. "I'm desperate to know if your tongue tastes like that ice you've been sucking on all hour."
Claire's eyes fluttered at his words. "We…I…please," she murmured. "Don't." The word slipped from her softly but it made her stomach clench all the same. She was amazed she had the energy to utter the one syllable at all.
With his eyes still trained on her lips, he asked, "Would it be so bad?"
He leaned in closer, his breath washing over her face like a musky cologne.
Everything in her body was surging towards the gorgeous man in front of her. Her pupils were dilated and her heart was beating so fast that she was glad they weren't far from the clinic.
However, she knew that he was about to cross a line: A huge line that had her sanity written all over it. This was bad. This was very, very bad.
"Gray," she whispered, in one last-ditch attempt to stop what she knew was inevitable. She had to at least try and fight it, right? "We can't do this."
"Because you don't want to?"
"Because you shouldn't want to," she whispered.
"Are you my personal brand of whiskey? Something I should stay away from?" He joked, cupping the side of her face while tilting his head. "Do you know how pretty you are when I make you blush?"
Her mind short-circuited.
He moved closer. "Just one taste," he whispered, "Just one. That's all I want."
And then it happened.
A/N: Hello, everyone! This is a revised repost of the story Greener Pastures that I wrote about 7 years ago now. So, so many of you have reached out over the years and mentioned to me how connected you felt to this story and how much you've missed it. I have too. Please review and enjoy. I will be posting new chapters as often as possible. I have all the revised chapters that were previously posted, including new unpublished chapters.
Thank you all so, so much again. I'm touched you all loved this story as much as I love writing it.