"Fuck, baby," he whispered, staring at me.

"I thought you saw my note and didn't care. I thought you moved on. I thought you didn't want my hassle. I thought you didn't care I had bad men after me. I thought," a tear slid out of my eye, "I thought you didn't care."

"I loved you, Ivey, and I thought you cleared out on me."

"I wrote you a note." My voice broke on those words.

He pulled in breath then sighed.

Then he asked, "That fuckin' brother of yours, he have the opportunity to grab that note?"

I thought about it and nodded but added, "He couldn't grab my stuff, though, Gray. And I left stuff. Not a lot of it but it meant something to me. I worked for it, earned it. My skirt, my dress, my heels. I wouldn't leave that behind. I wouldn't leave you behind."

"Fuck, I wish you'd have fuckin' come to me," he growled.

"Casey said they had guns. Said they'd shoot you. I couldn't go to you."

"Okay, then, I wish you'd have fuckin' come to me when you got back."

"You were with another woman," I reminded him.

"She was my cousin, Ivey, and you knew me better than that."

"You were my first kiss," I blurted, he blinked and his arms spasmed around me.

Then he whispered, "What?"

"You weren't just my first lover, Gray, you were my first everything."

That pain I saw earlier slashed through his features and his arms again spasmed but stayed tight around me.

I kept talking.

"I wasn't experienced enough. I thought I wasn't..." I shook my head. "I was a pool hustler virgin who you'd given her first kiss at age twenty-two. You were too good for me, I knew it and I figured you figured it out too so you moved onto better."

"Baby, fuck," he hissed on a near snarl, his eyes narrowing and his arms going super tight. "there was nothin' better than you."

And right then, yes again, I lost it.

Six words that held the impact of a nuclear bomb disintegrating years of work building a wall to protect my heart. All of that gone, demolished, rubble at...six...words.

There was nothin' better than you.

But I didn't lose my temper or lose my mind or blurt my beloved friend's secrets.

I lost hold on my emotions. Tears sliding from my eyes, body wracked with sobs, I fell face first into his shoulder and just cried.

Gray gently pulled the towel from my grasp, got up from the bathroom floor and took me with him. Then he moved us out of the bathroom as a whole. Then we were down on the bed, Gray's back to the headboard, me held close, his arms tight, his knees cocked, cocooning me in all things Gray.

All things Gray.

I wanted to glory in this. I wanted to burn it in my brain so I'd have it forever. But I didn't have it in me. All I did for a long time was just cry.

Shit. Just like always.

All these years, years of tears and Grayson Cody never leaked out of me.

Still crying, suddenly I felt his body tense then we were up. He held me close with one arm around my back but carefully dropped the arm behind my knees. My sandals hit floor but he held me tight to him, his body still tense and I would know why when I heard, "What the fuck?"

Lash.

My face, still stuffed in Gray's chest, turned and I saw Lash.

The problem with that was Lash saw me.

And he lost his mind.

Quickly advancing, he whispered menacingly, "What the fuck?"

"Calm, man," Gray warned, his arm coming up, held straight, palm down, a caution at the same time a placating gesture.

"You did it to her again. She used up every fuckin' penny in her savings account to cover your ass and here you are and here she is, a fuckin' mess again because of you," Lash shot back and as he spoke, Gray's body got tighter and tighter.

"Lash " I whispered, shifting to go to him but Gray's arm locked tight.

"Calm down and I'll explain," Gray ordered.

"Fuck that, let her go and get the fuck outta here and for fuck's sake, if you ever gave even one, little, microscopic shit about her, stay out of her life," Lash returned.

"It is not what you think," Gray told him.

"It's exactly what I think, asshole. You did not pick up the pieces. You probably enjoy your birthday when every year that fucker comes around, she locks her shit down so tight so it doesn't come flyin' apart it's a wonder she can move. You do not take her back day and night, keepin' the wolves at bay so she won't get a wild hair up her ass, let one of 'em in, give so much of her heart there's nothin' left so they can destroy her again. Do not fuckin' stand there with her in your arms, her face red and wet and tell me I don't know what this is. I know what this is, motherfucker, and I know you need to get out."

"I thought she was yours," Gray lied quietly, for Lash, for me and I felt something warm glide through me, shocking my system as it drifted through a cold I thought would never go away.

But Lash's head jerked, realizing what he gave away before he covered.

"Rue's not anyone's. She's Rue's."

Gray let it slide and told him, "Somehow, we got played."

"What?" Lash clipped.

"Somehow...we got played," Gray repeated with an added hesitation and some emphasis.

Lash crossed his arms on his wide chest. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"I see, she's with you, that what's gonna go down next is not gonna go down well with you but before she took off, Ivey left a note I did not get explainin' what went down with her. I thought she bailed on me. She did not. So someone played us. We don't know who but Ivey just figured out her brother was more than likely involved. Knowin' her brother, and I don't know you, man, but I hope you've been saved meetin' that piece of shit, this is undoubtedly true. This rocked her and it's rocked me. Worse, Ivey came back and saw me with my cousin. She didn't know it was my cousin but it was. Chandler's livin' in Denver now but I show Ivey a picture, it'll prove what I say is true. We got played then there was a misunderstanding and we lost seven years to that shit. So what's gonna happen next, you love her like you obviously do, you're gonna have to give her and at the same time you're gonna give it to me."

Lash was staring at him clearly as stunned and thrown as I was, pain also in his face, understanding, heartbreak, all of this for me but Gray didn't give him any more time.

His arm that was still held out toward Lash, a gesture of holding him off as well as pacifying him came to me, his hand cupping my jaw, tipping my head back until he caught my eyes.

Then the pads of his fingers dug in and the look in his eyes, the burn there, burned through my insides.

"We cannot take this further with him here. But we gotta talk about this, Ivey. We were played. I don't know who or why or how but I got some good fuckin' guesses. Someone took you away from me and used Casey to do it." His faced dipped close and that burn in his eyes grew hotter corresponding to the heat in me. "Never before, never since have I felt for any woman, fuck, anyone the way I felt about you. I want that back. I want my girl back. She's in there, Ivey, I saw her and you got it in you to give her to me. But you gotta make that decision, dollface. You gotta think about it, make your decision and I hope when it's made, you'll come to me. You know where I live. I'll be waiting."

Then I lost sight of his deep blue eyes with their beautiful russet tipped lashes when his face moved in close. He touched his mouth to mine then he let me go, strode by Lash, through the room and disappeared out the door.

My eyes moved to Lash who was twisted and looking at the door.

Then he twisted back and his eyes came to me.

Mine again filled with tears.

"Fuck," I hissed, lifting my hands to cover my face.

I felt Lash's arms close around me and heard his whispered, "Babe."

"Fuck," I repeated, that word breaking.

Lash's arms got tight.

More tears came.

Lash had forgotten to take something to the gym and came back for it thus missed his Jacuzzi, sauna and salon appointment so he could deal with me.

Fuck.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

Keycard Lash Caldiwell Eight hours later...

"Dude does somethin' to piss me off, can I lay him out?" Freddie asked, him driving, Lash in the passenger seat watching the orchard trees pass by as they neared the quaint farmhouse.

"I'm thinkin' you're not gettin' who this guy is to Ivey," Lash replied quietly.

"Right," Freddie said and Lash knew he saw him as Lash did. Sitting on his porch swing, arm stretched out resting along the wide back of the swing, beer bottle in his hand.

Grayson Cody.

Ivey didn't have a picture of him but she'd gone into detail describing him.

Lash thought she was glorifying a memory.

But she had not come close.

The faded jeans, the tight, gray t-shirt stretched across the wall of his chest, those shoulders, that hair, that ass, those long legs, those fucking eyes.

Jesus.

He was not Lash's thing, too butch (way too butch) but that didn't mean Lash couldn't appreciate all that was him.

Freddie parked behind a rusted out, old, light blue pickup truck that really needed to be put out of its misery.

As they drove up, parked and even now, Grayson Cody's long body kept swaying in that swing but his eyes never left the car.

Lash turned to Freddie, pulled in a breath and stated softly, "Okay, my man, in a minute you are gonna hear a bunch of shit that's gonna knock your socks off. So, two seconds to prepare, Ivey is my best friend, outside you my only real one, as you know. What you don't know, she is not my lover. She's my friend. And I'm gay. You tell anyone, I'll shoot you and you know I'm not fucking with you about that. Deal with it. We gotta move on, like, now."

Freddie's eyes were big but Lash didn't have time for Freddie, he turned and folded out of the car.

Then he walked through the thick, green grass to stand at the side of the porch opposite Grayson Cody.

He'd scanned his surroundings while they drove up so he kept his gaze steady on Cody.

But he got it. He got it just with that man. With the way he looked and with the way he held her, touched her and spoke to her. He also got it with all that was around him. The peach trees, the faraway mountains, the fields that were waves of green and wheat brown, this house.

He got it.

He got why this man was the one and only man for the beautiful Ivey Larue.

Now Grayson Cody needed to get it.

He heard Freddie get out, his door slam and he knew Freddie was leaning against the car.

Cody's eyes flicked to Freddie then back to Lash.

Then he asked the right question.

"How is she?"

"Not good," Lash replied and watched Cody's square jaw go hard even as his body remained relaxed, lounging and swaying in that porch swing.

Ivey would look cute, curled up against him in the crook of that arm thrown wide.

It was time to get this party started so Ivey could live a life, curled up against her man, in that swing, in the crook of that arm thrown wide.

"She's Ivey so she told me what she told you about me," Lash shared and Cody stared at him a second then jerked up his chin.

He gave him no more.

Lash crossed his arms on his chest and settled in.