Him & I

Infinity

Oh darling, my soul
You know it aches for yours
And you've been filling this hole since you were born
'Cause you're the reason I believe in fate
You're my paradise
And I'll do anything to be your love, or be your sacrifice
'Cause I love you for infinity
——Infinity, Jaymes Young

January 17, 2019

Grayson had the day off and he had no plans to go anywhere.  He wanted to rest, read and relax.  In between rounds of enticing Cait back to the bedroom.  Or at least enticing her into dropping her clothes.  The couch worked fine too.

But after a long, lazy morning in bed, Cait seemed determined to deal with some wedding issues.  Grayson didn't generally mind talking about their wedding, but giving final approval for the invitations to be printed, which meant carefully reviewing the text for any errors, was not really his idea of the fun kind of wedding planning.

It was complicated by the fact that there were different versions of the invitations.  There were those for immediate family who would attend the church service, and those for everyone else that would just be at the beach ceremony.  And they had to finalize the list for the first one. 

"Grayson, try to focus," Cait laughed as he slid his hand up her thigh again.  "What happened to mindfulness?  Concentrating on the task at hand?"

"I'm concentrating just fine," he whispered, lips near her ear, other hand wandering up the back of her sweatshirt and tracing circles on the small of her back.  "I'm willing to focus all of my attention on taking you into the bedroom, getting you out of those running tights and that sweatshirt, ripping off anything you've got underneath and then-"

He was interrupted by the sound of Cait's phone, which she reached for.  "That's probably Jackie wanting to know why we haven't finished this yet," she told him.  "I'm gonna blame you."  She picked the phone up and got up from her seat and away from Grayson's wandering hands. 

Grayson huffed out a frustrated breath as she walked out of the room to take the call.  But a minute later he heard her gasp out loud.  "Oh my God, no," she said, in the most awful voice.  He got up and practically ran into the other room.

His eyes met hers and she had the most stricken look on her face.  "I understand," she finally managed.  "Thank you for letting me know."

Grayson just looked at her.  She was shaking.  But she lowered the phone and met his gaze.  "Jared Malloy was found dead this morning," she whispered.  "He committed suicide."

*****

They were both too stunned to do anything other than sit quietly on the couch for a few minutes.  "Patricia said that he left a note," Cait finally sighed.  "The coroner has already ruled it a suicide."

Grayson reached over and took her hand.  "How do you feel?" he asked softly.

"Awful," she whispered.  "Whatever else happened, Jared was once a friend, someone that I actually enjoyed spending time with.  That changed in the last few months, but-" She stopped and shook her head.  Then she turned tear-filled eyes toward him.  "Is this my fault?" she asked.

"Hey, no," Grayson turned her toward him now.  "Don't do that to yourself, Cait.  You aren't responsible for whatever issues Jared had."