Secrets & Lies

40| Round Two

If someone had told me one year ago that I was going to come out to my family—and be in a fucking amazing relationship with Grant Matthews—I would have laughed in their face.

But as I leaned against the door jamb of the dining room and watched in awe while my family, Amelia, and Vanessa all laughed around the large table, I had never felt happier.

I thought about everything that happened over the past few months, and honestly, I wouldn't change any of it. I'm not saying I no longer feel guilty about the people I hurt because of my actions, but I felt like everything happened the way it was supposed to.

My gaze focused on Amelia and Wyatt. My little brother had his arm wrapped around her slender shoulders, absently stroking her skin. I bet he didn't even realize he was doing it. He turned to her and whispered something into her ear. A fierce blush colored her cheeks and it didn't take a genius to guess what he said. As much as their relationship blindsided me, it was obvious that they belonged together. They just...did.

Then there was Vanessa. She was sitting to the right of Grant, listening intently as my mother continued to tell her embarrassing stories about me and Wyatt. Vanessa lifted her napkin to her mouth as she laughed.

Her surprise arrival to the lake house really caught me off guard. She was probably the one person that got hurt the most in all of this. Amelia and Wyatt had each other, Grant and I had each other, but Vanessa had no one.

It made sense now why Grant invited her here—and I loved him even more for it. She and Grant seemed to have fallen into a comfortable friendship since the breakup. It was a friendship that Grant wanted me to be a part of and I was definitely all in for that.

I glanced over at my father next. For the past thirty minutes he had been offering different job positions to Grant. Apparently, when it came to what went down between Grant's dad and his job, my dad was infuriated. But Grant was a gentleman. He wanted to make his own way, so he respectfully declined my father's offers.

Everything seemed to be...perfect. Okay, maybe not completely perfect. Even though my mother understood and accepted why the wedding between Amelia and myself was called off, she was still upset in regards to not being able to plan it.

Wyatt pulled me aside an hour ago and told me what she had said about it. The messed up part was, she didn't come out right and tell him. According to my little brother, he had been walking by her room when he heard her talking to our dad about it—and she was upset.

Unable to help himself, Wyatt went into the room and asked her what was wrong.  That's when she told him. As I watched my mother now, I could see a little bit of the hurt in her eyes. That made my own chest ache. I never liked when my mother was upset. Maybe there was something Wyatt and I could do for her.

Shit. I needed a drink. The root beer I had been drinking wasn't cutting it. I turned away from the dining room and walked into the kitchen. I went straight for the wine rack and pulled out a new bottle of Moscato. I uncorked it, poured some in a plain old red solo cup, and put it to my lips.

Fuck. That was so fucking good. I closed my eyes and took another drink.

"Hey, you okay?"

I opened my eyes to see Grant standing in front of me. The concern he had was clear the way his brows dropped into a deep V.

I looked into those blue eyes— blue eyes that I could spend forever getting lost in—and I smiled. "I'm more than okay."

A corner of his mouth lifted and he reached out to brush some of my hair out of my eyes. "You sure?" he murmured. "I know I threw a lot of surprises at you in the past twenty-four hours."