“Kind of. Parker went out somewhere after she packed us to leave. Feel like reading to me?” She looked so damn hopeful.

“Sure, just give me a second.” I went upstairs and changed into cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and a zip-up hoodie, then came back down, my copy of The Odyssey in hand.

When I took a seat on the couch, she wiggled over, lying across my lap like we hadn’t skipped over the last five years, and assumed the Grayson’s-reading-to-me position we’d used since we were seven.

“Does it still help you to read?” she asked.

“Yeah. As long as I’m reading every day it seems to be easier.”

I started reading at the beginning. Tripping over the first passages as usual. Her forehead puckered. “Skip to the part you haven’t read yet.”

What? “Okay.” I skipped to book nine and began to read. When Grace shivered, I unzipped my hoodie and helped her into it. “Better?” I asked as I zipped it up.

“Much, thank you,” she replied. “I missed this, listening to you read to me.”

I brushed her hair back with my empty hand. “What do you remember?”

“While I was…out?”

“No, from before the accident.” She bit her lip. “No pressure. I’m just trying to figure out where your memory leaves off. Where your gaps are.” I ran my fingers across her forehead, and she relaxed. Some things never changed.

“I…I remember sailing. You, me, and Owen.”

“That was the day before. Is that where it cuts off for you?” I asked. She didn’t remember the fight…or what followed. God, I was going to have to experience it all over again, because she had to know.

She shook her head. “No, I remember being mad at you because you wanted to turn down the Citadel. You thought it was your responsibility to be with me at UNC.”

“Yes. You told me that if we loved each other, four years wouldn’t matter.”

“Did five years matter?” She leaned against my chest.

“Grace, these last five years weren’t normal years. They changed me in ways you wouldn’t have liked. In ways I still don’t like.”

“Don’t say things like that. I like you just fine.” Her eyes were level with mine as she sat up in my lap. “I’m so sorry for what happened. For what you’ve been through, but from what I’ve seen, you’ve come out on the other side stronger, more focused. Maybe a little less goofy, and you don’t laugh as much, but you’re still my Gray, my Port. And I’m still your Starboard.”

“It’s not that easy.”

She wound her hands through my hair. “It can be if we let it.”

I knew where this was leading and couldn’t stomach it going any further. She was much too close, and not in a good way. In a way that sent me back five, hell, six years, to when I loved her without concept of what that really meant. Where I’d dated my best friend because it seemed the most logical step. With one touch, she took me back to a time where I’d confused infatuation and love with being in love.

And now, I knew better. Now I had Sam.

Grace was an anachronism in my life, and as much as I’d missed her, as easy as it was to remember how I felt, she wasn’t what I needed, because I wasn’t the same guy who’d loved her in high school.

I cupped her cheek in my hand and prepared to shatter her. Again.

“It’s been five years, and I know this is hard to explain, but my feelings for you…” I took a breath and prepared for the worst. “Grace, I’m in love—” With Sam.

“I knew it.” She kissed me before I could get it out. A faint clicking sound resonated in my brain.

I froze. Her lips on mine were familiar and foreign at the same time, the wrong texture, the wrong pressure, the wrong taste. Because she was the wrong woman.

I jerked back to break the kiss.

“Grace, we can’t.”

“Oh, please, don’t stop on our account,” Josh said from behind me, his voice dead and even. That clicking had been the door opening.

I turned slowly, my hand falling away from Grace’s cheek.

Sam stood next to Josh, her eyes wide, her lower lip trembling. He stepped in front of her and used his arm to guide her around his back as he murdered me with his eyes. He was protecting her? From me. Because Grace was in my lap, with her hands in my hair, wearing my sweatshirt, and Sam had walked in to see my hand holding Grace’s face as she kissed me.

Fuck. My. Life.

This was the shit that happened in movies, not real life.

“Sam, this isn’t—”

“Shut the fuck up. Now.” Josh enunciated each word more than clearly. Then he turned so I couldn’t see Sam, and took her upstairs, guiding her under his arm.

I all but dumped Grace onto the couch and ran. “Sam!”

Josh stood in her doorway. “No. Turn your ass around and go back downstairs.”

He may have had a couple inches on me, but I had at least thirty pounds of muscle on him. “Move. I need to talk to her.”

“I love you like a brother, but I’m two seconds away from beating the shit out of you,” Josh fired back.

I stepped toward him. “No offense, but we both know how that fight would end, and I’ll finish you if it means I get to Sam. Grace kissed me. I didn’t kiss her back. You walked in at pretty much the worst possible second.”

“I don’t give a fuck if she tripped into your clothes and landed on your mouth, Masters. Sam was my friend long before you were.” He crossed his arms.