Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 119 - Gray Memories

"It was fine; nothing entertaining happened," I lie, turning off the screen of my phone and averting my eyes from hers that are now positively boring into mine, trying to read all my secrets.

"What are you doing, Becks?" she asks, trying to take my phone, and when I resist, she sits up straight and pushes her hands against my shoulders, forcing me to look up at her.

"Please don't do this," she says, her eyes glittering with something that looks suspiciously like tears. "I beg you, Becks. You can lie to yourself, you can lie to Ryan, to Devan, even to God if you really want to, but please don't lie to me. It hurts too damn much. Don't you trust me anymore?"

I bite into my bottom lip and hand my phone over to her. She's right; I am hurting her. This is Beth, my sister, my best friend. We used to trust each other to the extent that we could have terrible fights, be really angry with each other, and still never take sides against each other or divulge each other's secrets. I want that kind of trust again. Hiding from her is one way never to regain that trust.

"Grayson," she sighs, lying back against my pillows, her eyes lingering fondly on the photograph still open on my screen when she turns it on again. "I love this pic; he looks so human in it."

"He always looked human," I laugh, surprised to hear her say that.

"No, Grayson was like a sexy librarian," she sighs, and I think she's confusing him with her husband now. If anybody falls in the sexy librarian category, it would be Ryan.

"What?" I giggle. "The man was built like an action hero, and he owned a bar; I don't think he ever went to a library."

"Yes, but his hair was always perfectly tidy, and he had a very strict dress code. He only looked human when he was playing with children. The rest of the time, he looked like he'd just stepped out of a brochure advertising fashionable office wear."

"How does that bring us to a librarian?" She is not wrong. Gray used to dress in button-up shirts and neat slacks with polished shoes. He was always well-groomed and stylish. He didn't look like someone who spent most of his time in a bar; he looked like a casual businessman... and that is what he was.

When Gray's pub became successful, he hired a manager for the day-to-day running of the place and focussed on the finance and business side of things. We relocated to Briar Cove when I was pregnant because I wanted to be near my parents and Beth. When Willow was about four, we moved back to Grey Mount, and Beth got a really good accounting position at a large firm and moved there too. 

Gray was in the process of opening another pub in Grey Mount when I lost him.

"I have no idea," Beth sighs, still gazing at the image. "He sure was handsome. I see so much of Willow in him."

"Yes, she does take after him in so many ways." Sometimes, when she smiles, and the light hits her eyes just right, I can see her father so clearly that it takes my breath away.

"They were both raised by Charlotte Mayfair," Beth observes. "She has his accent and his sense of duty and high regard for rules."

"Grayson broke all the rules... he owned a bar, for crying out loud! That went against all the Mayfair rules."

"Yes, he broke the rules," Beth chuckles, "but he still held them in high regard just before breaking them. He was such a lovely man. So much fun to be around."

"He was." Grayson might've looked polished, and he had immaculate manners, but he was a menace. I cannot think about him without smiling... or crying... usually both.

"So, either your date with Dev went really, really well, and you're falling into a pit of undeserved guilt, hence the apology," Beth remarks, gazing searchingly at me again. "Or it was terrible, and you regret wasting your time and were apologising to yourself."