Rolling her eyes, Taylor hit my leg. “Ugh! Meagan!”
Laughing, I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “He hasn’t talked to you since then?”
“Well, he’s talked to me, and has even asked me out a few times. Then all of a sudden, he just stopped paying any attention to me at all. It’s like I don’t even exist anymore.”
Pinching my eyebrows together, I stared at my sister. “Then fuck ’em, Tay. Don’t ever let anyone treat you like that. Ever. If he can’t even see what is in front of his face, then the hell with him.”
“I thought so too, but then, a few weeks ago, he walked up to me and asked me how I was doing.”
“Did you tell him to fuck off?”
Taylor smiled weakly. “I wanted to. I did give him the cold shoulder. He walked with me for a bit and told me he was sorry he just up and stopped talking to me.”
“Was there a reason?”
“He said he felt like an asshole but that he thought it was best if he left me alone. I guess he said he ended up getting drunk at a party one night and woke up with a girl in his bed and he felt guilty as hell and that he didn’t want to hurt me. I told him I wasn’t under the impression we were dating, so why should he feel guilty. I feel like he just wants a girl with experience and I’m not her.”
My heart broke for my sister. Reaching over, I took her hand in mine. “Taylor, that was actually a sweet thing for him to do, he just went about doing it in a totally messed up asshole kind of way. Guys are like that. They think they are doing right by you and all they are doing is being stupid jerks.”
Taylor chuckled and nodded her head. “Maybe. It’s just, he makes me feel so different when I’m around him. Like he literally lights up my entire world, Meg. I’ve never met another guy who has done that.” A tear fell from her eyes as it rolled slowly down her cheek. “But I think it’s pretty clear, he’s not interested in me. Even if he was, do you really think he’d wake up in bed with some girl he had sex with the night before if he liked me?”
I wanted to punch this Jase guy so hard in the face he’d lose a few teeth.
Pushing a piece of her brown hair behind her ear, I shook my head. “Tay, if a guy doesn’t make you feel like you are the center of his world, he’s not worth having. He should make you feel like a princess and nothing less.”
“Does Gray make you feel that way?”
Pressing my lips together, I smiled and nodded my head. “Yes.”
Expelling a breath, Taylor shook her head. “Well, maybe it’s time I started not playing it so safe. I had this stupid silly idea I was going to save myself for that one special guy. Just think of all the sex I’ve lost out on!”
I shuddered and said, “Change of subject! Fast!” My face turned serious as I took my sister’s hands in mine. “Taylor, don’t do it. You’ll know when it’s right. Don’t have sex just to get back at this guy.”
Her lips pressed into a hard line as she nodded her head. “I won’t. I promise. But he is going to Europe this summer.”
“Really?” I asked as I lifted my eyebrows. “That should be interesting.”
Taylor attempted to smile, but I saw how conflicted she was. “Tay, if it’s meant to be, it will happen. In the mean time, don’t wait around for this guy.”
She nodded her head and looked back out at the guys. “So . . . how long before Dad and Josh start arguing about whose way is better?”
With a chuckle, I said, “Thirty minutes top.”
We spent the next hour laughing and talking about our future as we watched our father and Josh nearly get into a fist fight about which way the slide went on.
Yep. This was the life I wanted. The life I needed.
“Meagan? Is everything okay?”
Spinning around, I smiled when I saw Ashley. Grayson’s mother had been so supportive of our decision to move to Texas and the guilt was beginning to eat away at me.
“Hey,” I whispered as I tried to find my voice. I wasn’t sure if it was the pregnancy or a combination of everything that had happened to me over the last two months that was making me so emotional.
With a wave of my hand and a terrible fake laugh, I said, “I’m fine.”
Ashley walked out to the edge of her deck and stared straight ahead at the snowcapped mountains. “It’s so hard to believe it’s June. Where has the time gone?”
I slowly shook my head, but didn’t answer. When we came back to Colorado, I’d given Melissa my notice. Grayson did the same. Melissa had asked for a months’ notice to be able to find someone and then for me sit with the new person and go over each case I had, to which I agreed. Grayson’s boss was stunned he was leaving, but put in an excellent recommendation for him with a friend of his who worked for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Grayson had flown back to