Unproven Chapter Fifty Four "My Poker Face is Slipping"

If you're loved by someone, you're never rejected, decide what to be and GO BE IT
-The Avett brothers

Recommend Reading Introduction to Unproven

DEFINITELY READ Prologue

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three

Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two Chapter Twenty Three Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five Chapter Twenty Six Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight Chapter Twenty Nine Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One Chapter Thirty Two Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four Chapter Thirty Five Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven Chapter Thirty EightChapter Thirty Nine

Chapter Forty Chapter Forty One Chapter Forty Two

Chapter Forty Three Chapter Forty Four Chapter Forty Five

Chapter Forty Six Chapter Forty Seven Chapter Forty Eight

Chapter Forty Nine Chapter Fifty Chapter Fifty One

Chapter Fifty Two Chapter Fifty Three

Chapter Fifty Four

A few hours later Grayson was in Raymie's coffee shop grabbing a couple cappuccinos when he received a text from his father. Come to my office at eight p.m. His stomach tightened. What now? He paid for the drinks and wound his way through the people milling around.

Had it really been as little as three months ago that he'd looked forward to spending time with his dad? Now every time he received a message from the man he was either irritated or wary. He supposed he now understood what most teenagers felt about their parents. Until recently he'd never had a reason to rebel since his dad had always given him plenty of freedom, and very little in the way of rules. Unless you counted the rules he'd hammered into him to live by. And that was the source of the problem, because it was difficult to stay on a path when its fundamental foundation had been shaken. He remembered thinking he wasn't in danger of allowing emotions to take over his life since it was only Ary that brought them out. But deep down he knew that if you decided love existed in any form, something in you was bound to change, and that something would eventually affect every area of your life. He still believed in logic and reason, and logic told him that if he could feel love for one thing, then he could feel it for others, because either it existed or it didn't, there was no middle ground.

"What's wrong?" Ary asked as he climbed into the car and handed her the cup.

He gave her a rueful smile, "My poker face is slipping."

"Why, what happened?"

He laughed a little, "No I meant the fact that you asked that."

She smiled, "It's because you don't have your guard up with me."

He cocked his head to the side, considering. "Yeah, but whatever you saw on my face was there before I got in the car."

She shook her head, "Wrong. I watched you walk across the street and you had the same look you usually have-unreadable. Not happy or sad or worried...Andie once said she thought you might be an android because your facial expressions seemed calculated. After that we made a game of watching you all year and your mask cracked four times; two genuine smiles, and two flashes of actual anger-not the cold, flat expression you get that normally seems to indicate you're mad. They didn't catch the anger, probably because they weren't quite so diligently observing you," she gave him a sheepish smile.

His lip curved in amusement, then he cocked his head to the side. "So my expression altered when I got in the car?"

She nodded. "When you handed me the cup."

"Huh."

"You let down your guard with me, it's obviously not a conscious thing anymore than keeping it up is."

He nodded slowly, "Years of practice on the latter."

"It's a matter of trust," she said. "You've been taught to trust no one, but you've learned to trust me, not just in your head but in your very being. As you should." She smiled and patted his leg.

He returned the smile, shaking his head. "Ironically the look you saw was because very similar thoughts were going through my mind. That if I really do love you then love exists, a concept that could alter my life."

"And that scares you?" She ignored the ‘if’, he might still be wrestling with the idea, but she knew without a doubt that he did.

He started to shake his head, then stopped. "It...Worries me."

She nodded. She didn't need to ask why, she could imagine how profound that would be, to spend your entire life believing, no, knowing that love was just a word to describe things associated with sensory pleasures, like lust or the taste of chocolate or a stroke to your ego. Ary had recently developed a theory that those who knew that love was real, far above and beyond such things, were those who had been loved since birth by their parents, especially their mothers. ‘A mother's love’ was a saying you often heard, and for good reason. Because it was an unconditional, inexplicable thing, something remembered from before this life. Of course there were women who didn't possess that quality for some reason, perhaps because they had never experienced it themselves or had been emotionally damaged in some way, but the vast majority had a maternal instinct that was as unshakable as it was indescribable. And Grayson had never known his mother. So not only did he have a father who had told him from the time he could understand words that love was akin to Santa Claus, he'd had nothing substantial to dispute it. Until now.

Ary looked over at him as he drove and a fierce feeling of protectiveness washed over her, as well as an intense anger at his sire for depriving him of the one thing that made life on this plane of existence wholly worthwhile. She wondered if James had had a mother who loved him and her bet was on no, which deflated her anger somewhat. He couldn't teach what he hadn't learned himself.

I love you Grayson, she thought, pushing the energy behind it toward him, without boundaries or conditions.

He glanced at her with a peculiar expression, then turned back to the road.

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