Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,253

Dave about all of it, but it had all changed so drastically and so quickly, he knew now wasn’t a good time anyway. “Well, thank you.” He put his hand out past her toward the pastor, and with surprise, the pastor shook his hand.

“You’re welcome. Don’t know that I did much.”

Greg smiled and shrugged, knowing the pastor had done far more than he realized. “Just for being here.” He glanced at Taylor who was once again wrapped around herself in that way that was starting to really hurt his heart. She looked so nervous, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been. “We should go.”

She glanced back at him though she said nothing. With a small nod, she started out and stepped past the pastor. She looked worrisomely unsteady on those heels, and he realized she was going to be freezing when they got outside. In one motion, he retrieved his jacket from the pew, knowing she was going to need it far more than he did.

“Thanks again,” he said, shaking the pastor’s hand as he crossed out. “I appreciate it.”

“Come see me anytime,” the pastor said, his gaze going from Greg over to Taylor. “Either of you. I’m always here to talk.”

Greg grinned at that. “Even at midnight.”

Pastor Dave matched the grin. “Even then apparently. Take care getting home.”

“We will.”

The internal shaking had started again when the pastor showed up, and Taylor had no idea how to make it stop. She turned with Greg but in front of him, and with him shadowing her, they headed up the aisle and out the door.

She was in the lobby before she realized her predicament. No phone. No ride. After one in the morning.

“Come on,” Greg said, putting his jacket around her. “Let’s get you home.”

Crying became a real possibility then. After everything she had done, every bad and horrible thing, he was still the gentleman she had always known him to be.

At the door, he pushed it open for her, and she stepped out into the frigid night air. They went down the concrete steps to his car, and he helped her in.

Getting in on his side, he fired up the car before punching on the heater.

Taylor was watching him now, every single move he made. Not because she was worried but because seeing him like this was so new to her. He was taking care of her and doing it without question or fanfare.

“Music?” he asked. “No music? I don’t care. Your choice.”

Her choice. How many times had he given her the choice over the years? The choice to be there or not. The choice to hang out with him or not. The choice… with him, it was always hers. “Can we talk instead?”

He glanced over at her. “Uh, sure. I guess so.”

Taylor sorted through all of it in her head and her heart, laying some things aside for later. “I think I get it now… why you didn’t say anything.”

“Oh yeah?” Putting the car in drive, he hit the blinker and checked behind him twice before pulling out into the nearly empty street. “Why’s that?”

“It wasn’t for you,” she said, the understanding crystalizing inside her. “It was for me.”

Confusion knitted across his brow as he glanced at her. “Okay?”

“You remember that night after Noah left me at the dance to go out drinking with his buddies?”

That soured Greg’s face. “Would be hard to forget.”

“You remember what you said to me that night when you took me home and I was such a mess?”

He didn’t answer.

“You said I was too good for that jerk, that I deserved someone who was going to appreciate me and treat me with respect. You sounded like one of those old Victorian novels my mom used to read.”

“If your mom read them, how do you know what they sounded like?”

Taylor tipped her head. “I may have snuck and read one or two when she wasn’t looking.”

“Taylor…”

“What? I was trying to figure out this whole guy-girl thing. Missy kept telling me I was so naïve, and she laughed at me because I didn’t even really know what that meant.”

“Missy,” he said, his voice falling.

“I know. You didn’t like her, and I understand that now. But back then, she was my ticket to life, to going out and doing things, to not being stuck in my room 24-7 with my dolls and books. Besides, I know now she was faking it just like I was, trying to be grown up and do things to prove