by Kendall Ryan
I smile, and we finish eating in a comfortable silence.
So, maybe it’s not exactly how I pictured my first time spending the night at Layne’s, but I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. Things between us may not be conventional, but somehow it feels right.
7
* * *
LAYNE
One year ago
The idling of a truck engine purrs outside, and I take a peek out the window. When I spot the rented moving truck stop beside the curb, I smile.
Right on time, a first for Griffin. For as long as I’ve known him, punctuality hasn’t exactly been his strong suit. Honestly, it’s amazing what having a serious girlfriend will do to a guy.
Standing and stretching my arms over my head, I take one last look around the nearly empty living room, cardboard boxes piled around the perimeter. When I closed escrow on my dream house last week, I thought the high of home ownership would be enough to carry me through the inevitable moving blues.
But no matter how excited I might be to be moving into my forever home—on my own dime, no less—I can’t quite shake this gnawing feeling that something’s missing. I guess I just thought that by the time I bought the home I planned to spend the rest of my life in, I’d have someone to share it with.
But then again, not wanting to wait around for Mr. Right any longer is the exact reason I went ahead and put an offer down on the modern two-story Spanish-style home I’d been eyeing for months. It’s my life, whether it looks the way I thought it would or not. And there’s no damn way I’m going to waste another second of it letting myself feel broken or incomplete.
“Morning,” Griffin says cheerfully as he walks through the door, his turquoise eyes sparkling like they always do when he’s in a playful mood. “You ready to do this thing?”
I’m glad to see he’s in such good spirits this morning. Spending your day off helping a friend move shouldn’t rate that high on weekend priorities.
“So ready,” I say. “But, seriously, thank you for offering to drive the moving truck. I’d do it myself, but the thought of navigating that thing down Sunset Boulevard nauseates me.”
He grins. “Don’t thank me until we get all your shit where it needs to go in one piece.”
“Do you really have that little faith?” I ask as I bend down to heft a box of old law books onto my hip. As I lift the box, the books slide to the other end, shifting the weight away from me and making it difficult for me to keep my grip.
Griffin quickly grabs the other end of the box, his eyebrows raising. “Why don’t you let me do all the heavy lifting, okay?” he says, taking the box from my hands a little too easily.
“What, are you worried this old lady is going to break a hip or something?” I place my hands defiantly on my hips, but secretly, I’m relieved. The last thing I want to do is mortify myself further by throwing out my back or dislocating a disc. Then I’ll really feel like a senior citizen.
“You’ve got to stop saying shit like that. You’re thirty-six and that is definitely not old.” Griffin’s eyes are laced with concern rather than their signature playfulness.
“Yeah, well, let’s see if you’re still singing that tune once you hit thirty.”
He shrugs and smiles, stacking the box of law books on top of another and carrying them both down to the truck. Show-off.
Griffin might be annoying, but I’m truly grateful he’s here. Kristen and my mom offered to come by the new house and help arrange everything once it all gets there, but when it came to finding someone to help me actually transport my belongings, I figured I’d have to shell out a small fortune to a moving company. There was no one else to call. But then Griffin overheard my plan and insisted on being the one to help.
Over the past couple of years, he’s become someone I can depend on, especially since he starting dating Cora last year. Not only has having a girlfriend taken the majority of his attention off me and shifted it to someone else, but it’s forced him to mature in ways he didn’t even know he had to in his man-whore days. Not that he’s totally grown out of all his bad habits. At the end of the day, Griffin is who he is. But lately, I’ve liked having that person around more and more.
Once he’s loaded up all the boxes, we begin the careful process of moving the few pieces of furniture I decided to keep. A lot of things I bought new, like the dining table and my beautiful new oyster-colored sectional that I had delivered to the new house. But some things I couldn’t bear to part with, like the antique bookcase I bought when I first moved to Los Angeles.
“This thing weighs like a thousand pounds,” he says, straining to lift one corner of the bookcase and shaking his head.
“It’ll be fine. We’ve got this,” I reply, rubbing my hands together and stretching out my legs.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try to sell it? Will it even fit in your new place?”
Now he’s just being silly. My new place is over a thousand square feet bigger than my loft.
I stop stretching and sigh, running a hand over the back of my neck. “I know it’s not the prettiest piece of furniture in the world. but this bookshelf was my first real possession, the first thing I picked out and paid for all on my own. I had to pay a hundred dollars extra for the guy to carry it up those stairs for me, but it was worth it because having it in my space made it finally feel like it was mine, especially once I’d filled it with my law books. And now that I’m moving into this new house, my dream home, the first place that’s fully, completely mine . . . maybe it’s silly, but it feels like this bookshelf has to be there.”
He nods, his eyes trained on the grayish wood, but I can’t tell if he’s sizing it up or getting ready to throw it out the window. Suddenly, without warning, he lifts the bookcase, groaning a little under the weight, then hefts the thing out my front door and lugs it down the stairs.
“Wait, Griffin—don’t hurt yourself!” I call after him, following him down the stairs and hovering my hands around the top of the shelf, stunned by his stupid, if not sweet action.
Miraculously, he gets the thing down the stairs and into the truck all on his own, his biceps bulging beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt and sweat beading on his forehead. He groans loudly once it’s loaded, panting and leaning against the cool metal of the truck. I stand in front of him, my arms crossed and eyebrows knit together, waiting for him to explain himself.
“What?” he asks, still struggling to catch his breath.
“Don’t what me. Are you trying to kill yourself?”
He shrugs. “The bookcase is important to you. I found a way to get it down the stairs.”
“I could have helped, you know.”
“You said you paid the guy who sold it to you extra to get it up there, all by himself. I figured that meant I’d be able to get it down without help on my own too.”
“If you think I’m paying you a hundred dollars for that, you’re mistaken.” I scoff, shifting my weight from one foot to the other and tossing my hair over my shoulder.
“You’ll find another way to repay me.” He winks, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. The hem of his T-shirt lifts slightly with the motion, giving me a quick sneak peek of his abs, still as tanned and rippling as ever.
Jeez. It’s not even fair.
My stomach cartwheels at the sight, and suddenly I remember how often he’s showed up to our group hangouts, sweaty and gross from lifting at the gym. He’s a strong guy; he knew he could handle the bookcase. And I should have known that too. So, why was I so worried about him hurting himself?
Before I can consider the question any further, Griffin claps his hands, assessing all the boxes and furniture he’s perfectly Tetrised into the truck.
“Is this everything?” he asks, tucking a misaligned box back into its stack.
“I think so. But I’ll go do one last walkthrough.”
Climbing the stairs to my third-floor walkup for the last time, I think about all the memories I’m leaving
behind here. All the girls’ nights I’ve had with my friends, all the boyfriends who’ve passed through, all the times I tried to cook myself a nice meal and almost burned the place down.
I spent a good chunk of my twenties and thirties in this apartment, but I can say with confidence that now feels like as good a time as any to let it go. Tossing the keys on the kitchen counter, I wave good-bye to my old space, feeling a strange mix of calm and anxiety over seeing it all hollowed out.
I walk back outside to find Griffin leaning against the side of the truck, scrolling through his phone. He looks up and smiles when he hears me coming, tucking his phone into his back pocket.
“You ready?” he asks.
“As I’ll ever be.”
It’s not a long drive to my new place, but in typical LA fashion, traffic turns what would be a fifteen-minute drive into a forty-five-minute one, giving the two of us plenty of time to catch up.
“So, how’s Cora?” I ask. “Still studying for the LSAT?”
“Yeah, she’s planning on taking it next month. Thanks again, by the way, for lending her your old study materials. She says they’re really helping.”
“Of course. I’m always happy to support women in law.”
“She asks about you all the time, you know, wanting to know where you started, how you opened your own firm so young, that sort of thing. It’s kind of weird, actually.” He glances over at me, his brows scrunching together.
When Kristen told me about Griffin’s new girlfriend, I was surprised to hear she wanted to be a lawyer—and not just because he usually went for women with less ambition. The more Kristen told me about Cora, the more she sounded . . . well, familiar.
“She’s probably just looking for a mentor. I’d be happy to meet with her, if that’s something she wants.”
“No, that’s okay. I mean, I’m sure she’d love that, but I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“It sounds like you don’t want me to meet your girlfriend.” Griffin doesn’t respond, staring straight out the windshield, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, and an unfamiliar feeling tingles in my belly.
“Do you not want me to meet her?” I press, crossing my arms and shifting in my seat, my eyes widening slightly. “Are you worried I won’t like her? Or that she won’t like me?”
I’ve always introduced him to the guys I was dating over the years—if they stuck around long enough to meet my friends, that is.
He stays silent, chewing his lip and pointedly avoiding eye contact, pretending to be hyper-focused on the stop-and-go traffic ahead of us.
“Well, I hate to break it to you, mister, but I’m going to have to meet her sooner or later. You can’t hide her away forever.”
He finally speaks. “We’ll see about that.”
Shaking my head, I turn to look out my window, bothered by how weird Griffin is acting.
Is he embarrassed about being friends with a woman ten years older than him? That can’t be it; he just said that she’s impressed by what I do. Does he think I’ll be rude and judgmental with her? Sure, I can be hard to please sometimes, but surely he’s not under the impression that I would be anything but sweet to his girlfriend. Not that any of them have ever stuck around long enough for me to meet them before.
Maybe that’s what it is. He’s not used to having to introduce a girlfriend to his friends. That, I can understand. That makes sense to me, even if it does hurt my feelings a little.
By the time we finally make it to my new house, Kristen and my mom are already there, chatting away in the driveway, and they wave when they see us pull up. When my mom waggles her eyebrows suggestively at the sight of Griffin in the driver’s seat, I roll my eyes. I love my mom, but she can be such a flirt sometimes, especially when it comes to young, attractive men. Thankfully, he’s too busy trying to back the truck up to the curb to notice her gawking at him.
“Took you guys long enough,” Kristen says as we climb out of the truck, pulling me in for a congratulatory hug.
“There was an accident on Sunset. Thankfully, my driver here handled it like a champ,” I say, smiling gratefully at Griffin, who simply nods in response.
“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart!” My mom squeals, wrapping me in the tightest hug she’s given me since I graduated from law school.
I hug her back, stifling an exasperated groan. “Thanks, Mom.”
When I told her I was moving, she insisted on helping me move in, no matter how many times I told her it wasn’t necessary. She’s been itching for grandkids from the moment I got my first period, and it’s no secret she’s heartbroken that her only child is still single and childless at thirty-six. That being said, her sadness over my situation has recently turned into full-blown pity, hence the reason she insisted on being here to help me decorate. I know she means well, but my mom can be fucking depressing sometimes, even when she’s trying to be upbeat and supportive.
Regardless, I won’t let that dampen my spirits. I still can’t believe I bought my own home. There’s a sense of accomplishment about it.
Truthfully, I just thought it was time. I didn’t need a husband in order to buy my own house. And a few months later, I’d gotten a mortgage, and a realtor. Now, bam, here we are today.
“Griffin, if I’d known you were going to be here and so helpful, I would have brought some leftovers for you to take home,” my mom says after letting me go, turning her attention to an equal parts charmed and amused Griffin.
“That’s all right, Mrs. A. I’m not a college student anymore. I can forage for myself,” he replies with an easy smile that immediately wins my mom over.
“Well, from what I hear, you’ve got a new woman to cook for you. Coral? Clara?”
“Cora,” he says, his smile fading slightly. “She’s not much of a cook either, actually, but we’re both experts at takeout and ordering in.”
“Just like my Layne,” my mom says, wrapping her arm around my waist and giving me a gentle squeeze.
I laugh along with her, but judging from the look on his face, Griffin isn’t too pleased with the comparison. He forces a small chuckle, then gets to work unloading boxes from the back.
We work straight through the rest of the morning, getting everything out of the truck and into the house before I start directing them to the different rooms where each box needs to end up. It’s trickier work than I imagined, even without doing any of the heavy lifting. The mental gymnastics is work enough, trying to decide what should go where, and figuring out what items I still need to make the place feel finished.
I’ve never had so much freedom in a living space, both in terms of square footage and ownership. And while I love having the ability to do whatever I want, whether that means which rug to place on the Mexican tile or painting the guest bathroom hot pink, after two hours of decision-making, I’m totally wiped out. It isn’t until my stomach starts to growl that I realize it’s time for lunch.
But before I can ask if anyone else is hungry, Griffin appears in the doorway, bulging plastic bags in hand. From the smell alone, I can tell he went to my favorite sandwich shop, and my mouth immediately starts watering.
“When did you leave?” I ask as Kristen and my mom wander in from the other room.
“Not long ago. You guys were busy with the master bedroom, so I figured I’d sneak out and get lunch.” He leads us into the dining room and lays our food out on my brand-new mahogany table.
“Wait, Griff, did you put the table together?” I can’t hide the shock or appreciation in my voice. “Why didn’t you ask for help? It looks amazing.”
It does look incredible. It’s been months since I ordered the table, and even longer since I saw it in the store, so seeing it now in my very own dining room is making me all kinds of emotional.
“Like I said, you guys were busy. I wanted to surprise you.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“Wow, Griff, you outdid yourself,” Kristen says, slapping him on the back.
My mom shakes her
head, tears welling up in her eyes at the sight of the table. “Oh, Layney, it’s beautiful. You’re doing such a good job with this place.” She sighs, dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
“Well, I had some help from my favorite interior designer,” I say, nudging Kristen in the ribs.
“All I did was tag along to the furniture stores you dragged me to.”
My chest warms with pride and happiness, and before we all totally collapse into emotional messes, we agree it’s time to eat. Griffin hands out bags of chips and sandwiches, clearly proud of himself for being so on top of it.
When it comes to my turn, his smile turns devilish. “Sonoma chicken sandwich, hold the tomatoes, with an extra side of poppy seed dressing. And don’t forget your salt-and-vinegar chips,” he adds, his turquoise eyes dancing with delight.
“How did you—”
“I only remembered because of how ridiculously detailed your order was.” He hands me my food with a wink, breezing past me and taking a seat next to his sister at the dining table.
As I sit there with the three of them, eating my favorite sandwich from my favorite deli in all of LA, watching him chat so easily with my mom, I’m not sure this kind of attention is something I should get used to.
Especially with Cora in the picture. She seems good for him, and for as weird as he’s been acting about her today, I think he really likes her.
No matter how much I’ve come to genuinely appreciate Griffin’s friendship, it would be good for him to be in a relationship, and surely that means our close friendship will probably need some breathing room. I can’t imagine his serious girlfriend being okay with him spending so much free time with another woman—even if it is strictly platonic.
I wouldn’t want to do anything that would stand in the way of him becoming the man he’s supposed to be. And based on what I’ve seen of him today, I’m excited to meet that man.
8
* * *