“Apology accepted.” But I’d been chastised, and it stung.
He leaned back on one elbow, bending one knee. For a little while, we stayed just like that without speaking. The crickets seemed to grow louder as the seconds ticked by, joined by the buzz of mosquitoes. The moon appeared above the trees to our right.
As the silence lengthened, I felt more awkward and stupid. Why couldn’t I just keep my mouth shut? He was right—we’d only known each other for three days. I wasn’t his wife. I wasn’t even his girlfriend. I was living with him because I had nowhere else to go and no way to leave yet. He didn’t owe me anything.
I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat as I slapped at a mosquito on my ankle. “Ready to go? The bugs are getting me.”
“In a minute.” He reached for my arm. “Come here, please.”
This time, I didn’t let him pull me toward him. But I looked back over my shoulder. “What?”
“Did I ruin your best day ever?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I shrugged.
“Are you mad at me?”
I took a breath, fought the lump in my throat again. “I’m more mad at myself.”
“Why?”
“Because I say things I shouldn’t. And I get carried away.”
“I like when you get carried away.”
“You know what I mean. I talk a lot, and I let people I like in quickly. I forget other people are different.”
“I’m definitely different.”
“I know.” I took a breath. “And I get that we just met. I know what we’re doing isn’t real. It’s just been a while since I’ve had this much fun with someone. I like you. I want to know you.”
“Same.”
That made me feel better. “Really?”
“Yes. And you’re right. I’m not . . . used to letting people in, or allowing someone to get close to me. I generally push people away who try.”
“Why? Sorry.” I shook my head. “I did it again. It’s like my mouth just shoots out words before my brain gets a chance to stop it. But I swear, I’m only asking because I genuinely care about the answer . . . and about you.”
He was silent a moment. “My one serious relationship—with Kayla—ended badly.”
“And it hurt?”
“Yeah. It did.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question, then thought better of it and closed my lips.
“It’s okay. You can ask.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, I’m getting a little impatient to get my hands on you, but I’ll give you three more questions to make up for being a jerk.”
I smiled. “Thanks. Three’s good.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Were you in love with her?”
He lay back and put his hands behind his head. “Felt like I was.”
“Why did you guys break up?”
“That’s a long story.”
Falling to my side next to him, I propped my head on one hand. “I love long stories.”
“Of course you do.” He inhaled and exhaled, slow and deep. “Before I enlisted for the second time, we talked about getting married and starting a family when I got out. I asked her to wait for me, and she promised she would. But she didn’t.”
I bit my lip. “That must have hurt.”
Griffin kept his eyes on the darkening sky as he spoke. “When I came home, I bought a ring. My dad loaned me some money, and I put a down payment on a house. I started working long days at the garage to be able to afford it all. Then she finally got the nerve to tell me she’d fallen for someone else while I was away.”
“Oh.” My heart ached for him.
“There was more to it than that, but you get the idea.”
I swallowed hard. His life lessons and rules made more sense now. No wonder he never wanted to rely on anyone but himself. He didn’t trust anybody to keep promises. He never wanted anyone to have the power to hurt him again. He’d set his heart on things—a marriage, a home, a family—and wound up alone.
He looked over at me. “Was that three?”
“No, that was only two.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I’ve been talking for an hour.”
“I’m sure. But you know what? I’ll let you off the hook for the third one.”
“Good.” He reached for me, and this time I gave in and let him pull me on top of him. His fingers slid into my hair, and he lifted his head so his lips could meet mine. The kiss was sweet and tender and easy, and I felt myself melting for him. It made me so happy that he’d felt safe enough with me to open up a little.
I picked up my head. “Wait, I changed my mind. I want to ask one more question.”
He groaned. “What?”
I scrambled to sit up, straddling him with a knee on either side of his hips, my hands on his chest. “What did you think of me the first night we met?”
“Hmm.” He ran his hands up my thighs. “I thought you were beautiful. I thought you were a little bit crazy. And I thought you were probably one of those really book-smart people who have zero street smarts whatsoever.”
I nodded. “That’s fair.”
“And I felt protective of you.”
My eyebrows rose. “You did?”
“Yeah. I remember watching you get out of your car and walk toward me in that big white dress looking so lost, so confused, and my gut instinct was to—sorry—rescue you.”
“No, I think it’s sweet.”
“Then I remember when you walked out of the garage later that night, carrying your suitcase, I kind of wanted to go running after you and bring you home with me, just to make sure you’d be safe.” He paused. “But of course, when I did bring you home with me, I started to think about things that were not safe.”
A laugh bubbled up in me. “I did too.”
“Oh yeah?” He put his hands behind his head again. “So now I get to ask you. What did you think of me that night?”
“Hmm.” I ran my palms over his chest. “I thought you looked like a movie star. I thought you were strong and quiet and manly. I sensed you were a good person.”
“You must have, since you spent the night about three feet away from me.”
I shrugged. “I felt safe with you.”
“You are safe with me,” he said quietly.
I lowered my head and slanted my mouth over his, remembering the way I’d looked at him the night we met and wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him, touched by him, desired by him. The kiss grew deeper and more intense, our hands wandering, our bodies straining against clothes. He pushed the skinny straps of my sundress off my shoulders, and I slipped my arms from the dress completely. He groaned as he brought his mouth and hands to my breasts, his cock bulging in his jeans. Weaving my fingers into his hair, I rocked my hips above it until I was panting and bursting with need.
“Should we go?” I whispered.
“No. We won’t make it home.” He flipped me onto my back and lay beside me, reaching beneath my dress and stroking me over the damp cotton of my panties. “I want you right here. Right now.”
I undid his jeans and slid one hand inside, grasping his hot, hard length with one hand. “You can have me.”
He wasn’t as rough with me as he’d been last night, and we didn’t get naked or play games or whisper dirty things to each other. But it was every bit as intense—more, even—without having a role to play.
It was just me, wanting to get closer to him.
And him, choosing to let me.
Fourteen
Griffin
Early Sunday morning, I met Cole in front of his mother’s house for a five-mile run. We jogged the first mile without speaking, letting our bodies warm up, our muscles work out the kinks.
Although I had to admit, my body had been feeling pretty fucking great the last few days. I might have been getting less sleep, but I was having the best sex of my entire life. From the first time on
my couch, to the storytelling in my bedroom, to the bed of the pickup truck, to last night after dinner . . . I’d taken her to DiFiore’s, an Italian restaurant owned by an uncle of Moretti’s. It was a little pricey, which was why I didn’t go there too often, but Blair had mentioned how much she liked Italian food, so I splurged for a Saturday night out. She must have appreciated it, because we’d barely made it inside my apartment before she jumped up on me. Her back had to be killing her today, the way I’d slammed it against the thick wooden door.
I wasn’t sure if it was Blair herself—although she was fantastic in bed and out of it—or if I’d just forgotten how good it could be to get to know someone sexually, let them learn all your favorite things, discover all of theirs, explore their fantasies, share your own, abandon the frantic showmanship of first times and the need to prove yourself, and start peeling back the layers . . . let them know the real you, even if it was dirty and rough and messy and not always nice. It had been a long time since I’d felt so at ease with someone, in bed and out.
I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
Pushing her from my mind, I picked up the pace a little.
“How’s Mariah?” I asked. “I saw her last week.”
“She told me.” He laughed. “She said Cheyenne told her and her friends you and Blair had gotten married, but it turned out to be a lie.”
“Fucking Cheyenne,” I muttered.
“She said at first she was disappointed, but then she was glad because she wants to be a flower girl at your wedding.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint her, but there’s not going to be any wedding. I’ll take her for an ice cream cone, though.”
“A distant second, but she’d like that.” We ran in silence a few minutes. “I’m a little worried about her.”
I glanced at him. “Why?”
“She’s been spending more time alone in her room, and my mom went in there to clean it recently and found this letter to me. It was full of questions.”
“Questions about what?”
“About her mother. Things that she’s apparently afraid to ask me. She doesn’t want me to get mad or be sad.”
Pain squeezed my heart. “I’m sorry, Cole. That’s rough.”
“I don’t know whether to confront her about it or not. My mother says yes, but I’m worried about violating her privacy.”
“Yeah. That’s a tough call.”
“I think I’m going to contact a therapist. I feel like this is more than I can deal with on my own.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I’m also worried about the physical changes coming with adolescence, and having to field those kinds of questions.”
“Fuck,” I said, panicked at the thought of facing that situation.
“And it all just makes me miss Trisha more, you know? We should be facing the teenage years together.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just gave him a quick clap on the back.
“Anyway, enough of my shit. How are things going at the shop?” he asked.
“Fine. The bank turned me down again, but we were busy enough to pay the bills. This month, anyway. Next month could be different.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, well . . . what can you do? Blair’s got some crazy scheme going to get back some of the business we lost to Swifty.”
“Yeah?” Cole glanced over at me. “So she’s working for you now?”
“I guess you’d call it that.”
“I thought she was moving up north somewhere.”
“She is. She even has a job lined up already. But I have to get her car fixed first, and since she doesn’t have any extra money, she’s sort of working off the cost in trade.”
“Uh huh. And what all is she trading?”
I glanced at Cole and saw his grin. “Fuck off,” I said. But I laughed too. “We’re just having fun.”
“Fun is good. I vaguely remember that kind of fun.”
“So get back out there.”
“Nah,” he said, picking up his pace.
I pumped my legs harder to keep up. Maybe the late nights were getting to me a little. I was usually just as fast as Cole, if not faster.
“So when’s she leaving?” he asked.
“In a few weeks. After Labor Day.”
“And what happens after that?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not? I thought you liked her.”
“I do like her. But it’s just temporary. Casual.”
“You sure about that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was there the other night after the game. I saw you guys together. It didn’t look like a quick or casual thing. It looked kind of real.”
“Well, it’s not. She’s moving three hours away.”
“Couldn’t you date her long-distance or something?”
“Why would I do that?”
Cole laughed. “I don’t know. Because it’s not easy to find someone you have such great chemistry with?”
“Great chemistry isn’t the point.”
“What’s the point?”
I tried to think of the point.
Was it that I was better off alone? Was it that I was too busy trying to keep my business afloat to deal with a relationship, especially long distance? Was it that I didn’t want to end up like McIntyre, letting someone else call all the shots in my life? Or was it that no matter how well you thought you knew someone, you could never really know them, and finding out you were wrong about them hurt like a motherfucker?
Really, all the reasons converged in one single truth—I didn’t want my life to change. It was fine the way it was before Blair got here, and it would be fine again when she left.
“Look, I’m not denying she’s hot,” I told Cole. “Or that we like each other. She makes me laugh. And yeah, the sex is great. But that’s it.”
“That’s it?” Cole gave me a strange look. “What the hell else is there, Dempsey?”
Then he took off again, leaving me in the dust.
Entering the lobby a couple hours later, I groaned at the sight in front of me. “Blair, that is not how you do it. You’re dripping paint everywhere.”
“What’s wrong?” Blair turned around, roller in hand. “I did it like you said, didn’t I? From the bottom up?”
“I said from the top down. And you can’t just roll it on aimlessly like that.” She’d made what looked like giant white W’s all over one wall.
She glanced at her work. “I just wanted to get the most paint on that I could. I didn’t know how expensive paint was.”
I shook my head. I’d cringed when Blair suggested she could get started on painting the lobby on her own this morning while I was on my run, but I hadn’t had the heart to tell her no. “It’s fine. Look, why don’t you let me do the actual painting?”
“Because I want to help. You did all the prep work yesterday.”
“You helped me with the taping off. That’s a really important step.”
She beamed and wiped her forehead, leaving a smudge of white paint behind. Paint also dotted and streaked the old charcoal-colored T-shirt of mine I’d given her to work in, and from the looks of her butt in those baggy jeans, she’d likely either sat in paint or bumped into a wet wall. “Thanks.”
“But I’m going to take over here, okay?” I took the roller from her hand.
“Okay.” She looked sad for a moment.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” I told her, trying to cheer her up. “Why don’t you reach out to my mother and see if she’s got any of those old photos you were asking about?”
Excited again, she picked up a wet washcloth lying on top of a step stool and wiped her hands. “Good idea. I’ll call her right now.”
“Perfect.”
She looked around the lobby. “I can’t wait for the new furniture to arrive.”
“When’s it coming again?”
“Friday. Do you think the walls will be dry
by then?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Yeah. They’ll be dry by tonight.”
Her face lit up. “Yay! I’m so excited for your brand new look. It should all be in place by next weekend. Oh, that reminds me. I have my interview up in Traverse City with Frannie MacAllister on Saturday. Do you think my car will be ready?”
“It should be. I talked to the guy sending the parts yesterday,” I said, working the roller in the tray. “They should be here Wednesday.”
“Oh. You didn’t tell me that.” There was zero enthusiasm in her tone. “That’s . . . that’s good. Wednesday is good.” She paused. “So, should I call the motel?”
“The motel?” I started rolling the paint onto the wall.
“Yes. Once my car is ready, I can go stay at the motel. Your mom was very kind to offer a room, but I really don’t want to put her out. And I’ve probably crowded you long enough.”
She wasn’t crowding me. And I didn’t want her to move to the fucking motel. But what reason did I have for asking her to stay? So I could keep banging her every night? That didn’t seem right. And besides, I was still kind of bothered by what Cole had said. Maybe if she moved to the motel, that would show people like him that we weren’t serious. That I didn’t need or want a girlfriend.
Because I didn’t. I probably wouldn’t even miss her. And if I did, that was a dangerous sign that I was letting her get too close.
“Yeah,” I said, without even turning around. “Maybe that’s for the best.”
She left without saying another word, and it took every ounce of willpower I had not to go after her.
Later that afternoon, after the second coat of paint was on and the mess in the lobby cleaned up, I stored the painting supplies and headed back to my apartment. The aroma that greeted me as I ascended the stairs nearly made my eyes roll back in my head.
“What’s that smell?” I asked when I reached the landing and spotted her pulling a tray from the oven. She’d showered and changed into a matching skirt and top. My mouth watered, but it wasn’t only because of the scent.
“Dinner rolls. Pesto twists. I told your mom I’d bring them.” She set the tray on the stovetop and turned off the oven. “She’s expecting us at six.”
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