by Serena Bell
She thought he was going to crow a little over his victory—he was entitled—but he just said, “I promise.”
She got Sibby to take over the desk and drove to KidsUp. When she came into the study room, Jed looked up and saw her. A look flashed across his face—it might have been the pinched fear of a trapped animal, she couldn’t say for sure—but he didn’t run away. He sat still, watching her warily, as she came and slid in across from him.
She motioned for him to take his earbuds out. She half thought he’d ignore her, but he didn’t; he wrapped the earbud cords around his phone and set the whole thing aside. Then he surprised her by reaching into his ratty backpack, pulling out a tattered sheet of paper, and dropping it on the table between them.
“I wrote it down, like you told me to. It sucks. A lot.”
His eyes challenged her to argue.
She touched the piece of paper, her heart pounding. “That’s okay,” she said. “Let’s look at it.”
She read it, slowly working through his almost indecipherable handwriting.
I dont like being home by myself in the afternoons Everything is too loud, I can hear the refridgerator huming and the floors creking, sometimes I think I can here the fight my parents had last nite still echoeing. The house feels like the shades are drawn even tho there not.
She caught her breath.
Across the table from her, he was waiting, watching her face, unable to make himself not care.
“Do you know why we write?” she asked him. “I mean, what the point is?”
He gave her a look that was one notch short of an eye roll, but she didn’t give a shit. What she was about to tell him was something her tenth grade teacher had told her. At the time it hadn’t made a lot of sense to her—but after she’d seen what Alia’s letters had meant to Nate . . . Well, now she thought she understood. And she thought Jed might, too.
“We write because we’re trying to reach into someone else’s head and make them feel the same thing we feel.”
Jed’s eyes were on hers, a little less guarded than they’d been before. And she was pretty sure Griff was right. She was getting through to him, for whatever weird reason. Maybe because like recognized like.
She took a deep breath. “My house wasn’t empty, like yours, when I came home from high school. My mom was home. But she was—she was, um, hurting too much to come downstairs. So it was just like you said. Just like that. It felt like the shades were drawn, even though they weren’t.” She closed her eyes, because she could still feel it—that sense, beyond sight or smell or hearing, of something wrong. “You nailed it.”
His eyes widened. If she hadn’t been watching so closely, she would have missed it.
“Would you let me help you with the capitalization and punctuation and spelling? I’m not a super genius at it—” She paused for effect. “But I don’t suck as bad as you do.”
A small puff of breath escaped his mouth—the closest thing to a laugh she figured he had in him. Then he put his sullen teenager expression back on and shrugged.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said.
She tried not to, but she couldn’t keep herself from looking over at Griff. Sure enough, he was looking back and the expression on his face really was going to kill her. She knew that expression, even though very few people had ever looked at her that way. Alia, sometimes. Her mother, on a really good day. A teacher here and there.
He was looking at her like he was proud of her. And it lit her up, partly because who didn’t want someone looking at them like they’d done something good? Or important. Or smart. Or all of the above.
But right then, it wasn’t that Griff thought she was good or important or smart that mattered most. Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she’d helped Jed a ton or maybe he’d just been ready to figure it out for himself, and maybe she’d never know which. She was pleased she’d made a difference, one way or the other, but that wasn’t why Griff’s expression made her feel like fireworks were going off in her belly.
It was because when you were proud of someone, it had two parts. The part where you were all, like, That person did a good job.
And the part where you were like, And that person?
She’s mine.
35
JoJo left first, followed by Jed, and then it was just the two of them in the study room. Becca got up from the booth where she’d been working with Jed and came to sit across from him.
“That . . . seemed like it went well,” Griff said.
She had a bright glow to her that he knew was satisfaction at having cracked the code that was Jed. And it made her ten times as beautiful as she already was, which in turn made it hard to look at her.
“Thank you,” she said, unexpectedly. “For—” She hesitated. “For texting me to say he was here. For having faith I could do it. For—being generally awesome in a way that made me want to be awesome too.”
Oh, Jesus, she was—too damn much. He couldn’t fit the way she made him feel under his skin anymore.
“I wish—” He stopped.
She put her hand on the table and he covered it with his. He wrapped hers up, small in his grip. “I wish you could stay longer. I know I’m a craptastic friend for not being a hundred percent gung-ho about the salon job—”
She shook her head. “No. I’m not a hundred percent gung-ho, either.”
“You could stay here. Work for Jake. And Nate.”
She smiled weakly. “One successful tutoring session doesn’t suddenly make me qualified for this kind of thing.”
“You loved it, though. Admit it.”
She couldn’t hold back her smile. “I loved it.”
Watching her smile like that was battle victory and a military parade, a Memorial Day picnic, The Princess Bride, the best bitter hoppy beer, Robbie’s unconditional affection.
This was how he wanted her to be all the time. He wanted her to have a life full of things she loved that much.
“God,” he said, because it was actually painful to want that. To feel like this again. He was walking on a tightrope and he was going to fall, any minute. “God, Becca, that makes me really happy, you know?”
She reached out and rubbed a hand over his jaw where afternoon scruff was sprouting. Then put the same hand in his hair and gave it a little tug, so he was forced to lean across the table and meet her kiss. She bit his lip and he groaned.
She pulled back and gave him a look, the one he now recognized as loaded with his favorite kind of trouble. “We still haven’t done it with me on top. Or you behind me.”
All that was true, but it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted—
“What if I said—?”
She was very still across the table from him, picking up on how serious he was.
“What if I said I didn’t want to do you any favors or work on any projects or fulfill any kama sutra fantasies or one-up Jondalar the Wonder Schlong or play any more fucking games? What if I said I just wanted to take you back to my room and make love to you?”
“Oh,” she said, softly.
“Would that totally freak you out?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Good,” he said. He put his hand out, and she slipped her small, soft one into his again. He tugged her out from her side of the booth, close to his side.
“Griff,” she whispered, coming into his arms.
He couldn’t help himself—he kissed her. Her mouth was soft and hot and so, so hungry. As if up to this point, she’d been holding something back, and now she was giving everything to him. He wasn’t sure he could take it. He was going to catch fire and burn up.
But he kissed her back anyway, because he couldn’t not do it. Her tongue was eager and bossy. Her hands grabbed his clothes, his ass, his hair. She was whimpering and murmuring things he couldn’t understand, and he was going to do something very, very bad if they didn’t get out of here.
He put his hands on her shoulders, held her away from him. She di
dn’t like it. She clutched at him, which almost made him give in.
“We have to stop, just for now,” he said. “I don’t like it either. I want to fuck you on that table right there. Right now. But I want to make love to you in my bed more than that, so that’s where we’re going.” He paused. “But I need an hour, first. There’s something I have to do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I have condoms.”
He laughed. “Not that. I’ll tell you afterwards, okay? Meet me at my room—” He looked at his watch, “at six fifteen.”
He could tell she didn’t understand, but that was okay. She would.
Jake was just leaving his office—perfect timing.
“I need to talk to you,” Griff said.
His boss raised an eyebrow.
“If you have a minute,” Griff amended.
Jake turned back into the office and gestured for Griff to follow. They sat in the waiting room in comfy chairs, which were a little too deep for actual comfort, the arm rests a little too high. So Griff stood again, and paced.
Jake watched him, patient, curious. Big, badass Jake with his one “meat” leg—as he called it—and the other one, prosthetic from the thigh down. Jake, who—long before the incident that had taken his leg—had gotten a medal for dragging some guy to safety under a rain of PK fire.
No two ways about it, Jake was a hero. Bravest guy Griff knew.
But there were all different kinds of brave. Like CJ driving because he thought Griff needed him to.
And Becca showing up and powering through with Jed. Killing it, really, the way she’d killed everything she’d taken on since she’d decided to slough off Old Becca.
“You know why I lost that hotel job?”
Jake stood up, then, too, and leaned against the wall. Watching Griff, not saying anything, just waiting.
It was still, after all this time, tempting to back off. Until the words were out of his mouth, he didn’t have to say them. But he wanted to say them. He wanted to be as brave as Becca deserved for him to be.
“I flashed back because a metal door slammed shut, and scared the shit out of a bunch of guests. I did it earlier today, too—minus the big audience—in Home Depot. Next thing I know a guy’s shaking me and telling me I was threatening him with a fucking hose nozzle.”
Jake just nodded. “Yeah. I thought it might be something like that.”
Griff’s mouth fell open. “You knew and you never asked me about it?”
“Figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”
Griff closed his mouth and nodded. Then he opened it again and said, “Guess I am.”
“Same flashback every time?”
Griff nodded. “Battle in the mountains where we got woken out of a dead sleep by a surprise attack that shouldn’t have been a surprise. The kids were off. Quiet. Not out playing. You know?”
Jake closed his eyes. Griff had heard him tell that part of his story enough times to know how well and how personally he knew: The kids could tell you everything. Kids where they shouldn’t be, no kids where they should be. “Something bad was coming. I told my platoon leader—” There was a tight band around Griff’s chest. “He convinced me that we were all jumpy from nothing happening for so long, that I was looking for something that wasn’t there. He dismissed it. And—I let him. I didn’t—”
His voice cracked.
“I should have trusted my gut. I should have stood my ground till the end of time, dug myself in so deep Knapp would have had to listen. Or gone over his head. Talked to someone who would hear me out.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. I knew. I fucking knew, and I didn’t stop it—”
This—this was what he’d been trying to avoid, being weak in front of Jake, in front of anyone, but all Jake said was, “I’m sorry, Griff.” He didn’t say anything else, just put his palm flat against the center of Griff’s back while Griff hunched over and got the rest of his grief out, in shudders and sobs.
When Griff pulled it back together and swiped his sleeves across his face to mop up the worst of it, he felt purged, like he’d hurled up bad food instead of years of held—whatever. And Jake looked as unsurprised and unconcerned as ever.
So, thought Griff, that was what he’d been afraid of all this time. Opening his mouth and losing his shit, and—the world hadn’t, in fact, ended.
He took a deep breath. “Six men.”
Jake nodded. “I’m sorry, Griff.”
They had kind of an impromptu moment of silence then, or something, Griff remembering: Toff, Hanamalu, Mike, Jay, Regis, Teo.
Maybe the first time he’d let himself tick them off, one by one, like that. Mourn them all.
Jake crossed his arms. “Can I say something?”
Griff nodded.
“Hindsight’s a bitch. It always tells you that you should have known. And maybe so. But you knew what you knew, you did what you did. And here we fucking are. It’s not pretty, but it’s how we keep on going.”
“You get paid to sell that shit?” Griff asked. A choked, tear-sodden laugh came out of him, unexpectedly.
Jake smiled, too. “Damn straight.”
“Nice work, if you can get it.”
“You can get it. You can lead the support group from time to time like I asked.”
Griff took a deep breath. Nodded. “As long as you know I’m no expert. Just a guy with his own shit, ready, willing, and able to hear out other guys about their shit.”
That made him think of CJ, and he smiled.
Jake’s grin spread. “Glad to hear it. So what made you decide to tell me all this now?”
Griff hesitated. “Dunno. Maybe enough time just passed.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe you have a new friend?”
Griff tried to give Jake a blank look in return, but Jake just shook his head and smirked. “Don’t you know by now that I know everything that goes on at R&R? Besides, last Friday at dinner, the amount of energy you and Becca spent not looking at each other could have powered Portland for a year.”
Griff could feel a rare deep blush coloring his face.
Which reminded him—
“I should get the hell outta here. I’m, uh, meeting someone.”
Jake raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know everything about everyone, Mr. R&R. I know.”
“It’s not much,” Griff said, as he opened the door to his R&R room. It had nice carpeting, had been recently painted, and was well-lit—but it was still a dorm room.
If Becca was disappointed—if she thought a guy his age should have more to his name, more to show for himself—she didn’t say so. Instead, she gave him a little shove into the room and pushed the door closed behind them.
“We’re alone, aren’t we?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Then it’s perfect.”
All of a sudden, it really did feel that way. As if the only thing that mattered was the four walls around them and the way she was looking at him, like he was everything she could possibly ever want in the world. And right at the moment, he felt pretty damn good. As if maybe he was someone she could want like that.
She sure as hell was someone he wanted like that.
“So where’d you go just now? If it wasn’t to get condoms?”
She looked a little worried, which made him want simultaneously to laugh and to wrap her up in his arms. And that captured in a nutshell his feelings for Becca.
“I was in Jake’s office.”
She tilted her head.
“I told him. About the episo—flashbacks.”
Her eyes got big. “You—that’s so great!”
He filled her in on the flashback in Home Depot, then about getting CJ to drive home.
Then he told her exactly what he’d told Jake. All of it.
The grief came back in the retelling. It choked him and filled his eyes, but he kept the words coming. And she listened quietly, the way she always did, a
bsorbing it. She came and stood with him and rested her head against his chest like she was listening to his heartbeat, and that made it easier.
“He’s right, you know,” she murmured, against his shirt. “So easy to think you should have done it differently. And maybe you should have, but you can’t know.”
“I know.”
“I mean, it might not change how bad it feels.”
“It does and it doesn’t.”
“Was it hard, telling Jake?”
“It wasn’t so hard, once the words started coming out. And—I also told him I’d lead the support group sometimes. If he wanted me to.”
She stepped back and looked at him. “You—I’m so—” She inhaled deeply, her eyes bright. “Is it weird to say I’m so proud of you?”
His breath kept threatening to flit away from him, like some wild bird. “No. Not weird at all. I, um—I think I did it to make you proud of me.”
In the silence that followed, her eyes filled with tears. “You’re going to kill me, Griff Ambrose,” she said.
His chest felt full of light. “You’re going to kill me first, Becca Drake.”
They were both quiet for a little bit. He wondered if her chest ached, too. If she was trying to think about what she wanted to say and how to say it, like he was. If there really was even anything to say. Maybe there was just this, the fact that they made each other feel good and made each other try harder to be good and would always be able to look back and be grateful for that.
He took a step toward her, which backed her up against the door. He put one hand on each side of her head. Her eyes got big and her lower lip softened, and a little breath slipped out of her. He bent his head to kiss her. Just their lips touched, soft and sweet, but she whimpered. He took a step in and pressed her against the wall, bending his knees and lining the bulge in his jeans up with the seam of her leggings so he could stroke her with the friction he’d learned she liked.
“I’m going to make you come once like this,” he said contemplatively. “And then once more on the bed with my fingers and my tongue. And then I’m going to make love to you.”