Holding Out

by Serena Bell

  46

  “Just you and me, dude,” Griff said to Robbie, who was sitting on his lap, facing him. It was Nate and Alia’s first date night out in a while, and Griff had been pressed into service. He’d protested lamely when Alia had asked him—but he hadn’t meant it. “What do you say?” he demanded of the baby. “Should we head out to the bar and pick up women? No? Play Trot Trot to London again? Okay, man, you got it. I wasn’t in the mood for conquest anyway.”

  He bounced the baby on his knees, then tipped him backward off his lap, his hand behind Robbie’s head, and Robbie’s mouth fell open into the biggest baby belly laugh of all time. It even got Griff, despite his dark mood of late, to crack a smile.

  It also made his craving for Becca about a thousand times worse. Because Becca would love Robbie’s ridiculous belly laughs. And Robbie’s all-in, no-holds-barred smile reminded Griff of Becca’s sunshine grin.

  He wondered how she’d been doing in Seattle the last couple of weeks, whether the job was going well for her, whether she was happy. Jake still hadn’t hired anyone to permanently fill the reception desk position. Griff had offered to take on more of the Fourth of July planning—the picnic was this weekend—so Sibby could be available on the desk. He tried not to question his own motives, whether there was a part of him that wanted to make it easier for Jake to delay hiring to fill that position. A part of him that still thought Becca might change her mind and ask for that job back.

  And bloody hell, was he doing the same thing now that he’d done after Marina had left? Sitting around, waiting for something to miraculously change?

  “Robbie, my man,” Griff said to his drooling charge, “do not, I repeat, do not grow up to be as much of an idiot about women as I am. Actually, may I suggest the Catholic priesthood? Or, just go ahead and be a monk. I’d say you should be gay, but you’d probably still be an idiot about love, and I think you would miss breasts. Although I’m probably just projecting.”

  For sure, he missed a certain set of breasts, and the perky nipples that went with them, as well as the moans he could draw out of their owner. And everything fucking else, too—smile, blue eyes, long legs. But really most of all just her. Everything, and he meant everything, was more fun with her, from movies to watching baseball games, to eating Friday Night Dinner to putting an arrow in a target—in both senses, he thought wryly, and with a pang of sadness, because he could have made her laugh by saying it.

  When he’d showed up tonight to babysit, Nate had opened the door, and for the first time since Becca had left, he didn’t glare at Griff. Instead, he surveyed him, long and hard, and said only, “You look like shit, man. I don’t know which one of you guys is the bigger idiot, you or Becca.”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?” he asked the baby.

  Robbie gave him a sly sideways smile, screwed up his face, turned red, and delivered payload.

  “Seriously?” Griff asked him. He reached for the set of changing things that Alia and Nate kept under the side table. He had Robbie securely under one arm, the changing pad in one hand and a diaper in the other when sound crackled around them, sharp as thunder.

  He jumped. Robbie burst into surprised sobs.

  “My man,” he told the baby. “You are okay. We are okay.”

  And that was when he realized that he was still in the living room. He hadn’t traveled through time and space to the northernmost reaches of Afghanistan, but was actually in Nate and Alia’s house, a baby under one arm and a bunch of changing paraphernalia in his hands.

  Also, Robbie still stank.

  Another crack came, and Griff flinched but stayed firmly planted in the present. Robbie gave another shriek and buried his face against Griff’s chest.

  “It’s fireworks, bud,” Griff said. His heart was slowing down. He took a deep breath and sighed it out, willing Robbie to respond to his calm. And the baby did seem to be settling down, his cries softer and spaced further apart. “Early Fourth of July fireworks,” Griff told Robbie.

  I gotta tell Becca, he thought. She was fucking right. All that talking about it—telling Jake, leading the last few Saturday groups and fessing up to the other men—it was helping. Maybe it wasn’t a miracle cure, but look at him. He was in the living room, holding it together, wasn’t he?

  “I gotta tell Becca,” he told Robbie.

  It was probably just coincidence, but at that moment, Robbie stopped crying and smiled.

  “Yeah? You think?” Griff asked the baby. “We had a pretty big fight the last time we talked. What was it about? I honestly can’t tell you. I think it was about the fact that most of the people she’s ever really cared about have let her down—”

  He caught his breath with the sudden realization.

  “I let her down,” he told Robbie. “I mean, I didn’t, but she thought I did, and she got scared. And then, instead of trying to make her feel better, I basically told her she was being stupid. Which is the thing she hates most in the whole world, except maybe for being told she’s not stupid.”

  He set Robbie, now just hiccupping, down on the floor and began to change his stinky diaper.

  “I love you a lot, man, you do know that, right? Because I would not do this for most people.”

  Robbie gave him another smile, and Griff closed his eyes against the overwhelming tightness in his chest.

  “And you know why I told her she was being stupid? Because I was scared. Because she was breaking up with me and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t do it again, man. I couldn’t lose—”

  He was choking up, and there were tears in his eyes.

  “Don’t judge,” he told the baby. “You cry more than I do.”

  He thought suddenly of what Jake had said, about how the feeling that you didn’t deserve happiness would take and take from you as long as you let it. And he thought of telling Becca that she was pushing her own happiness away.

  Griff looked down at Robbie, who was calm now, and quiet, staring back at him with big blue eyes. “Robbie, my friend. Uncle Griff might be a little bit of a hypocrite.”

  Robbie gave a squeal of approval.

  “Right?”

  When the baby was clean and dry, Griff carried him upstairs, sat with him in his glider, and gave him his bedtime bottle. Robbie’s deep pulls on the bottle slowed. His eyes fell closed. He gave a sigh and relaxed fully into Griff’s arms.

  Griff set him down in the crib and stood looking down at him.

  “Babies, man,” he said. “You guys are the smartest people I know.”

  47

  “Are you saying you don’t have any massage therapists on call?” the woman with the shiny brown hair demanded.

  “I am saying that,” Becca said patiently. “We don’t have enough demand for walk-ins to be able to provide that service. But I am happy to make an appointment for you to see one of our massage therapists for the next available opening, which I think is tomorrow morning at nine. Do you want me to look?”

  “That’s not going to help me sleep tonight,” the woman said. “My shoulders are very tight.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Becca said, meaning it. “I wish there was something I could do—”

  “If you can’t help me, I’m going to go to Balm for the Soul Day Spa. It’s just a few blocks from here.”

  Becca said, “Oh! That’s a great idea, actually. I know they have someone in on Thursdays.”

  The woman crossed her arms. “You won’t get my business back if I do.”

  “I’m certainly sorry to hear that,” Becca said. “We’ll still be here, though, if you change your mind.”

  The woman huffed out, and Becca slumped in her seat. Phew. That was done, and best of all, she’d kept her cool.

  Her phone chimed. It was Nate.

  Are you busy?

  She looked at her watch. It was twenty to four. Working. But there’s no one in here right now. Should be quiet for at least ten minutes till the next round of clients start showing up.

  I’ve got someone here
who wants to talk to you.

  For a moment her heart went wild, and then her practical self took over. If Griff had wanted to talk to her, he knew where to find her. He didn’t have to send an advance guard.

  Someone where?

  At KidsUp.

  Jed.

  A FaceTime request chimed through on her phone from Nate and she accepted it. His face flashed by, canted at an angle as he passed the phone, and then the screen filled with Jed’s face.

  “I got a B on my paper.” A small, pleased half-smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “The one you helped me write.”

  A buoyant feeling rushed through her chest.

  “He came in just to tell you,” Nate said in the background. “I told him you weren’t here but that you’d want to know.”

  “I do want to know.” She nodded to Jed. “That’s amazing. I’m—” she hesitated, thinking about whether she had the right to say what was on the tip of her tongue. “I’m proud of you,” she said finally, because it was the truth and worth saying.

  The wariness hadn’t left his face—she guessed it almost never did—but he smiled. Then he frowned. “I have to write another one. About something I did that changed my life. I wanted to know if you’d help. I thought if you did, maybe I could get a B-plus this time.”

  Becca looked around her at the shop. The lobby where she sat was elegant, with shelves full of expensive beauty products that she earned a sizeable commission by selling. She was making more money here than she’d made at Julia’s or at R&R, but—

  “I told him you’re in Seattle now,” Nate said, but his face held a question.

  She was in Seattle.

  She was in Seattle and not in Tierney Bay. Even though pretty much everything she cared about other than Jenina was in Tierney Bay.

  Jenina had been right. New Becca had been so busy trying not to get hurt that she’d run away from the things that were making her happy for the first time in her adult life.

  For the first time, I know I’m good enough, and I’m going to treat myself like I deserve the best, she had told Griff. And in this case? It means I won’t set myself up for failure.

  It had felt so true that night.

  But now she saw it differently.

  She’d pushed Griff away. She’d put several hundred miles of geography between them because it had felt like she would always be living in the shadow of the woman he truly loved and could never forget. She didn’t give herself enough credit for being someone Griff could feel that way about, even though Griff was constantly reminding her not to sell herself short.

  She’d been so scared of being told—in actions, if not words—that she wasn’t enough that she’d completely forgotten how hard it would be for a man who’d been hurt as badly as Griff to try again.

  Of course he’d gotten angry at her. He had crossed a chasm a mile wide and she’d rewarded him by kicking him in the nuts.

  On her phone screen, Jed still waited patiently. He’d been scared to write his English paper but he’d written it anyway, and he’d come back to tell her he’d done it.

  Becca knew that the reason Jed had warmed to her was that she had made herself vulnerable to him. And she had had the courage to do it in large part because Griff had made himself vulnerable to her.

  It was a small, sweet, human miracle every time one person coaxed another out of their armor, the way she and Griff had managed to do with each other. And the thing was, if you had to get hurt sometimes doing it, well, fuck it—that was the price of making miracles.

  She drew a deep breath and smiled at Jed. “When’s it due?”

  “Next Friday.”

  “Like a week from tomorrow?”

  Jed nodded.

  “Can you come back in to KidsUp tomorrow?”

  He looked up, presumably to where Nate was standing off screen, then back at her. “Yeah.”

  Becca nodded. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

  Jed’s fist appeared on her screen and grew enormous. She put hers out and bumped back. Then he was gone, and Nate came back on, his voice edged with worry. “Are you sure you can get the time off? You just started this new job.”

  She smiled at him, her big brother and protector. He and Alia, they’d shield her from every possible danger of being alive, if she let them.

  She had no intention of letting them.

  “Don’t worry about me, dude. I know what I have to do.”

  48

  “What are you doing here?” Alia demanded, flinging the door wide open and throwing her arms around Becca, squishing Robbie—who squeaked in protest—between them. “You knew!” she accused Nate over Becca’s shoulder. “You knew she was coming and you didn’t tell me!”

  “Yup,” Nate said, self-satisfied.

  “I had something to do at KidsUp,” Becca said. “And then figured I’d surprise you guys with a Friday Night Dinner appearance.”

  Robbie was flailing his limbs wildly in excited greeting, and the rest of the guests spilled out of the dining room, hugging Becca and Nate. All the kids were here, too. Mira and Jake’s son Sam, and Sam’s girlfriend Cora, and Trina and Hunter’s girls, Phoebe and Clara—it was a lot of hugging. Only, the one person whose embrace she longed for didn’t seem to be in the mix.

  “Where’s Griff?” she demanded.

  She’d been half expecting him to amble out of the dining room, all casual, making a big scene out of being unexcited by her presence . . . but he hadn’t. She peeked around Clara, but the dining room was empty.

  Glances flitted around the room between her friends, and Becca got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Do you want to tell her?” Jake asked Alia.

  They were going to tell her he’d gone back to Marina. That she’d broken off her engagement and they’d moved in together and Marina was pregnant with twins—

  She wasn’t sure where that last bit had come from, or why that particular idea figured into her nightmare fantasy, it just did. Anyway, the point was, she knew she’d been an idiot to think he actually wanted her. She wasn’t the kind of person who—

  “You tell her,” Alia said, and Becca took a deep breath and steeled herself against the worst of the worst news.

  “He’s on his way to Seattle,” Jake said, shaking his head darkly. “He’s on his way to Seattle to see you. He said he owed you a big apology, some groveling, and if he got really lucky, makeup sex.” He looked around the kitchen, winced, and said, “Shit. Sorry kids.”

  “Language,” Mira said sharply, at the same time Phoebe said, “We’re not babies. We read books where people have makeup sex.”

  It was taking a minute for Jake’s words to sink in to Becca’s brain and make sense. “Oh, shit,” she said, but she didn’t mean it at all. In fact, her innards were doing a tap dance of sheer joy. Griff had gone to get her. He had crossed hundreds of miles to tell her that he wanted her—her! She couldn’t help the enormous smile that spread across her face.

  Then she considered the implications—he was now hundreds of miles away from her—and frowned. “Poor Griff!”

  “You didn’t think maybe you should have mentioned something to me about Griff going to Seattle?” Nate demanded of Alia. “I could have kept this from happening.”

  “That’s right,” Becca said grumpily. “I’d have worked this all out by now if it weren’t for you meddling kids. Didn’t we talk about this the last time you messed around with my life?”

  Nate and Alia both had the good manners to look ashamed.

  “I didn’t want to interrupt you at work,” Alia said sheepishly. “And why would I think you’d just be dropping by for a casual visit? Normal sisters tell their sisters when they’re driving in from five hours away.”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” Becca said.

  “Text Griff!” Phoebe said. “Quick! Tell him you’re here and not there and that he should come back.”

  Becca did a quick visual survey of her friends. They were all nodding.
/>   She pulled out her phone and did as commanded.

  I came to Friday Night Dinner, but you are not here. They say you’re on your way to Seattle to find me. Come back!

  Three dots hovered on her screen.

  You came to FND? Why?

  “What did he say?” Phoebe demanded.

  “He wants to know why I’m here.”

  “Tell him!” Clara said. “Tell him you’re here to see him!”

  To see you, she texted to Griff. To say some things that I should have said a lot sooner. About how I feel about you. Most of which are better said in person. Naked if possible.

  She wasn’t sure if she’d gone too far or not said enough, but she didn’t want the first time she told him how she felt about him to be in a text. She wanted to see his face when she finally told him the truth.

  I love the sound of that. *Turns truck around.*

  She did a secret internal fist pump. Not literally, I hope.

  No. Literally, I am sitting in the Toutle River rest area off I-5, feeling like I just won the lottery, said no one EVER before me.

  She laughed.

  “What?” Alia and Clara demanded at the same time. “What did he say?”

  “He said he’s turning around.”

  There was a chorus of cheers. Everyone except Mira, who was looking sheepish.

  “What?” Becca demanded.

  “Ha!” Jake said to Mira. “Haaa! I won this time! I won. I knew it! I told you!”

  “You were right, dear,” Mira said, but she didn’t sound at all grudging. She sounded happy.

  “What are you talking about?” Becca asked.

  “So, I don’t know if you know this, but Mira and I bet on Alia and Nate. She thought they’d get together and I said they wouldn’t, and, well—well, you know how that worked out. And then we bet on Hunter and Trina, too. And she flipping won again.”