by Susannah Nix
By the second shoe, Griffin had started to get the hang of those infernal little buckles, so it went much faster than the first. When he eased it off he noticed an angry red blister forming on the ball of Alice’s foot.
“Does that hurt?” he asked, prodding it gently to see if it required antiseptic.
“It’s fine,” she muttered, plucking at his arm. “Come here.”
Griffin stood up and walked around to the side of the bed, standing over her uncertainly.
“Sit.” Alice scooted higher on the bed and tugged on his hand.
Reluctantly, he let her pull him down to sit beside her on the edge of the mattress. “Do you need anything?” Maybe he should get her some aspirin or a glass of water—
“Just you.”
Griffin was a decent fucking human being who didn’t put the moves on women when they were drunk, but goddamn. The devil was really determined to test him tonight.
Alice was still holding on to his hand, stroking her thumb over his knuckles. He curled his fingers around hers and swallowed. His whole body tingled with an awareness of her that crackled in the air between them like a magnetic field. It would be so easy to close the distance between them and brush his lips against hers…
This was dangerous.
He let go of her hand and stood up, backing away. “I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything.”
She curled up on her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek, and closed her eyes. Griffin unfolded the throw blanket from the foot of the bed and gingerly draped it over her. Then he backed out of the room, turning off the light before quietly shutting the door behind him.
Safely in the hall, with no one around to see, he rested his forehead against the door and smiled.
Alice’s memories of the wrap party were hazy.
The part when Griffin had taken her home was somewhat clearer, surprisingly, but still frustratingly blurry. She couldn’t remember much of their conversation, but had a distinct impression of nuzzling against his chest, which was acutely embarrassing. There were other vague memories as well: strong arms, gentle hands, soft eyes.
And one very clear image of lying on the couch with her head in his lap.
She was utterly mortified. Also annoyed. It was unfair that she’d somehow managed to cuddle with Griffin and could barely remember it.
She’d awoken on top of her comforter the next morning, still wearing her dress from the party and covered by a blanket she assumed she had Griffin to thank for. That was a bit embarrassing as well.
They both avoided speaking of it. Alice’s head was throbbing with a massive hangover, and Griffin was busy packing. Aside from handing her a large bottle of Gatorade and two aspirin, he considerately left her alone to her misery and embarrassment.
She wanted to thank him for getting her home and into bed like a gentleman and a good friend, but was too ashamed to raise the subject. Far easier to pretend the whole night had never happened.
Unfortunately, someone had seen Alice leave the party with Griffin, and the news had made it through the crew gossip mill. There was even a blurry photo of them getting into Griffin’s car on TMZ, but fortunately Alice’s face was turned away from the camera.
Rachel called in the afternoon to get the scoop. “I want all the gory details. Spill.”
“Huh?” Alice had been dozing on her bed when her phone rang, and her head was still feeling woolly.
“You and Griffin? Everyone knows you left with him last night.”
Alice groaned and rolled onto her back. “It’s not what you think.”
“Tell me absolutely everything,” Rachel rushed on. “Is he a good lay? Does he have the six-pack even when he hasn’t done a water cut? How long is his dick? This one time he was wearing these tight slacks, and I swear to god it looked like the bulge went halfway down his thigh, but Tina insisted it was just the battery pack for his mic—so which is it?”
“Stop!” Alice begged, rubbing her temple. “I don’t know any of the answers.” Except the six-pack thing, which was a definite yes, but now was not the time to admit that.
“Come on. You did leave the party with him, didn’t you?”
Alice got up and shut her bedroom door, in case Griffin was within earshot. “Yes, but nothing happened. I swear.”
“How is that possible? He’s a total man-slut. Wait—did you turn him down?” Rachel sounded aghast.
“No, I didn’t have to,” Alice tried to explain. “It’s not like that. I’m…” His friend? His roommate? His dog sitter? All of the above?
“You’re what?”
“I’m his house sitter, okay? I’m gonna be taking care of his dog and bringing in his mail while he’s in Atlanta the next three months.” She suddenly remembered he was leaving tomorrow and felt a knot form in her stomach.
“Oh.” Rachel’s voice deflated in disappointment. “Hang on. Are you staying at his place now?”
Alice winced. “Yeah.”
“You’re living together?” Rachel’s voice was so piercing that Alice had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“I guess, yeah. As roommates, sort of.”
“What’s that like?”
Alice sank down on the corner of the bed. “It was kind of weird at first, but it’s not so bad. He’s a nice guy.”
Rachel snorted. “That’s not what I heard.”
“What does that mean? What did you hear?”
“You know as well as I do he flirts with everything on two legs.”
“That’s just his personality. He’s all bark and no bite.”
“Yeah, that’s not what Janie in makeup said. From what I’ve heard, the guy’s slept with most of his female costars, half the hair and makeup departments, and he’s made a pretty good dent in wardrobe too. He’s practically a sex addict.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” As far as Alice had been able to discern, Griffin had been effectively celibate for the last month. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“Are you telling me he’s never once put the moves on you?”
“Never once.”
“Oh.” Rachel’s tone was pitying.
Alice supposed it was sort of pitiful. On the one hand, she was grateful Griffin hadn’t hit on her while she was living with him. But on the other…it was hard not to feel a little insulted. Why hadn’t he? Was there something wrong with her? Was she not hot enough for him to try to sleep with?
Alice bit down on her thumbnail. “He doesn’t see me that way, is all.”
“Right. Gotcha.” Rachel’s voice was bitter. “Because we’re not people, we’re just extras, right? Even he won’t lower himself that far.”
“It’s not like that.” She and Griffin were friends—sort of. “He’s my employer, technically. He probably just thinks it would be skeevy.” Which it would. Further proof that he was a nice guy and not some out-of-control sex addict.
“So what’s his house like?”
“Nice. It’s not huge or anything. Just a regular two-bedroom in Studio City. Great view though.”
“What’s he like when he’s not at work?”
“Pretty much the same as when he’s at work, only quieter.”
Rachel groaned in disappointment. “Come on, you’ve got to have some dirt to share.”
“I don’t. He’s pretty boring, really. He’s on this ridiculous diet for the movie he’s about to do, so he mostly just eats protein and goes to the gym.”
“That’s depressing.”
It was, a bit. On top of his hefty shooting schedule for LV Gen, Griffin spent two hours training at the gym every day and basically had to force himself to choke down ungodly amounts of protein. Now that Alice had seen how hard he worked for that body, she had even more respect for it. “He does have the abs though. Like, all the time.”
“Nice! At least you’re getting something out of this arrangement.”
“Enough about me and my boring living arrangement,” Alice said, changing the subject. “I wan
t the scoop on you and Pete.”
Griffin was kept busy all day with packing and travel preparations. Three months was a long time to be away, and he bustled around the house with a harried expression as he made last-minute arrangements and wrote up lists for Alice with emergency phone numbers and reminders about things like paying the cleaning woman and the gardener.
That night, he grilled steaks for the two of them again, and after they’d eaten they sat on the back deck taking turns throwing a tennis ball for Taco as they watched the sun go down.
“I’m gonna miss this,” Griffin said wistfully.
Alice told herself he was talking about Taco and the house, not her specifically. Why would he miss her? She’d only been part of his life for a few weeks. She passed the tennis ball to him. “I bet you’ll be so busy the time will fly. It’ll be over before you know it.”
He chucked the ball into the yard. “Do you think Taco’ll forget about me? I’m not sure dogs have object permanence. As soon as I’m gone, he’ll probably think I’ve winked out of existence.”
Alice thought about it as Taco proudly returned the ball to his owner. “Maybe that’s why dogs are always so happy to see you when you come home. Because they think you stop existing as soon as you’re out of sight.”
Griffin’s brow furrowed as he tossed the ball again. “His brain is the size of a ping-pong ball, so maybe.”
It was an interesting theory, but Alice didn’t like the frown on Griffin’s face. “He’s not gonna forget about you. Are you kidding? Your scent’s all over the house—and you’ve seen those videos of soldiers coming back and surprising their dogs. Those dogs definitely did not forget.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
“It’s gonna be fine,” Alice said, noticing the way Griffin’s fingers were clenched on the arm of the chair.
He nodded abstractly. “I hate starting a new job. Always do.”
“Why?”
“Acting is…” He paused and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It requires a certain amount of vulnerability. At least for me it does. Tapping into that in front of a bunch of strangers is always terrifying the first few days. It usually gets easier once I get to know people and start to feel more comfortable, but at first it’s fucking awful. There’s always this fear that I’m not good enough, that I don’t deserve to be there and I’m about to show my ass. That everyone will realize how much I suck.”
That was exactly how Alice had felt about graduate school. It was a shock to realize Griffin struggled just as much with imposter syndrome as she did. He’d always seemed so confident and laid back, but she was beginning to understand just how much effort he put into maintaining that appearance, and how much anxiety it disguised.
“You know that’s just your brain telling you lies, right?” she said. “I know how hard it can be to shut out those negative emotions when they start snowballing—believe me—but I’m here to tell you that you don’t suck. You’re objectively awesome.”
He reached a hand over his shoulder to scratch his back, looking uncomfortable. “Thanks. I really wasn’t fishing for compliments though.”
“I know. I wasn’t complimenting you. I was just stating a fact.”
He glanced over at her, a hint of a smile appearing at the corner of his mouth before his eyes darted away again. “Anyway, you’ll probably be glad to get rid of me and have the place to yourself. I imagine you’ll start throwing keggers as soon as I’m gone.”
Alice leaned over to pick up the ball Taco had dropped between them. “Not really my style. I’m more of a high tea person.”
“I guess it’s all right if you want to throw a high tea.”
“You sure? My high teas can get pretty wild. Sometimes I serve two kinds of jam with the scones.” She faked a throw, but Taco was too smart to run after it. He stayed where he was, swishing his tail expectantly.
“Wow. Okay, Queen Victoria. Let’s not go overboard.”
She tossed the ball for real and turned her head toward Griffin. “You know I’m not going to throw any parties while you’re gone, right?”
His impossibly blue eyes met hers. “You can have people over if you want. I trust you.”
It felt good to know he trusted her, but it was the way he was looking at her when he said it that made her feel warm all over. She dropped her eyes to the beer in her hand. “I’ll probably just work on my dissertation the whole time.”
“How’s that going?”
Her thumbnail scraped at the label. “Okay, I guess. It’s hard, getting back into it after all these months, but I’m feeling more motivated than I have in a while.” A circumstance she owed largely to Griffin. She wasn’t sure how she’d ever repay him for this opportunity to throw herself back into her schoolwork worry-free.
“I expect you to have a PhD by the time I get back.”
Alice snorted and took a swig of beer. “If only. At the earliest, I might be able to defend in time to graduate at the end of the summer. But more likely December.”
“So you’ll be Dr. Carlisle by Christmas.”
“Maybe.” It was hard to imagine the finish line after all this time, but it wasn’t actually that far away anymore.
“I expect an invitation to your graduation.”
She made a wry face. “Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
When she looked over at his earnest expression it made her chest feel tight, like someone had wrapped an Ace bandage around it. “I probably won’t even go to the ceremony.”
“Why the heck not?’
“Because they’re boring. And it’s not like I have any family who’ll insist on being there.” She had no desire to sit on a stage in a polyester gown for two hours, only to be greeted by a deafening silence when her name was called.
“When you said before you didn’t have a dad—”
“I have a dad,” she said. “He’s alive and well. He just doesn’t give a shit about me.”
“Sorry if it’s a sore subject.”
She shook her head, not wanting Griffin to feel bad. “It’s fine.”
He gave her an appraising look. “Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s fine.”
Alice shrugged. It wasn’t that she minded talking about her father, so much as she minded that he’d ever been a part of her life at all. “My parents divorced when I was five, and my dad got remarried to a woman who had two kids. I barely ever saw him at all—until my mom died and I had to go live with him and his new family.” She pressed her lips together, remembering the grudging manner in which she had been welcomed into her own father’s home, and the cold, resentful interactions that had marked the next five years. “Let’s just say we didn’t click. They didn’t want me there any more than I wanted to be there.”
“I’m sorry. It must have been awful.”
“I got through it.” At this point, the pain felt distant, like an old injury that only ached when it rained. “I found a college out of state and I never went back.” She shrugged again. “I haven’t really talked to my father much since.”
“And he hasn’t tried to reach out to you?”
“Nope. I told you, he doesn’t give a shit.” She washed down the bitterness in her throat with a mouthful of beer.
Griffin’s gaze remained fixed on her for a moment, his expression soft and thoughtful, before he turned away. His eyes seemed to focus on the distant skyline as he ran a hand through his hair. It was a nervous tic he’d been displaying all day as he prepared for his imminent departure, and it had left his hair an endearingly tousled mess.
“I never knew my father,” he said quietly. “He didn’t want anything to do with my mom after she got pregnant. But maybe I was better off that way—even though it sucked for my mom, having to raise me alone.”
Alice took another swallow of beer. “Is it wrong that I wish I’d never known my dad?”
“No, I don’t think it’s wrong.”
“I guess it means I would have gone to foster care when
my mom died, but at least in foster care you know why they don’t love you.”
The eyes Griffin turned on her were almost as dark as the sky overhead where a few faint stars had begun to glimmer. “Your dad’s an idiot.”
She tried to muster a smile. “So’s yours, for taking off before he got to meet you.”
He held her gaze for a moment before shaking off the heavy mood and reaching for the water bottle that was never far from his fingertips. “Oh hey, speaking of family—you should probably know I put you down as my emergency contact. I hope that’s okay.”
Alice blinked at him. “Me?”
Shrugging, he leaned back in his chair again. “I don’t have any family I’m close to, and you’re here taking care of my dog and my house and all my stuff. I figure if they’re gonna call anyone in an emergency, it should be you.”
“Oh, sure.” It was perfectly logical reasoning—which did not account for the very unreasonable rush of feelings it inspired.
“I thought about putting Boone down, but he’s up in Vancouver three-quarters of the year, and anyway he’d be fucking useless in an emergency. At least you’ll be able to keep a cool head and take care of shit.”
“Did you know I actually got my master’s degree in taking care of shit?”
Griffin’s mouth curved into a smile. “If you’re gonna be in charge of my personal affairs, I guess I should tell you my deep, dark secret.”
“You have a deep, dark secret?”
He nodded with theatrical seriousness. “My last name isn’t really Beach.”
Alice played along, giving him a look of wide-eyed interest. “You don’t say.”
“It’s Micklethwaite.”
“Griffin Micklethwaite.” She pronounced the syllables slowly, taking it for a test drive.
“Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?”