by A. J. Pine
“You’ve got to fucking be kidding me. Gladiator? They’re showing Gladiator?”
She mouths a shhhhh as she yanks open the door, but she’s grinning as big as I am, pleased with her choice of films—pleased, I hope, that I feel the same.
I behave myself for what’s left of the film, a full hour, but once the credits roll, I’m right back where we were before getting nailed in the shoulder by the emergency-exit door.
“About those ground rules…” I say as she turns to face me, and without another word, my hands cup her cheeks, and she grabs my hoodie without hesitation. And shit, she still tastes so good, so much that I crave her even when my lips are on hers, when her tongue tangles with mine. She’s right here, yet I can’t get enough, and it’s this realization that has me pulling away, panting, a smile forced to disguise the fear.
“What’s next, Pippi? Still too early to take you home?”
Her expression mirrors mine, a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Not until daylight…if you’re up for it…in which case we have a few more hours.”
She doesn’t hide the hesitation in her voice, and I pause before I answer, knowing the best thing for both of us would be to end the evening right now. Because I’m buzzed on her presence already. If I stay with her till dawn, I’ll be downright drunk, which means any decisions I make at that point will be far from what’s best for either of us.
But it’s too late. I’ve had a taste, am already impaired. Even on a good day, I don’t necessarily do what’s right, but I do what I want. And I want her.
“I’m up for it.”
This time her smile is real, all the way to those gorgeous hazel eyes that keep their secrets, but I don’t give a shit. We’re all hiding something. Tonight I want to be the one who makes those eyes smile.
Tomorrow I’ll force myself to forget her like I do all the others. It’s what I’m good at. But for the next few hours, I’m a fucking goner.
Chapter Five
Maggie
I can’t stop kissing him. Admitting the problem is half the battle, right? Then I can take the steps needed to cure myself. I scoff out a laugh under my breath.
Right. Because healing happens so quickly.
“What’s so funny?” Griffin asks, catching up to me.
I guess I have to work on my timing. His wide-eyed expression made me think he’d sit there in the driver’s seat, stunned or too nervous to join me as I hopped out my door, wandered around the block, and into the alley. But here he is, next to me. It’s been his M.O. all night—being there. It’s what I asked him to do, and him saying yes, that made me kiss him, that taught me I don’t want to stop kissing him, even though I should. I have a hard enough time keeping drink orders straight. Someone like Griffin is a disruption to my routine, and routine gets me through the day.
I didn’t come here with the intent…
I couldn’t let him finish, couldn’t let him say something about me being different than whoever’s phone number was on his hand this morning. It doesn’t matter that I see him trying to figure me out when he looks at me. It doesn’t matter that one kiss has turned into…I’m starting to lose count. Because I don’t want to be different, not tonight. I throw my rules and routine out the window. For the next few hours, I welcome the disruption.
“You,” I finally answer, still walking until I find the right spot. “Why aren’t you scared?”
“Of what? Haven’t we already determined I’m trouble?”
I stop, and he follows my lead. When I turn to him, I’m pulled back into his orbit by that contagious smile.
Admit the problem. Admit the problem!
But my body betrays my brain as I bring a hand to his face, rubbing my thumb over his bruised flesh.
“Can I ask why this happened?”
He leans his cheek into my palm and sighs, the smile falling as he does.
“You won’t like me very much if I tell you, but I will if you want me to.” He makes a sound, something like laughter, but he closes his eyes and lets out a long breath. When he opens them again, he holds me in his stare. “You know, I spent the entire day with my family, and you’re the only one who’s asked.”
I swallow the knot in my throat, the hurt I feel for this stranger in front of me mirroring the same hurt I hear in his voice.
He shakes his head, freeing himself from my hand.
“On second thought, forget it. That’s not what this night is about, right?” The smile is back, but the bite in his tone gives him away. “I mean, unless you want to share a deep, dark secret of your own, Pippi? We could go all slumber party and shit and, I don’t know, talk about our feelings.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “My name is Maggie. And do you always go from zero to asshole in less than sixty seconds?” I don’t wait for an answer and instead spin on my heel, stalking farther into the alley. I stop where the glow of the streetlight provides illumination to see what I’m doing but is dim enough to keep us hidden. I drop my bag to the ground and take out supplies, all the while hating myself for being such a hypocrite, for getting angry at him for doing exactly what I set out to do when we left Royal Grounds.
When I walked out the door, I left the Maggie he met this morning back inside the shop. She’ll be there waiting in the morning. Didn’t I give Griffin the invitation to do the same?
“I’m sorry,” we both say. He squats next to me, and our words intertwine in a chorus of regret.
“Maggie…” My name on his lips threatens to knock me over, and I sit down all the way before he can tell he’s thrown off my balance. He sits, too, facing me, his legs crossed like a pretzel, as if we’re about to play pat-a-cake in preschool.
“Griffin…” His name is new, my voice hoarse as I speak it. Have I called him nothing but Fancy Pants all night?
He scoots forward so our knees touch, and the chill that runs through me has nothing to do with the frigid Minnesota November. And when his head dips down, his forehead resting on mine, I triple-dog-dare the temperature to drop further, to plummet, and freeze us right here so this moment never ends.
I watch the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, not moving—not speaking—so as not to rock the boat that is our tiny pocket of now.
“Another ground rule,” he says, and I sigh. Because here it comes. He’s going to stop this train before it crashes, as well he should. I only wish I knew that last kiss was the last kiss.
When I don’t say anything, he continues, backing away so his eyes meet mine. I force myself to keep them open, to hold his stare. We’ve already had a fantastic few hours. If we call it a night, I’m still grateful for that.
“No back story,” he continues. “We aren’t the dating types. So we don’t need to go through all the bullshit that happens on a date. Because this isn’t one, right?”
“Right.” Never mind that it feels like one, and far more than a first date at that. Stupid kissing.
“So tonight we have no past. No future. Only a present. Does that work for you?”
How do I willingly forget when I’ve spent the last two years fighting to hang on to the shards of what I can’t remember? But Griffin’s brown eyes shine with possibility. Regardless of anything I might regret tomorrow, I can’t help wanting to prolong this night.
“Works for me.” I mask the hesitation in my voice by extending a hand, ready to shake on the deal. Griffin grabs it but lowers it gently, the contract unsigned.
“I don’t shake on deals, Pip…Maggie.”
“How do you seal a deal, then?”
My words challenge him, and his raised brows and mischievous smirk say, Challenge accepted.
“I think you know the answer to that.”
And he scoops me up, dropping me into his lap. I yelp with laughter and shush myself just as quickly.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-yell. “We’re going to get caught before I do what needs to be done!”
But it doesn’t matter. My arms drape aro
und his neck, the warm air of our breath the only thing hanging between us.
“Then I better shut you up and seal the deal.”
We close the space of our breaths, and I taste him again. But instead of getting lost in the feel of the kiss, this time it’s in the intimacy of his arms, of letting someone hold me, something I haven’t felt in so long. I sink into his chest, the warmth of his body mingling with the growing heat of mine. We stay that way until the sound of a car driving by jolts me back to reality. I need to do what I came here to do and then get as far from here as possible.
…
Griffin
I’m not even surprised when I see her take a can of spray paint out of her bag. She had witch hazel for my face. Why wouldn’t she be more than prepared for a little early-morning graffiti? What does surprise me, though, is what she does with merely a can of paint.
Yes. The latte foam shit was impressive, but I never would have guessed she could do this. I want to ask her how or how long or why? But all I can do is watch as she, according to the law, defaces public property. I don’t see it like that, though. What I see is beauty. Grace. A fucking ballet of words and emotion spilling from her hand.
It’s only words. Two. What if? But the depth, shadow, illusion of color change when she only uses the one can of blue paint—it’s stunning. She’s stunning. And when she turns to face me, cheeks red with the cold and eyes shining with the threat of tears, she smiles.
My first instinct is to run, to get the hell out of Dodge and do anything but remember the stagger in my pulse at the sight of this girl. And if I could run, if it didn’t mean abandoning her in an alley before dawn, I’d be gone already because this isn’t what I signed on for, this…this…need.
“Are you…okay?” She clears her throat after croaking out the words, somehow swallowing whatever it is that powered her through what she just did, taking care of me when I should step in to take care of her.
When I don’t answer, she holds out the can to me, the corners of her mouth turning up in encouragement.
“You wanna try?”
The tips of her fingers match her cheeks, but when I reach for the can, my skin brushing hers, I feel nothing but warmth.
“Anything I write,” I start, instinctively shaking the can, “will ruin what you have up there. I can’t do… Maggie, you’re a fucking artist. The latte, this? I mean, who are you?”
A flash of something streaks across her eyes, but she covers it with a smile.
“Just a girl whose two little words don’t want to spend eternity alone.”
I grin. “Eternity?”
She shrugs. “Okay, fine. The owner may repaint the wall two days from now, but don’t hang me out to dry, not even for two days.”
Her voice teases, but I hear the plea she’s trying to hide.
“Tell me what it means?” I ask. “What can I write that will fit?”
She wraps her arms around her torso in a lonely embrace, her eyes focusing on her shoe as it toes the pavement in front of her.
“Anything,” she says, facing me again. “As long as it helps me remember tonight.”
“Okay.” I shake the can again, approach the wall, and write.
Souvenir.
Memoria.
Cuimhne.
My penmanship is no match for her art, but my words scattered around hers don’t look half bad. Somehow they fit.
I set the can down on the ground and attempt to brush the already dried flecks of paint from my jeans. Maggie moves to my side, but her eyes stay trained on the wall.
“I know the French one, souvenir, because we use that one, too. It means memory, right?”
I nod. “The second is Spanish. And Italian. I kind of cheated there. And the third is Gaelic.”
She pivots to face me now, her eyes widening as she interprets the meaning.
“I wanted your words to have some memories.” I nudge her shoulder with mine. “So they won’t be all alone for eternity.” I skim my fingers along her hairline. “I want you to remember tonight.”
She bites her lip as tears well, and I don’t know if I’ve said the right thing—or the wrong. She opens her mouth to say something, and that’s when we see the approaching headlights.
Fuck.
“Fuck!” Maggie yells. I reach for her bag, not forgetting to throw the paint back in it. And then I reach for her hand already extended and waiting for mine.
And then…we run.
“This alley dead-ends at another one, but I think it leads away from the car!”
I trust her knowledge of the block’s layout and pull her away from the oncoming car, which I see, as I look over my shoulder, is of course a cop car.
When we hit the end of our alley, we head left down the intersecting one, and I assume we’re being taken to another that will lead us back to the main road and to my truck if we don’t end up in cuffs first. I can’t help but laugh at the thought of my father having to bail me out. Even for me, that would be a first.
But when we get to the alley I predicted would be there, any semblance of laughter stops when we face the one thing standing between us and, hopefully, freedom—an eight-foot-high, chain-link fence.
Fuck.
“Fuck.” Again. “We don’t even know if the cop saw us,” Maggie says, radiating an unusual calm.
“Yeah, but if he or she or whoever did, we’re caught unless we climb.”
Maggie looks down at her long skirt and then up at me.
“You got this, Pippi. I’m right behind you.” I throw her bag over my shoulder and across my body, nodding for her to climb. And she does.
I’m behind her and then next to her when we reach the top, my fingers numb against the cold metal, Maggie’s maybe surviving better in her cut-off gloves.
“What if my skirt…” She trails off, but I know what she’s thinking.
“I’m not gonna let you get stuck, Maggie. Okay? Do you trust me?”
She nods, hoisting a leg over the pointed top of the fence while trying to maintain her modesty. And if I didn’t glance back and see the beam of a flashlight approaching the end of graffiti alley, I might have thoughts of sneaking a peek. Now all I want is to keep her calm, keep myself calm, and, for reasons far different than the ones I felt nearly an hour ago, get the fuck out of here.
When Maggie makes it over the top without incident, I’m more than confident I’ll do the same, which is why when the front of my hoodie catches on the intertwined spindles of metal, lifting it and my shirt up to my chest, I panic. Haste clouds any rational thought as I slide my torso up the fence, flush against the metal, freeing my clothing but leaving a tiny bit of me as a souvenir.
Fucking hell. I make my way down the rest of the way, wincing at the sting where the topmost point of the fence grazed my skin as it gave me back my clothes. That’s gonna leave a mark.
When my feet hit the ground, Maggie says nothing but holds out her hand, and we run once again toward the street, only to look in the direction of my truck and see, far beyond where we parked, the cop car fading in the distance. When I turn again toward the fence, I find the flashlight’s owner—a woman walking her small dog, and bark out a laugh.
“What?” Maggie asks as we slow to a walk, both of us breathing hard.
“Nothing,” I say, stopping to catch my breath and shaking my head as I laugh even harder. I take her bag off my shoulder and hand it to her.
She laughs, too, a sound full of relief, as she backhands my stomach.
I wince.
“Hold it there, Fancy Pants,” she says, grabbing the hem of my hoodie and lifting it slowly to reveal what looks like an attempt to slice me open with a serrated knife.
“It’s a scratch,” I say, because it isn’t much more, aside from the few locations where the metal took a bit more skin. The blood is already drying, but yeah, it stings. And I’ll be lucky if I don’t wake up with tetanus spasms.
“I’m sorry,” she says, my skin still exposed to the chilly air.
“This is my fault. If I hadn’t brought you here, this never would have…”
“Hey…Maggie…” My hand covers hers as we ease my sweatshirt down together. And while I’m careful not to pull her hand too close, her fingers trail over my skin, and tetanus or not, I feel nothing other than her touch.
“I am a willing participant in this entire evening—morning—whatever you want to call it. I panicked at a goddamn flashlight some lady was using to walk her dog. So unless she is some sort of pawn in your evil scheme to end the night by drawing my blood, this is all me.”
A corner of her mouth quirks in an attempt to smile, but the guilt still hangs on her expression.
“I guess this would be the end of the night,” she says, backing away from me and heading down our original alley. Questioning my sanity every step of the way, I follow her until she stands in front of our wall, instant camera in hand. Her flash won’t illuminate the picture completely, but I hope it will be enough.
I wait, letting her have her moment with our creation, and a minute later she’s back by my side where the alley meets the street.
“A memory of our memories,” she says, handing one of two developing pictures to me. As I take it she asks, “Will you take me home, Griffin?”
I nod, the finality of the request causing an unfamiliar ache in my throat.
“Sure,” I say. “Where do you live?”
We’re at the car now, and she waits to answer until we’re both inside.
Her eyes find mine, and she makes the request again, only this time it isn’t a question.
“Take me home, Griffin.”
And I understand.
“Maggie.” I brush an auburn wave behind her ear. “I wasn’t lying when I told you I didn’t know you worked at the coffee shop. What Davis said—I didn’t plan to take you home with me.”