What If

by A. J. Pine

  “I know,” she says, filling the impending silence before it has a second to occur. “I know it wasn’t your plan, but it is what you do, right? This is what I want, and I think you want it, too.”

  It’s what I do, right? I silently thank her for the reminder. But she’s right. I want it. I want her, and I’m not good enough to let logic cloud my judgment. So I turn on the grin, the one that reminds whoever I’m with that this is what I do.

  “Okay, Pippi.” I put the truck in gear. “Let’s go home.”

  But when she reaches for my hand, I think maybe she sees right through me. And while I don’t flinch from her touch, willing her hand to linger, I decide to give her a reminder, too.

  “We aren’t the dating types. We already talked about this.”

  She nods, but her eyes tell another story, their longing so familiar I fight not to look away. “No. We’re not.” Her words are flat, but it doesn’t matter. We both need to convince ourselves that if she comes home with me, it doesn’t change who we are. Tomorrow we’ll go back to being strangers.

  I glance down at the picture on the center console, now fully developed.

  Strangers, I remind myself, and know my only choice is to trash the picture once she’s gone.

  Chapter Six

  Griffin

  We don’t talk for the short ride to campus, and while it’s not so much an awkward silence, there is a weight to it. The weight of me not waking up in my room at my parents’ house, where I’m supposed to be in a few hours for brunch. The weight of how much I want this girl tonight, and of how tomorrow—shit, it already is tomorrow—the want will still be there, was there already the minute I picked up a strange and beautiful hitchhiker. Where’s the fucking sense in that?

  “Here we are¸” I say, entering the heated parking garage.

  Maggie raises her brows. “I don’t have to step out of the car to know that this is not what one would consider campus housing.”

  Her comment comes with a smile, and I don’t try to suppress mine, grateful to get the hell out of my head.

  “It’s amazing what my parents will do for me if I attend the right school, choose the right major. Following someone else’s path does have its perks.”

  Her brows fall, and the moment of lightness leaves her eyes.

  “Come on, Pippi. Just trying to tease another smile out of you. Looks like it backfired.” She chews her bottom lip, gearing up to chime in, so I don’t let her. “I’m a big boy. It’s not like it wasn’t my decision, too.”

  I throw the gear shift into park and hop out of the truck, but Maggie sits there, arms crossed. She doesn’t move, only waits. When I get to her door and open it, I make no attempt to silence her. Whatever she wants to say, I can handle it.

  “Are you happy with your decision?”

  Her eyes hold steady on mine.

  “Well, you don’t pull any fucking punches, do you?”

  Clearly not satisfied with my lack of an answer, she doesn’t respond. So I open the door wide, angling my head toward hers. And when I hear it, the tiny, sharp intake of breath that tells me I’ve caused enough turbulence to knock her off-kilter, I kiss her, and she melts into it so quickly I almost forget what I intended to say because I could “talk” to her like this for the rest of our time together.

  I back away and watch her eyes flutter open. “I’m happy right now, Pippi.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  This time I don’t let her finish, covering her mouth with mine again. She doesn’t argue, her lips parting in a smile over mine as I maneuver to unclick her seat belt and guide her out of the truck and up against it. My hands pull the rubber bands out of her braids, tangling in her wild waves while her arms wrap around me, fingers resting above my jeans. In seconds they’re moving, climbing up and under my jacket, my hoodie, and then my T-shirt. My breathing grows ragged as the aching need, the one I keep trying to ignore, grows. And when her hands make their way to my chest and down my torso, I gasp—and flinch.

  “Shit!” Maggie slips out from under me, her eyes wide with recognition. “I’m sorry, Griffin. I totally forgot!”

  All I can do is bang my forehead against the door of the truck. Her beautiful, amazing, soft hands are on me, and I flinch from a goddamn scratch. Okay. Maybe it’s a little worse than a scratch.

  Maggie’s fingers trail through my hair. Then she rubs my back, the small gesture caring and intimate.

  “Can we get you cleaned up and then maybe continue with our…um…discussion on happiness?”

  “I’m fine.” I groan, stepping away from the truck to face her.

  “I know,” she says, lacing her fingers through mine and giving me a reassuring squeeze. “But there’s nothing wrong with making you better.”

  I look down at our hands, not hesitating to squeeze my assurance back. Though what I’m assuring her of, I have no idea.

  “Okay,” I say, and I lead her inside.

  …

  Maggie

  “Oh thank God,” I say as we step through his apartment door. “I was half expecting lots of black leather, clean lines, maybe even a remote-control picture of a fireplace.”

  Griffin laughs, tossing his keys on the kitchen counter.

  “Okay, I spoke too soon. Granite countertops?”

  I survey the rest of the space, which is smaller than I expected—a modest living room with dark hardwood floors, a plush red couch…and a leather recliner replete with drink holder. A flat-screen TV and coffee table strewn with textbooks and PlayStation controllers, and a small galley kitchen, with stainless appliances and granite counters. None of it is obnoxious. In fact it’s…warm.

  “It was a model unit.” Griffin’s voice comes from behind, and I realize I’ve been giving myself a small tour, walking around the sparsely decorated room to stop at an end-table cluttered with picture frames.

  “Those are my sisters—Natalie, Megan, and Jen. They said the couch had to be red, and I said the recliner had to have a cup holder.” He shrugs, and his whole face lights up with his grin. “Everyone wins.”

  I watch him take off his coat and hoodie, then glance at my own body, still bundled in my wool coat, fingerless gloves covering my hands.

  “They’re beautiful, your sisters.” All of them with the same sandy waves as Griffin in varying lengths. “You’re close with them?”

  He nods.

  “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to grab a quick shower, wash all the poisonous bacteria off my, uh, little injury, here. Grab whatever you want from the fridge if you’re hungry or thirsty. Or whatever.” He strides toward me, taking a picture frame I’d picked up from my gloved hand and placing it back on the table. Then he peels off my gloves, throwing them on the couch. “Just—don’t go anywhere, okay?”

  Something in my gut twists at his request, as if he knows I might leave if he takes his eyes off me. Because that would be the smart thing to do.

  But in his presence, rational thought escapes me, and I say the only thing I can. “Okay.”

  He disappears down the short hallway to the bathroom. I reach in my bag for my phone to check the time, and the sight of the numbers reading half-past-four hits me with a wave of exhaustion. Our non-chase from the cops pumped me so full of adrenaline, I had no idea how wiped out I was. Collapsing on the couch, my eyes close, blinking back the threat of a headache. Of course. Why should this day be different from any other? Miles will give me shit about it tomorrow, not just the friendly teasing kind of shit for leaving with Griffin, but if I stave off this headache and actually make it to work by one o’clock, he’ll see the fatigue anyway, remind me of my limitations, that I can’t do what I used to do before…

  He gave me an out. Goddammit. Fancy Pants gave me an out. I asked him to take me home, something I’m sure happens to him too many times to count, and now he’s going to play the gentleman card by leaving the room? Despite him asking me to stay, this is him letting me go—if I want to. But what I want to do and what I sho
uld do isn’t quite matching up. Something flutters in my gut, and I silently curse the feeling because I can’t want him to set me apart from the countless others. I can’t look for meaning in this gesture, in his ignoring his friends the whole night to fail miserably at creating his own foam art. In his giving my words, my wall, me—memories.

  I should tell him. Then I’ll go. I should march into that bathroom and tell him none of this can mean anything, that in the sixteen hours I’ve known him, thinking about him more than sixteen times is crazier than, well, me. And I’m pretty sure I have some paperwork to back up the latter.

  I snatch my gloves and stuff them into my pockets, making sure my bag is slung securely across my body. I can find my way home from here, but first he should hear what I have to say.

  In a few easy strides I’m at the bathroom door, the echo of the water’s spray giving me the final boost of confidence to walk in because at least I won’t have to look him in the eye. But when I throw open the door, Griffin stands facing the mirror in only his gray boxer-briefs, his face contorted in pain as he dabs a cotton ball down the jagged scratch that lines his torso—the scratch that clearly, at some points, went deeper than the first layer of skin.

  Shit. Like, the shittiest shitterson of shits. What is it about this guy that compels me to take care of him? And it doesn’t help my resolve that he’s practically naked because I full-on gawk for several seconds before finding my voice. Get a grip, Maggie. The boy is in pain.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  He braces himself on the counter, letting out a long exhale.

  “You could have gone by now.”

  “I know.” I should be gone, but instead I’m lifting my bag off my shoulder and tossing it to the ground. Next, my coat.

  “You should go, Maggie. We both know that’s how this night should end.” He lets out a short, bitter laugh. “If you stay, I turn into exactly the guy you think I am. It won’t matter that I didn’t come to Royal Grounds looking for this. I’ll be that guy, the one Davis said I was.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” I ask.

  His answer is instantaneous. “No.” He sighs. “But I don’t want to be that guy. Not for you.”

  “You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be,” I say, stepping toward him and grabbing a clean washcloth from a shelf next to the counter. Isn’t that what I’ve been doing for two years? Fighting to get my life back, to not be helpless and dependent. Maybe that’s what connects us, not wanting to be defined as others see us. In one day, this stranger hasn’t once seen me as lacking. And despite all the signs that point to him being every bit of trouble he believes he is, that’s not who I see. I see someone lost, like me.

  That’s why I stayed.

  Steam pours from the shower, thickening the air between us, and I slide open the glass door to reach inside and wet the cloth.

  He faces me now, his back to the sink, and I step in close, only enough distance between us for me to see what I’m doing.

  When I see the bottle on the counter, I wince. “Rubbing alcohol? That’s hard-core.”

  “Yeah, well, I just Googled tetanus on my phone. I don’t recommend clicking on Images if you ever get around to Googling it yourself.”

  “Noted,” I say, my hand and the hot, damp cloth making contact with his chest under his neck, right above where the injury begins. “But you should clean it first before trying to disinfect it. Otherwise whatever contaminants were on that metal are still there unless you use enough alcohol to soak it. Plus, this stings a little less. I hope.” My hand drags the washcloth down the cut, gently as I can yet with enough pressure to wash away the dried blood—and feel the hard muscles of his abdomen.

  When I reach the top hem of his briefs, I restart at the top.

  “Thank you,” he says, his hand joining mine.

  Instead of You’re welcome or some other appropriate reply, a giggle bubbles up from my throat.

  With a furrowed brow, he asks, “Is that how your people respond to declarations of gratitude? Because around these parts, laughter is not the socially accepted norm.”

  This does nothing except get me to laugh harder.

  “Okay, now I’m developing a complex.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at me.”

  He narrows his eyes.

  “I was ready to leave,” I tell him. “I should have left.”

  “But…”

  “But you weren’t supposed to be standing here, looking like that.”

  My hand motions up and down his body, but that’s not why I’m still here. I’m selfish, because I don’t want this night to end if it means not feeling special anymore. With Griffin, I find snatches of a Maggie who doesn’t rely on outside help to keep her day-to-day activities straight, a Maggie who takes pictures to preserve a moment rather than remind her brain what happened when it can’t recall on its own. From the minute he picked me up on the street, to walking into Royal Grounds, to now—not one second of our interaction have I forgotten.

  But when sleep comes, and at some point I will surrender to it, the slate will be wiped clean. Maybe not all at once, but enough for me to lose the feeling I have right now, the one that won’t let me walk out the door.

  I drop the washcloth on the counter and watch as his eyes follow my hands, as they lift my Royal Grounds T-shirt up and over my head. Next I slide my skirt over my hips and let it pool on the floor around my feet, toeing off my shoes and socks before stepping over the skirt and back to Griffin.

  “You’re not laughing anymore,” he says, his voice hoarse and strained.

  I can only shake my head while I watch his hands now. They find the front clasp of my bra, the straps falling over my shoulders as the cups open, removing the last barrier between his upper body and mine.

  Griffin’s palms slide over my ribs and around to my back, pulling my chest to his. If he lets go, I have no doubt I’ll fall to the floor in a puddle, my legs too weak to support me.

  I expect urgency as I wait for his hormones to kick in, but he just holds me, his head lowering to my shoulder until his lips are on my skin.

  “Thank you,” he says against me, but this time I don’t laugh as my arms wrap tight around his neck.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I back toward the shower door, not brave enough yet to completely bare myself, and he walks with me, our bodies entwined. It’s still open, so we step through together, Griffin closing us inside.

  He looks at me, a silly grin spreading across his face, and then his eyes skim the length of my body. Mine do the same to his, and that’s when I understand.

  I laugh, looking at his soaked briefs as they mold even closer to his shape, no question as to whether or not he wants what we’re about to do. “I guess we should get you out of those.”

  “I guess.”

  His face grows serious as his hands skim down my sides until his thumbs hook inside the seam of my panties.

  “Are you sure?” he asks, and I answer him by guiding his hands with my own, then stepping out of the garment so nothing is left to hide behind.

  If I had to answer him with words, I wouldn’t have the right ones. Am I sure? No. I’ve never been less sure about anything else. But I’ve given myself until daylight, when I’ll have no choice but to turn back into a pumpkin. Though the ache behind my eyes threatens to grow, the need for his hands on me overpowers the risk.

  I help him out of his boxers and marvel at the beauty of the boy before me—black eye and all—a boy who looks like a man but is just as lost as me in some ways, a child still needing a hand to be held but not trusting anyone to do it. I should be nervous, showing every bit of myself to him. But he only sees what I let rise to the surface. We may be naked, but I’m far from bare. So we hold each other, the hot water washing away the armor for a little longer.

  “Does it still hurt?” I ask, stepping back to get a better look at his scratched-up torso. With the blood rinsed away,
the wound looks better, but the deeper cuts stand out, the skin a tender pink. Then I kiss his neck, his collarbone, and feel him breathe beneath me.

  “No.” I can barely hear him above the flow of water, above the thrumming of my pulse in my ears.

  My lips trail across his chest to his shoulder, the other side of his neck, the line of his jaw. When I’m standing straight again, Griffin turns me gently so my back is to him as he reaches over my shoulder to the wire shelves hanging from the shower head. He grabs a bottle of apple-scented shampoo, pouring a generous amount in his hand before depositing it on my head.

  I can’t suppress the moan of pleasure that leaves my lips as his fingers massage my scalp, chasing the idea of a headache to the far reaches of my mind. He’s hard against my back but does nothing to indicate his intentions go beyond washing my hair, which is fine by me for now.

  “That feels amazing,” I tell him. Never mind that what he’s doing right now is far more intimate than anything I anticipated. When his soapy hands massage their way down my neck and shoulders, finding a path to my breasts, my arm shoots out to brace myself against the wall, my legs threatening to lose all ability to support me.

  “You’re beautiful, Maggie,” his ragged voice whispers in my ear. “So beautiful.” I want to tell him there’s no need for flattery, that I couldn’t want him more than I do right now. That is, until the water rinses the shampoo away and his right hand skims across my stomach, hesitating for only a second. Then he dips lower, a finger brushing me at just the right spot, and I suck in a breath as he parts me, enters me, and I almost come undone right there.

  Has it been so long since Miles and I gave this a try, since I felt the pleasure of someone else’s hands on me?

  Of course I know the answer. It has nothing to do with when or how long. It has to do with whom. I know why I should have gone, why I should run as far from this guy as possible. It’s not because he’s trouble, not the way he claims he is. He somehow allows me to see past that, which is how I know—he could steal my heart. If I had enough to give back, I might even let him.