Risking It All

by Christi Barth

  He clapped Riley on the back in silent thanks for making his wheels turn. Then he grabbed the soccer ball from Josh. Spun it on one finger. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about my job.”

  “Aren’t you running out of time?”

  “Yeah. I need to know. I need to decide. But this has been a shit storm of a week.”

  Josh picked up a rock and winged it out of their field of play. “Dude, it’s only Wednesday.”

  Damn it, they all knew that he and Chloe had broken up. Couldn’t Josh lay off riding his ass for a few freaking days?

  Even though he didn’t want to acknowledge it, a thought sprang into his head. An image of his going to Chloe’s apartment and telling her that he was having a bad week. She’d fuss over him. Or not, depending on how she read his mood. But she wouldn’t ride him like Josh was. No, she’d do something to make him feel better. Make him help her putter over dinner. Squeeze his hand—or his ass, again depending on how she read his mood. Kiss the sullen right off of his lips.

  Since when weren’t the ACSs enough for him? Since when did he need a woman to soothe him? Nope. Back to the plan he’d made while running across the Smithsonian grounds.

  “I just want to get back to normal for a few hours,” Griff stated with finality.

  Riley fist-bumped him. “I hear you.”

  About time that he and his guys were on the same page. Gathering steam for the idea, Griffin continued. “Play some soccer.”

  “Now we’re talking.” Josh grabbed the ball back. And when he tossed it in the air, Griff jumped, twisted, and headed it toward the white spear of the Washington Monument.

  “Score all over Josh until he cries like a little girl. Go for beers after at Biergarten Haus.”

  Knox jumped in—literally, with a lunge out of a deep quad stretch into their loose circle. “Then you can finish off the evening by having sex with a chick who actually knows what she’s doing.”

  Griff’s hand rocketed from his hip straight up and into the side of Knox’s face. There wasn’t any conscious thought behind it. Just a burn in his gut that his woman had been insulted. What had happened next was sheer instinct, caveman style. Followed by an ache that jammed itself from his knuckles to his elbow.

  At the same time, he heard the crack as Knox’s head snapped to the side. He didn’t go down, but surprise alone staggered him back a few steps. Josh and Riley closed in tight. All three stared at Griffin like he’d just mooned the president.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Knox shouted. “What the holy fuck was that for?”

  Griffin shook out his aching hand. His head was swimming as if he’d taken the blow himself. Had he really just punched one of his best friends? “What you said…it wasn’t nice to Chloe,” he muttered.

  “I didn’t even say her damn name.” Knox gingerly rubbed around his eye socket.

  Shit. Now Griff had to defend himself for something that he knew was pretty much the dumbest thing he’d ever done. “It was a dig at her. We all know it.”

  “No, we all know he was just supporting you,” Riley corrected. He bent to pull out the instant ice pack they always brought to games in case of injury. A snap and a shake activated it, and he handed it to Knox, who waved it off.

  “For God’s sake, it’s a shiner, not a torn ACL. Get that thing away from me. You’ll spoil what promises to be a very sexy black eye. Women dig those.”

  Josh kept his eyes on Griffin, though, as if worried he might strike out again. “She dumped you. Yes, we liked her. But Chloe’s out of the picture now. We’re supposed to call her ugly, say she never deserved you, to make you feel better.”

  What the hell? “Where did you hear that? Are you reading women’s magazines now?”

  “You got me.” He held up a hand with a wide white bandage wrapped around it. “Knife slipped when I was cleaning it. Sliced too deep for me to handle. I waited so long for stitches at urgent care that I made it through Cosmo and Vogue out of desperation. Although there was a pretty sweet spread on bikinis I went back to twice.”

  Jesus Christ. Josh read Cosmo. Griff had punched Knox. This entire week was turning upside down and sideways. Griffin braced his hands on his thighs and sucked in a deep breath. When he let it out, he lifted his head to look at Knox. He had to fix this. Griffin stuck out his hand.

  “I’m sorry. I stepped so far out of line I think I crossed the International Date Line. It was a dumbass thing to do.”

  “Yeah. It was.” But Knox shook his hand. And the world righted itself a little bit.

  Riley put Knox in a headlock and jammed the ice pack against his temple with brute strength. It was the only way he ever got ice on any of them. “This proves it’s a good thing you split from Chloe. We’ve never fought before. Not really. Not in all these years. She messed with your mojo enough to make you go after Knox? The weakling of all of us? She’s not good for you, Griff. The slightly crazy, high-maintenance virgin’s just too much to deal with. You’re better off now.”

  Exactly what Griff had been telling himself for two days. Problem was, he didn’t entirely believe it. Sure, his picking a fight with the ACSs was way out of character. But what if it wasn’t Chloe’s fault? What if he did it because he loved her enough to fight for her?

  No. The guys were right. She was bad news, as his throbbing knuckles proved. Plus, she’d thrown him out. That ship had sailed.

  Knox elbowed Riley in the gut to get out of the headlock. Then he slapped the ice pack on Griff’s hand. “All I was saying is that it’s time to get back on the horse.” Then Knox slashed his leg sideways, knocking Griff’s feet out from under him. Grinned down at him with a payback’s-a-bitch glint in his eyes. “I’m on your side, Montgomery. Always have been, always will be. As long as you never fucking belt me again.”

  —

  Griffin didn’t bother to ring his mom’s doorbell. Or knock. No, he used his emergency key so he could slam right into the house. Because when someone texted him “911 come home as soon as you can” four times during dinner, it constituted an emergency. At least, it damned well better.

  “Mom?” he roared through the long hallway. “Where are you?”

  “Griffin, what took you so long?” Sabrina came out of the library still in full pearls at her hands, wrists, and neck. Must’ve been a committee meeting day. She didn’t look scared or sick or anything that would’ve been a good reason for her frantic texts.

  “I was at dinner. Hard to scarf down German meatloaf, red cabbage, and spaetzle.”

  “But I said I needed you.” The droop of her eyes, the pout of her lips, weren’t even close to subtle. Guess they were still deep in one of his mom’s clingy phases.

  “That’s why I’m here now.” Griffin leaned in for their usual double-sided air kiss. “I knew you weren’t hurt, or you would’ve called the real 911. So I cleaned my plate and hustled over.” Without the third beer he’d both wanted and deserved.

  She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “You’re sweaty.”

  He was in his black cleats and D.C. United soccer jersey, with a skinned elbow and dirt ground into his knees. Amazing how she couldn’t just figure out he’d played soccer and let it go. “When I rescue people who actually need help, they manage to refrain from commenting on whether or not I’ve showered. So I’m guessing that means you don’t actually need my help.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Taking his hand, she took mincing but hurried steps in her navy heels down the black-and-white tiles.

  It’d go faster if he just picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Griff scrubbed a hand across eyes so gritty they felt like he hadn’t slept in two days. ’Cause, huh, he hadn’t. This visit to his mom was exactly what he didn’t need. On the other hand, the week was already in the crapper, so it couldn’t get any worse.

  “Griffin, just look at that.” She pointed with a shaky finger out the solarium window to the fountain.

  Right. Because there were fountain emergencies every damn day. “Mom, I’m not in t
he mood…” he cautioned.

  “Look,” she said again, more impatiently. “Don’t you see them?”

  Jamming his face against the glass, he took a second look. Water, stone…and a family of frogs perched along the edge. That was new. Still didn’t know what it had to do with him. “You mean the frogs?”

  “Of course I mean the horrid little creatures. What are you going to do about them?”

  “Nothing.” No matter which title he ended up with at work, he knew damn well that frog catcher was not in either job description. And he liked it that way.

  “Griffin Charles Montgomery, that is not an acceptable answer.”

  “You don’t bathe in the fountain, Mom. Frogs are nocturnal. By the time you want to walk in your garden tomorrow morning, they’ll be gone.” He backed away from the window and spread his hands. “Now that you’ve shown me the wildlife, how about spilling what the big emergency is?”

  Sabrina blinked at him. “I did. It was the frogs.”

  “Frogs? Not in the house, but outside in their natural habitat? Frogs required four texts and a plea for help?”

  “They’re off-putting.”

  He’d been in a filthy temper for days. Punching his best friend had only put oily layers of shame and guilt on top of it. So yeah, Griff gave in and snapped.

  “For God’s sake, Mom! Do you even get how ridiculous you can be?”

  Blue eyes flaring, she warned, “Don’t use that tone with me.”

  Over it. Griffin was over being ignored for months on end whenever a wealthy man caught her eye. He was over reaching out and never hearing back. Way over having her cling to him like foam on beer whenever she did come back to town all alone. Why couldn’t she treat him like a son, instead of as a substitute for husband number what the fuck ever? Marriage was obviously not a forever proposition to Sabrina. But her son? Shouldn’t he always be a priority to her? Forever?

  “Trust me—I’d be thrilled to not be here, not using this tone. When are you going to latch onto the next rich sucker? Number seven, right? Because I don’t have time to deal with your intermittent smothering and attention grabs.”

  Stone-faced, she pulled out a chair and patted the marble table. “Sit down, Griffin.”

  Just when he’d been sure the week couldn’t suck more. Was his mother really going to give him a tongue-lashing over damn frogs? He flipped the chair around, sat, and crossed his arms over the back of it.

  Instead of joining him, his mother vanished down the hall. Weird. For the first time in a long time, Griffin was intrigued enough to stay out of interest rather than duty. He flexed his fingers beneath the table. His whole hand was starting to stiffen up. Deserved it, though. Deserved the reminder that he’d been an asshole.

  When she came back, it was with a bulging photo album. Shaking hands flipped through the pages until stopping about a third of the way through. “Do you remember what it was like when your father came home from deployments?”

  “Dad stopped coming home to us by the time I was six. I have a lot more memories of missing him than of doing things with him.”

  “Me too. But when he was home, every day was special. Like it was dipped in gold. Everything was more fun because we did it together, as a family. We laughed louder, longer, more often. We didn’t just stay in our routine. We went out and did fun things. Instead of waiting for summer vacation, we’d drive you to the beach on the first sunny day in April, just to watch you giggle when the waves foamed across your toes.”

  “Why the walk down memory lane?”

  The scrapbook was turned to face him. “Do you see this picture? It was taken when your father was just a few years older than you are now.”

  Griffin didn’t give in to nostalgia very often. His dad had walked out of their lives to start a new one with a woman ten years younger. It didn’t last. They didn’t even get married. But the general never came back to them. Didn’t leave his deployment when Griff almost died on that mountain. Didn’t come to his graduations. So there weren’t any photos of him up in the house, to say the least. Looking at this photo was almost like seeing the man for the first time.

  Especially because he looked like he could’ve been Griff’s brother. He must’ve jerked his head in recognition, because Sabrina nodded. “Ah. You see the resemblance.”

  “Yeah. Weird.”

  “I loved your father very much. He broke my heart. And when I look at you, when I think about you, I can’t help but see him. It’s painful to face that loss, over and over again. It’s easier to keep the distance between us. But when I’m home, I just can’t resist the pull of wanting to spend time with my baby boy.”

  The spin was one he’d never even considered. Did this mean his mother never really got over her first love? If so, that meant she wasn’t ignoring him. She was pushing him away to protect herself. To keep from picking the scab off her heart. It still didn’t make Sabrina mother of the year, but it made a lot more sense. And made Griffin a lot less angry at her.

  “I thought you just wanted attention when you were between husbands. I mean, come on, who needs to be rescued from a frog?”

  “There are four of them, Griffin. That’s practically a herd.” She patted his arm and gave him a rueful smile. “I know I pull you over here for silly reasons. But you don’t like to come to my charity balls or museum fund-raisers. The excuses are weak, but they’re the only way I get to spend time with you. And I treasure that.”

  He’d let his annoyance get in the way of hearing what she really needed. Had done it for years. Which probably accounted for his pulling the same stupid shit with Chloe. “God, Mom, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I should’ve been truthful. Asked what you want to do. Given you a choice in the matter, instead of just demanding.” She closed the book. Rose to put it on the sideboard, as if she needed to physically remove even the two-dimensional presence of his father from her sight.

  Choices. Apparently the theme of the week. Choices and communication. Maybe if he’d talked to Chloe about her choices, instead of just insisting she make different ones, things would’ve gone better.

  “Do you still miss Dad?”

  “Not enough to go spend time with the lying, cheating bastard—” She laughed softly. Regretfully. “But yes, I do. Certain things. The way he brushed my hair at night. The way he lifted me over puddles in the street. The way we’d look at each other across your crib. I miss things about all my husbands.”

  Even a day ago, Griffin would’ve spit out something insensitive, like, What—their money? But this was their first real conversation in many years. Sabrina’s honesty demanded respect. He still wanted to know. Just had to phrase it more carefully.

  “Mom, why do you do it? Why do you keep tying the knot? You’ve got all the money you could ever use in three lifetimes.”

  This time, her laughter was layered over a sigh as she sat back down. “I’ve done you quite the disservice, if I ever gave you the impression that marriage is about money.”

  Nah. He’d certainly never been particular about aiming his dick at trust-fund hotties. Griffin knew the size of a trust fund didn’t matter to him. God knew he barely touched his own. “It’s more that I just don’t get why you’d keep doing it, if not for the money. Six times, Mom. Are you really that desperate?”

  “I’m baffled, and saddened, that you’d think that.” She tucked her blond hair behind one ear. “No, for the record, what I’m sure you call my constant husband-jumping is not about money. I like the companionship, the sex, the sharing and laughter. Being cared for, and caring for someone. So I suppose I am desperate, in a way. Desperate to recapture all of that.”

  “Not to be a downer, but it’s not working. All you’ve gotten is tight with a bunch of lawyers and a lot of heartbreak. Why risk it again?”

  “It’s all part of the journey. And all worth it, if it someday leads me to the right man.” Sabrina clasped her hands over her heart. “To me, being loved is both the ultimate safety and the ult
imate risk.”

  Chapter 22

  From beneath a pile of discarded T-shirts on the bed, Chloe’s phone buzzed. Again. And she ignored it—again. She hadn’t packed to go on a trip in years. Packing required focus. Lists and organization and ironing and digging through three storage boxes to find the single shirt that was a nonnegotiable item for the reunion weekend. There was no time to read emails or see the latest funny video of a baby riding a puppy.

  But as she upended a box of hair ties and barrettes, the phone rang. After their looooong discussion, Chloe was almost positive that it wasn’t her mother. Practically positive. Hard to break a decade’s worth of habit in one day, though. So she snatched it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Why aren’t you answering my texts?” Summer demanded from the other end of the line.

  For crying out loud. Summer knew Chloe was already in a tizzy. Why on earth would she choose to hassle her now? “I’m packing, remember? This is a big hairy deal. I’ve got to concentrate. I’ll call you when I’m finished.”

  “Wait—don’t hang up yet! This is important. You have to read Griffin’s blog.”

  “Talk about a non-emergency. A blog post can wait.”

  “This one can’t. No way. No how. Trust me. Open it. Rightnowrightnowrightnow.”

  When Summer fixated on something, capitulation was the only answer. Sighing as she crossed to her laptop on the dresser, Chloe asked, “Will it make you be quiet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Tossing the phone over her shoulder onto the bed, Chloe clicked on the bookmark she’d made weeks ago to their site.

  Naked Men blog—April 28, 2016

  Griffin here. I know you all expected it to be Josh’s turn today, but he’s got more bandage than hand going on right now. Don’t ask. He’ll be back to post next week. For now, I’m going to talk about fear.

  Here’s the naked truth—we all have it. That’s right: I said men are scared of stuff. I know we’re not supposed to be. It’s manlier to not show fear. Not showing it’s different from not having it, though. I took a poll of the Naked Men. Here’s what they are scared of, big and small: