Miles crosses his arms and gives me a pointed look. “Honey, I have never heard of a hitchhiking story that ends with a pretty, broken boy picking up a pretty, broken girl and one of them not eventually burying the other’s body. Instead you come in here flaunting that Polaroid but telling me I can’t have him.”
I let the tension out of my shoulders. “He gave me a ride, Miles. That’s all. I have no claim on him. Pretty sure he’s straight, though.”
I turn to remove my coat and hang it on the rack. As I do, Miles wraps his arms around my midsection, resting his stubble-lined jaw against my cheek.
“Sexual preference is an evasive response to this situation, honey. You wrote down his name.”
“I didn’t give him mine,” I say, the damning evidence of my hesitation still in my hand.
“Say it,” Miles pushes. “J. Crew is off limits.”
“It’s Griffin. His name is Griffin. And pretty face or not, the boy’s got issues if that’s what he looks like on a Saturday morning.”
It doesn’t change the urge I had to fix it, to make him better. Control what I can to avoid what I can’t—that’s always a good distraction. But Miles doesn’t need to know this. I don’t need anyone new to deal with, especially someone like him.
“He’ll forget me as quickly as I’ll forget him.” But my free hand clenches into a fist, the sensation of his skin on the tips of my fingers too fresh to be forgotten, the wish to touch him again too strong to be ignored.
Miles straightens, releasing his grip on me before he plants a kiss on top of my head.
“You wrote down his name, sweetie. Off-limits,” he says with a sureness I’ll never possess. Then he turns me to face him. “And no one, Maggie, no one forgets you.”
…
Griffin
In the normal world of space and time, showing up at the top of the hour would be fine. No questions asked. I take one last look in the mirror and shrug. No way can I hide how my night went. I throw back the rest of my cappuccino and hop out of the truck, bracing for my mother’s disappointment, or better yet, my father’s silent condescension.
All three of my sisters are here, probably have been for the better part of an hour. I walk up the driveway past Nat’s blindingly green Golf and chuckle. She always did make a statement. I’m sure she picked up Megan and Jen to make sure they weren’t late. If there was room for me, too, in her pocket-sized car, I have no doubt she would have been pounding on my apartment door two hours ago. Never mind that I live an hour out of her way.
I breathe in, steeling myself for what lies beyond the door, and I enter.
“Uncle Griggs!” My niece, Violet, launches herself at me, and I forget everything other than this, holding the most beautiful eight-year-old girl in my arms.
I kiss her nose, and she giggles. “How’s my Vi?”
“Good!” She shimmies out of my arms, patting out any wrinkles threatening to form in her blue dress. She learns quickly. Once free of my grasp, she gets a good look at me. “What happened to your eye?” she asks, her hands then covering her mouth. “Grandma’s gonna be mad at you.”
I laugh. She’s right to be more concerned about my mother’s reaction than how I’m actually doing.
“You should see the other guy,” I say. “Still Uncle Griggs, huh?”
She shrugs. “It suits you.”
It suits me? This kid needs to slow down on the whole maturity thing. Other than her size, Vi calling me Uncle Griggs is the only evidence she’s still a child.
Nat stalks through the foyer, her hands laden with packages of batteries.
“One thing I asked of you, Griff. One thing, and you’re freaking late.” Now she’s close enough to see. “What the FRAK?”
I cover Violet’s ears with my hands. “Hey. Don’t taint my niece’s vocabulary with gateway cursing. We all know freaking and frakking lead to fucking, and then what’s left?”
“I can still hear you guys,” Violet informs us.
“Shit,” I say.
“Damn it, Griffin!” Then Nat’s hand shoots up to cover her mouth as her eyes go wide.
Violet frees herself from my hands. She looks at both her mom and me and shakes her head. “Merde. You two are hopeless.” Then she saunters off to the great room, presumably where Natalie was headed in the first place.
“What was that?” I ask, knowing exactly what my niece just said.
“She’s learning French for our trip next month.”
“I get in trouble for ear-muffing her, and you’re teaching her how to say shit in French?”
“Well…” Nat hesitates. “I Googled some French slang for her so she wasn’t only learning textbook speak. I may have stepped away for a minute with the window still open. What can I say? She’s a quick learner. I mean, she used it in the correct context and everything.”
I grab the batteries out of Nat’s hands. “I take it the photographer isn’t ready yet?”
She shakes her head.
“So I’m not really late, only in Reed time.”
“Correct.” She sighs, her eyes focusing on mine. “Honey, what did you do? When is shit like this going to stop?”
I cover my ears like I did with Vi. “Shhhh. Remember there are sensitive ears nearby.”
She doesn’t appreciate the joke.
“Griffin…”