“Mornin’,” he murmurs quietly, brushing a stray hair back from my face. “You look fucking good in my shirt.”
I chuckle and shove at his chest, pushing him away just as Jovie appears again above us. “Grizz, have you been to San Francisco?” she asks, holding a large book in her arms with pictures collaged across the front—one being the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Nope,” he answers, turning to look up at her. “Why’s tha…” His words fall off when he sees what’s in her arms, and he struggles to clear his throat again before he speaks. “I uh… didn’t know that was up there.”
Jovie’s face sinks, feeling the sudden change in the air, and she puts the book to the side, pushing it away. “We can leaveit,” she offers, but Grizz is already shaking his head and moving forward so he’s standing under her.
“No, grab it and I’ll help you down,” he says, holding his arms up to get her as she cautiously gathers the offending object and shuffles to the edge of the loft, Grizz holding her tightly as she slips off the edge and into his arms.
The air has changed.
It’s heavier than before.
And not necessarily in a negative way, but in a way that you can tell this book is something important. It holds something in it that Grizz finds hard to carry with him.
But I still watch him carry Jovie across to the sofa and place her down, taking a seat beside her.
He looks back over his shoulder, nodding for me to join them, and I gently pad over and sink onto the couch on the other side of Jovie, placing my arm around her shoulder so I can cuddle her, but also touch him if I feel like he needs it.
The book rests in Jovie’s lap, her finger delicately tracing the cracks in the leather as she waits patiently for Grizz to find his words. The silence isn’t long, but it’s thick, and the way he’s clenching his jaw makes me scared for how many teeth he might have at the end of this.
“It was my mom’s,” he finally says, his voice so low that I almost don’t hear it over the crackle of the fireplace a few feet away. “She had this thing for travelling. Said one day she was going to see the whole country, then after that, the world.”
Jovie looks up at him, wide-eyed. “Did she get to?”
He shakes his head slowly. “Nope. She never got the chance before she died.” It’s like someone has sat on my chest, those words so heavy it’s hard to breathe. I brush my fingers over his shoulder, and the muscle jumps just a little, but he doesn’t pull away. “Open it up, Jon Bon.”
She lifts the front cover so carefully, and inside, a worn and faded map of the United States is glued across the two front pages. It’s a little torn at the edges and covered in smudges and smears of god knows what, but on each state, there’s a tiny arrow sticker pointing to a place, and something printed perfectly beside it.
Arizona – Grand Canyon at Sunrise.
California – Golden Gate Bridge.
Illinois – Chicago Deep Dish.
Grizz flips to the next page, and it’s even more detailed with pictures cut from magazines and little drawings of each place and why she wanted to go there.
“She started this before I was born, but I remember her adding to it all the time,” Grizz murmurs, with a single finger on the edge of the page. “We would sit at the table and talk about it. How long it would take, how much money we needed to save, and then one day we’d see it all.”
“You could still go,” Jovie whispers, placing her finger beside his.
“Yeah, maybe,” he answers, his eyes still stuck to the page.
It’s obvious he doesn’t believe it.
Not yet, at least.
But maybe one day, he will want to go and release all those ghosts that are weighing him down, and stand in all those places they talked of and dreamed of. The places they imagined and the experiences they dreamed up together.
And maybe he won't have to do it alone.
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 17 - GRIZZ
“Are you sure you shouldn’t wait for it to slow a little more?” Brynn questions as I put my final layer on to head outside. Snow has fallen steadily for the past 13 hours, and the forecast said it would start to taper out around mid-afternoon. I can kill two birds with one stone if I get a head start on clearing a path to the clubhouse and see if the guys have any more information about what happened.
“I thought I’d give you both some time to relax. You know, girltime?” I say, shrugging my shoulders, pulling on a beanie.
