Or partly on the pastry dough, and partly on Layla.
Whether she’d like a class like this. Whether she took AP Bio. Whether making her a croissant would save a marriage with her, which was really an insane thing to think, as if it made sense forhim to ever imagine himself waking up early the night after some dumb fight with Layla, Layla if she was hiswife, to make croissants good enough to make him worthy of her again. Whether she—
“Hey,” interrupted a voice.
Griffin, unfortunately, recognized it by now.
He looked up to meet the eyes of the man who had once actually called the woman he’d just been thinking of his wife.
Griffin did not sayHeyback.
Jamie looked away—after one of thoseI didn’t mean to lookscans of Griff’s left side—and down at Michael’s tray of sad, misshapen croissants.
Those aren’t mine, Griffin wanted to say.Mine could save a marriage, probably.
Obviously, yours couldn’t.
“So,” Jamie said, his voice low, his eyes still darting around, avoiding any additional accidents of looking at Griffin’s face, and Griffin realized that he was working up to something. In the days since he’d first been introduced to Jamie MacKenzie, he’d had exactly nothing to say to the man, and the feeling seemed mutual. And up to now, one of the many reasons Griffin had for liking this workshop was that it hadn’t really invited much mingling.
If Jamie came over here, it wasn’t because he suddenly wanted to be polite.
“So,” Griffin repeated.
“Look, I debated on whether I should say anything to you about this.”
Oh, what the fuck, thought Griffin, and what he assumed was that Jamie was about to say some bullshit about Griffin’s best man performance so far. He’d have to bite his tongue hard for that, keep things fine for Michael—
“I saw you and Layla,” Jamie said.
Griffin blinked. He had his right hand resting on the edge of the counter, and he curled his fingers inward.
“I was in the hotel lobby when you”—he paused, cleared his throat—“when you and she came back last night.”
Griffin had been touching her in the hotel lobby. His hand low on her back, his pinky and his ring finger along the upper curve of her ass. In front of the elevators, she’d leaned into him, a lot like she had that night on the boat cruise, but this time, she meant it. He’d pressed his face into her hair.
“And?” Griffin said, but he did not like this one fucking bit. He did not like that neither he nor Layla had noticed anyone in that lobby, and they’d looked, too—right as they crossed through the glass doors, him staying a few steps behind her then, both of them scanning the expanse of it. He did not like to think of this guy, her fucking ex-husband, her ex-husband who brought adateto this thing, skulking behind one of those weird lobby columns, seeing him and Layla at the end of their perfect, private Paris day.
“And you looked…You were touching her.”
You have no idea, he thought.You have no idea, and you never will.
But Griffin said nothing. It was the only keeping-things-fine version ofIt is none of your fucking businesshe could think of.
Despite the silence, Jamie held up both of his hands, as though he was surrendering to something, a realI’m just saying, bro!posture if Griff ever saw one. The thing was, he had known guys like Jamie. Nice guys, guys from good, loving families who were tall and golden-boy good-looking but also not complete assholes about it. In school, Jamie would probably invite someone eating alone to join his table, introduce them around to his buddies, earnestly say, “That’s cool” when the kid admitted, sheepishly, to being in Math Club. At work, Jamie would bring in a box of donuts, one foreveryone, even a couple of the weird vegan and gluten-free ones, because he didn’t want anyone to feel left out. On the way home, he’d have no problem pulling over to help someone change a tire, unless, Griff guessed, that someone was also throwing up.
So, by and large, Jamie was, probably, a nice guy. A guy more like Michael than Griffin. A guy nice enough that Layla Bailey had once—possibly still—loved him, and as far as Griffin was concerned, that should be a point in any man’s favor.
But Griffin still hated him.
“Okay,” Griffin said blandly. Quietly. “You saw what you saw.”
Jamie shifted, leaned his own hand on the counter, so now he was mimicking Griffin’s posture. Griffin immediately, desperately wanted to move, but didn’t want to give Jamie the satisfaction.
“I haven’t said anything to anyone,” he said, as though basic discretion was deserving of praise.
This was sometimes the thing about nice guys. The way they wanted praise.
“It’s only that I’m concerned. About Layla.”
