Something that Layla imagined would feel exactly like having a white-knuckled fist driven right into her stomach.
She said, “You promised you’d always be my sister.”
Chapter Eight
Griffin had not thought it possible to stand in front of another one of these hotel room doors and feel more uncomfortable than he had a few hours ago, when he was standing in front of Layla Bailey’s.
But it was.
It was definitely possible.
“You good if I leave you here?” he said to Michael, who’d raised his hand to knock.
Michael dropped his hand and looked over at Griff.
No, Griff gathered. Michael was not good. He had not been good since this morning, and especially not since Emily’s latest text had come through ten minutes ago, during his and Griff’s slow walk back from the park.
Can you come?it said, when Michael showed Griffin his phone. And then, another:I love you.
He and Michael had both stood still on a narrow sidewalk next to the display window of a closed chocolate shop, staring down at the screen like two dumb American tourists who couldn’t getanywhere without a map and without also interfering with the flow of pedestrian traffic.
“What does that mean?” Michael had said, his brow furrowed.
The meaning, Griffin thought, was pretty straightforward in the abstract, but also, he knew what Michael meant. WasCan you come, I love yougood news or bad news? Was Emily asking him to come so she could call it off, or so she could put it all back on?
Had Layla kept her promise, or not?
“Let’s go,” Griffin had replied, getting moving again, but he hadn’t counted on Michael taking thatLet’sso literally. He hadn’t counted on Michael asking him to come up to Emily’s room with him.
“Just, you know,” Michael said nervously as they’d gotten closer to their destination. “For a few minutes.”
A vulnerable ask, Griff knew. A brave one.
Michael had never given Griffin the chance to ask a question like that. He’d always been there before Griff even had to contemplate the prospect of such naked vulnerability.
So, now, with Michael’s wounded eyes on him, he kicked himself for being so selfish again. Hadn’t hejustsworn to himself that he’d be a different Griffin this week?
He said, “Never mind,” and lifted his own hand to knock on Emily’s hotel room door.
Then he squeezed Michael’s shoulder and stood slightly back, waiting. The way a best man should.
Layla Bailey opened the door.
Goddammit, Griff thought.
Hair still up, the rogue swoop by her eye, those little pearl-drop earrings.
She was not yet an idea he’d gotten used to.
Especially not when her eyes went straight to his, instead ofMichael’s. As though part of her expected to see him. Dreaded to see him, probably.
Had she beencrying?
Inexplicably, he took a step forward, but as he did, she snapped her eyes to the right. To Michael.
“Emily’s washing her face,” Layla said, and then she made a sort of stutter-stop move: a step back to widen the door, as if to invite them in, followed immediately by a narrowing of the space again. The little customer-service-type smile she’d given to Michael dropped from her lips, and he could see her nibble at the inside of her cheek.
“It’s, you know—a little…” She trailed off, and Griff looked past her shoulder, the way he had this morning. He couldn’t see much of this room, either, but what he could see finished Layla’s sentence for him.
