“How long ago was it?” she finally asked, when she thought she could make her voice sound normal.
He took a breath in, and she thought he might be holding it. Counting.
“A long time,” he eventually answered, and she tried to graciously accept the distance he was still keeping. She could tell how hard even this disclosure was for him.
“I’m an unusual case,” he continued. “In terms of the neuropathy, at least. They say by now it should be better than it is.”
Not necessarily, the physician in her wanted to say.
But she was not standing here as his doctor.
She was standing here as the woman who’d kissed him last night.
Who’dhurthim.
“They say some of it is probably psychological. Obviously, as you saw at dinner—I have some struggles in that area, too. But with the pain…when the pain hits, I—”
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted, because it felt impossible not to—not to think again about all the ways she’d touched him, how many times it had hurt. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Please don’t apologize,” he interrupted gruffly, and once again, thePleasedid it, sealing her lips shut. This one sounded less broken, more determined.
“I wasn’t sure what I’d say to you today when I saw you. If I’d say anything, or—try to ignore what I’d done. What I said to you last night. But on the way over here I was looking up this place on my phone. Reading about the sculptures.”
Neither of them was looking at the sculpture before them anymore. They’d turned to face each other now, the three figures looming but frozen in disinterest.
“This one, it’s calledThe Three Shades,” he said. “I don’t know much beyond that. But they’re also over there.” He tipped his head to the side, toward a huge, stone-surrounded bronze door, covered in figures. “At the top. A smaller version. They stand over the entrance toThe Gates of Hell.”
“Griffin,” she said, barely a whisper.
“You should call me Griff,” he replied. “Considering.”
She thought of all the thingsConsideringcould mean.Considering that you talked me out of a panic attack. Considering that we had a whole dinner together, alone. Considering I’m the only one on this trip that truly sees you. Considering I had my tongue in your mouth, my hands on your body.
Considering that I looked at this piece of art, and now I’m using it to tell you something about me.
“Griff,” she repeated, and was rewarded with the way his mouth curved, even if it fell again only a second later.
“If that pain hits me…whenit hits me. Because it’s always when. I’m—I’m through that doorway. I am in hell. I don’t know how else to describe it. I have to find my way out. Over and over again.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, but this time, she hoped he knew she wasn’t apologizing for herself.
Only for him, and for the pain he was describing.
He acknowledged it. One brief but meaningful nod, and then his gaze left hers, going to the top of that doorway. He was quiet, looking at it for so long that Layla started to think he might finally have finished, that he might’ve said all he would say. Thatnowhe would get on with ignoring what he’d done, whattheyhad done. That now—with this new knowledge he’d given her—she would understand why last night was a mistake. That they’d silently agree to go find the group and get on with it in the way they had yesterday.
Two new friends who were privately guarding the bride and groom.
She didn’t want that, though.
She did not want to ignore it or say it was a mistake; she did not want to go back and find the group of people who saw her all wrong.
She wanted to say,Griff, I saw a piece of art, too. I sawThe Kiss, and let me tell you what it made me think about.
Before she could get up the courage, though, he finally looked back at her.
“I’m sorry, too. For how I acted last night. Once those gates opened for me, I mean.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth, to her now-covered neck. A slow perusal that made her leftover beard-burn tingle anew. Hemust be closer now; hefeltcloser, though she hadn’t noticed him move.
