He’d text me almost every morning to ask me what the plan was, and then we’d fill the day by powering through my huge list of baby things.
I was extremely appreciative toward him… but I also felt a twinge of sadness every time someone assumed that Griff was my husband and baby’s father.
I worriedly wondered if Nick would be upset with Griff coming in and doing all the fatherly duties…
And… I felt guilty. I was worried I wasn’t feeling enough grief for Nick because I kept myself so busy with baby and puppy things… and maybe I didn’t feel it enough because I wasn’t alone all the time like I thought I wouldbe?
And the way Griff looked at me sometimes… it was almost like he…likedme? No. That couldn’t be true… What would he want with preggers me anyway? I was eating every meal like it was my last and barely breathing as I scarfed food down. I peed every two seconds when we went shopping, and had charlie horses almost daily, which he kindly rubbed out for me. All in all, I was probably just annoying him at this rate.
But he continued to help me every day he didn’t have practice or games.
On the weekends, I’d stream the Toledo games and watch Duke and him tear it up on the ice. Watching them hit me with a twinge of bittersweet nostalgia… because they played just like they had in the backyard… It was actually amazing, because while most guys looked like they were working out there on the ice, they just looked like they were having a blast together.
And it seemed to pay off: one Sunday morning, they finally got the call they were waiting for…
A shirtless Griff rushed toward where I was making breakfast in the kitchen and slid across the hardwood floor in his socks, almost knocking into the cabinet next to me.
He quickly put his phone on speakerphone, and I could hear Duke on the other end.
“Woohooo!” I heard Duke’s celebratory signatureyell.
I looked at Griff’s ecstatic face and crazy sleep hair in question.
“We got the call, Sav. We’re going up to Grand Rapids together!”
He picked me up and spun around, causing me to drop my spatula, and I could hear Duke still celebrating in the background.
I couldn’t help but laugh. They had worked so hard to be here and now their dreams were starting to cometrue.
When Griff hung up the phone with Duke, he turned to me.
“You’re coming to the game, right?” he implored me with his bright eyes.
“Uh…” I was still on the fence about it. While I wanted to be there and support them, I hadn’t been leaving home much, and I still didn’t really feel like it.
“It’ll be good to get out,” Griff said. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”
I felt myself shrinking back but Griff pushed again. “You love watching games, Sav. And you know it’s way more fun in person.”
I rolled my eyes at that, but it was definitely true. You felt more in the game when you were actually in the stadium seats.
“C’mon, we want you there,” he said.
With those words, a vision of college-aged Griff walking back to his house all alone on the sidewalk flashed into my mind. I tried urging him to stay the summer in Detroit with us with that same sentence, and I was struck by just how important that was– to be told that you’re wanted every once in a while… that you belong… and that you have people in your corner, even when it felt like you were all alone.
I smiled up at him. “I’ll be there.”
45. Sav - Friday night
Grand Rapids game
I tried hard not to bump into people while holding my large icee and two hot dogs covered in mustard. I was definitely starting to have very specific intense food cravings— I usually hated mustard.
Right after I found my seat, an introduction video of Griff and Duke played on the jumbotron. First it showed old facebook video footage that I filmed of the boys messing around on the ice in our backyard in Minnesota. Duke was doing an over-the-top celly and Nick went and hip-checked him into the snowbank. Griff skated into the video then and picked up little Duke and put him back on his skates before giving him a knuckle punch.
My heart squeezed at seeing Nick’s figure on the screen. I cherished those backyard skating memories more than the boys could ever know.
The video then jumped to a clip of Duke assisting Griff’s goal in the last Toledo game. Griff jumped into the glass behind the net and yelled out in celebration while Duke slammed into him for a hug.
