Whipping a spite-filled glare his way, I inform him, “Push their heads down.”
The driver clears his throat to cover his laugh as he pulls into the street.
“Are we talking about me making sure you didn’t get a concussion from getting in the car? Because we both know that’s something you’d do.” Griffin lifts one brow, daring me to disagree when we both know he’s right.
“And it’s my head to bang against whatever I want to. Doorframes, headboards, my hand.” I slap my temple against my palm to demonstrate and then let my head fall back against the headrest of the seat with a sigh. Eyes closed, I murmur, “I bet you’re one of those bossy alphaholes that ‘encourages’ girls to suck you off by pushing them toward your dick. Trust me, she knows where it is, and if she wanted to, she would.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he barks, harsher than I expect. I crack one eye, feeling like I’ve hit a particularly sensitive nerve and not wanting to miss the moment of clarity when the truth of his actions hits him. But instead of having a revelation about his owncringeworthy behavior, he’s judging me and my past. “Did somebody do that to you? Who?”
He sounds furious—no, maybe lethal—but also shocked for some reason. That’s probably a sign that he’s not one of those guys, which is good. For the puck bunnies, I mean. Not me. I don’t care at all. Not a bit, not even a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty bit.
I fight to hide the grin trying to steal across my face, the result of successfully getting a rise out of him, and instead shrug dismissively. “Seriously, it’s too high of a percentage to count without fingers and toes getting involved. Don’t make me math right now.”
“Penelope.”
What makes him think he has the right to full-name me in that warning tone? Dom doesn’t even do that. Very often. Though that’s probably where Griffin got the idea to push me that way. Unfortunately, it works, bringing out every bit of brattiness I possess.
“Fine. You want to do this?” I challenge. “High school boyfriend, college boyfriend, guy at a frat party, a guy from Tinder, another guy from Tinder ...” I wiggle my fingers like counting is hard and let my voice trail off.
Unfortunately, all that is true. And then some. I haven’t had the best luck with dating. I’m a lot, I know that, but I’m not looking for someone who wants me to dull my shine for them. I’m looking for someone who sees me shining and cheers louder than anyone, for someone who catches me when I trip over my own feet (literally or metaphorically) and tells me the unexpected “solo” was an exciting addition to the plan. In my limited experience, that seems to be a tall order, and an impossible find. But when you’re as desperate as I am, turning to Tinder for actual dates and not just hookups, bad luck in the extreme is to be expected, and good guys are not.
“High school boyfriend Cooper? College boyfriend Tyler? Got them. Who’s the frat guy and the Tinder guys?” Griffin is trying to be nonchalant about that list, but he’s about aschalantas you can get, and it sounds more like a hit list than a recitation of my past lovers. Notthat I slept with all those guys. They’re just the ones that immediately came to mind with the head-push move.
Hell, the last Tinder guy had barely kissed me before he was shoving me southward and settling into his seat like he was ready to be serviced. No, just no. That was when I deleted the app and went on a dating strike that lasted until I went out with Jacob, and we all know how that turned out with Dom’s Middle Ages approach to my dating life.
“Wait, how do you know my high school and college boyfriends’ names?” I ask, suddenly wide awake and staring at Griffin in horror.
It’s his turn to shrug dismissively. “Dom talks about you. He worries.”
It feels like he’s leaving something out there, like maybe he worries too. But that doesn’t make sense. Griffin probably wishes my brother were an only child. If that were the case, he wouldn’t get roped into going on wild-goose chases for stolen rings that will never be found with emotionally messy drama queens. Not that I’m usually this hysterical, but he hasn’t exactly seen me at my best in the last two days. For completely reasonable, understandable reasons.
“Dominic is a pain in my ass.”
“But you love him. And he loves you,” Griffin counters.
He’s right, and we both know it. Still, I steel my face, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him, even though it’s true. I do love my brother. He’s the best brother a girl could hope for. Except when he’s controlling and thinks he knows better than I do what’s good for me. But other than that, he’s the best. And fine, even his annoying overbearingness comes from a place of love, so I can’t be too mad about it.
“He talks about you all the time, you know that, right?” Griffin continues, not put off by my silence. “About how brave you are for dropping out of college and starting a business, about what a creative genius you are, seeing potential in ugly shit no one else wants, and about how you never let an obstacle get in your way. You just bulldozeright over anything or anyone that tries to block you on the path to making your dreams come true.”
He watches me as he speaks, his look considerably softer than the hostile glares he usually offers me. He’s looking at me like he believes what Dominic says about me too.
But I’m not brave. I flunked out of my college classes because I was already too busy trying to build PLDesigns to study for a history test or do a psychology project I didn’t care about. And I’m creative for sure, but a genius? I don’t need a Mensa test to know that’s not the case. As for obstacles? I definitely go right over them, but it’s not a bulldozer situation. It’s a stumble-and-tumble type deal.
I once read a quote that said it’s not about how many times you fall but how many times you get back up. Over the years, I’ve fallen roughly a million times. But I’m still getting up every time. Including now.
I can feel the hot prick of tears in the corners of my eyes. “Did he really say all that?” I question, wanting to believe it, but also all too aware that we’re talking about my brother, Dominic, who’s more prone to kicking ass than offering kind words.
“Yeah.” Griffin nods. “That, and that you’re unbelievably annoying, can’t drive for shit, and could trip over an invisible rock a hundred yards away.” He ticks off those attributes on his fingers, and I can’t help but look at his hands. His knuckles are rough, showing a lifetime of impact, his fingers long and thick, and the overall size is somewhere around that of a dinner plate. “Wait, maybe it was me who said that part?”
He tilts his head like he’s trying to remember if it was him or Dom. It works, I laugh, the contrast in Griffin’s tone and words drying up my tears before they can fall. “Thanks, Griffin.” He shrugs like it’s nothing, but the momentary sweetness means something to me. So does the teasing. It’s familiar like a comfy pair of jeans. “He talks about you too,” I taunt, planning to say something nice to him for a change too.
He tenses, every muscle suddenly hard as a rock, and I can feel the dread emanating from him like a visceral thing in the back seat betweenus. I swear I can almost hear the high-alert warning sirens going off in his mind behind his sharp brown eyes. “What did he say?”
Dominic has said a lot of things about Griffin. That he had a shitty childhood and is no contact with his parents, that a high school hockey coach saved him from ending up as another juvenile delinquent or prison statistic, that he went straight to a development team because hockey was all he had, and that playing in the NHL was his one and only end goal, so now he’s in a constant state ofnow what. That his walls are built up taller and stronger than a fortress, that he doesn’t trust easily or fully, that he’s a no-strings-attached guy with women, and that he’s the only guy Dominic would want at his back if he was going into battle, because Griffin is both loyal and completely stone cold. His heart beats in his chest, but it doesn’t beat in his soul because it died long ago. Okay, that last bit is my creative liberty with what Dom said, which was closer to Griffin being an emotionless zombie, but I think it’s more accurate.
Griffin isn’t ready to hear any of that. In fact, I think it might piss him off to know that Dominic has told me, Mom, and Dad any of his personal trauma and damage. Instead, I grin and tell him something else entirely true. “He said you’re his favorite asshole.”
A sprinkle of fondness, tempered with a touch of crude. Perfect.
