“He would probably disagree, but I wouldn’t know. Haven’t talked to them since the day I turned eighteen. I’d like to say I left, but the truth is, they kicked me out once their ‘parental obligation was done,’ as if they ever fulfilled that.” He huffs out a caustic laugh, and I feel like he’s quoting exactly what was said to him.
For never having met his parents, the hatred toward them that fills me is a surprise, because I was raised not to hate. But Griffin didn’t deserve any of that. No child does. And I’m bloodthirsty enough to kinda wish I could have a couple of minutes alone with Mr. and Mrs. Mahoney to punish them for what they did to Griffin.
“My hockey coach let me crash on his couch until I finished school that year, and then I moved out, started busting my ass in amateur and minor leagues, killing myself to get an NHL contract. That was when I met Dominic.”
Knowing Griffin didn’t have a family of his own is very different from the full picture I now have, and I’m starting to understand why Dominic was so adamant about bringing Griffin into our family. “Wholoves you, and who you love?” I offer, finally getting why Griffin is so loyal to my brother.
“In a totally bro way,” he clarifies.
Nodding, I give him a tiny grin. “Of course. But that’s what brings us to the ‘bros before hos’ situation we’re in now.” I hold up a finger. “Not that I’m a ho, but you know what I mean.”
“Dom made you sound like a cute little chaos goblin, so I was expecting ... well, I sure as hell wasn’t expecting you that day when you walked into your parent’s kitchen. You took my breath away.” He looks at me fully for the first time in the last few minutes. His eyes are brighter, like getting all that off his chest lightened the weight he’s been carrying all this time. “You were so damn beautiful, with this light that radiated from you. You felt like the fucking sun. You still do.” He reaches up to take a lock of my hair between his fingers, twisting and twirling it mindlessly, and his breathing steadies out like touching me has somehow soothed the last few minutes away. “My whole life was hockey, and then I saw you. And you were the one person I could never have. Youarethe one person I can’t have.”
“Because of my brother?”
He doesn’t answer directly. But he releases my hair and leans back on the couch, his arms splayed along its back. His grimace is answer enough.
“He doesn’t decide who I date or don’t date,” I argue.
“In general, that’s true. But with us, yeah, he does. I owe him, Pen. He pulled me out of this deep, dark, self-destructive place, and I decided all those years ago that I would repay him by doing basically anything he asked of me. And in all those years, do you know the only thing he’s asked?” He gives me a hard look, and before he says it, I already know. “Staying away from you. So I did. I treated you the same way he did, trying to keep you at arm’s length, while secretly obsessing over you at the same time. Living my life on the outskirts of yours, asking Dom about you anytime I could without raising his suspicions and hoarding stories about you like an addict. I’ve memorized yourevery look and gesture, studied your smiles, and cursed every man you dated. Hell, I encouraged Dom to run them off because I was so fucking jealous that they could date you, touch you, be with you.”
Okay, that paints the last five years in an entirely different light. Not necessarily a favorable one, but all our interactions are starting to morph and twist a little into something other than the hate I thought they were founded in.
“So to summarize, you’re basically a stalker?” I expect him to roll his eyes, or maybe crack a smile. Instead, he agrees with a slight jerk of his head, his eyes darkening like he’s daring me to do something about it.
Penelope Nicole Lee, get your shit together, because that is not hot! It’s creepy, and scary, and ... kinda hot. God, I am such a mess.
“I know it makes zero sense, but for a long time, I thought I was acting like an asshole to protect you from me and my shit.” He taps his temple, reminding me that the damage that’s shaped him still lives rent free in his mind. “But now I’m realizing I was protecting myself. I didn’t want to lose the only friend I’ve ever had, the only family to ever welcome me into their fold, and so, selfishly, I chose them and told myself that it’d be okay. That I could love you from afar and it’d be enough.”
“And has it been?”
“Fuck no,” he admits heavily, his eyes looking down. “It’s been absolute torture.”
I can’t help but chuckle, because wrong or not, that does make me feel better. Griffin hasn’t been kind to me for a lot of those years, but I can see how he treated me much the same way Dominic does. It was just without the underlying history and siblinghood bond between us, so it felt harsher, meaner, more hurtful. But with his explanation, I can understand why he was doing it. It still doesn’t make it okay, but I can understand how we got to that point at least. And though it probably makes me a bit evil, I like that it hurt him, too, because there were numerous times he hurt my feelings. Tit for tat might not be healthy, but I never claimed to be that. Doesn’t seem like Griffin is either.
“So why tell me all this now? Why not just pretend the other day never happened and go back to the status quo? It’d be a hell of a lot easier than all this.” I wave a hand in his general direction, knowing that spilling his guts this way had to be beyond difficult. Especially for a bottled-up man like Griffin.
He runs his fingers through his hair like he’s exasperated, but this time, it feels like it’s with himself. Not me. “Because you’re the first thought I have in the morning, the last one before I go to sleep, and you fill every moment in between. I can’t escape you at night, either, because I dream about you too. You’re this big, important force that’s controlled my entire being, and finally touching you the way I’ve wanted to for so damn long has broken every last grip I had on my sanity.”
Wow. The power behind his words feels like the smallest taste of the depth of his feelings. This man I thought was cold and emotionless is anything but. “I had no idea,” I whisper.
He pins me with an intense look, his jaw set in stone. “I didn’t want you to. I never wanted you to know. But it feels like fate took it out of my hands along with that ring. Some stupid part of me keeps trying to whisper in my ear, saying this might be my chance. That it might beourchance.”
Slowly and deliberately, as though he’s expecting me to stop him, he lays his hand on my knee. His thumb immediately begins tracing a path there, and even through my leggings, I can feel the heat of his touch.
Griffin is blowing my mind on so many levels, I’ve lost count, and I’m trying to keep up with the whiplash speed in which he’s rewriting our history. He doesn’t hate me. He likes me. He’s stalking me. He’s protecting me. Okay, that last one is confusing as hell, because how does being mean equal protection? But given how Griffin sees himself as some unlovable monster, I guess I can kinda connect those dots, in a very roundabout, indirect path that’s basically a toddler-esque crayon scribble.
“Chance to what?”
“Whatever you want,” he answers, not clarifying anything. “Use me. Tell me to fuck off. Hurt me the way I’ve hurt you. I deserve it.”
Sighing in disappointment, I tell him, “If you’ve been paying attention the way you say you’ve been, you know that’s not who I am.”
“You are sunshine and light, tackling everything life throws at you as though every moment is an adventure to be experienced to the fullest, and never letting anyone or anything hold you back from chasing your dreams, not even yourself.” He sounds sure and confident in that appraisal.
I can’t help but smile because if I were going to write the perfect blurb about me, that’s what I’d want it to say. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” I have cheerleaders in my life—my family, my friends, my teammates, and myself—but having Griffin, someone who I didn’t think ever saw me in a positive way and who has never had a cheerleader in his corner, list out the things I value most in myself is powerfully seductive.
“I’m not good enough for you. Nobody is, but I’m definitely not. I’m fucked up, like really fucked up, and I don’t know how to do any of this. Feel? Talk?” He shakes his head like those are entirely foreign concepts despite having just done a lifetime’s worth of feeling and talking. “But I’m willing to try, willing to learn, if you’ll give me time to get there, to where, one day, I might be good enough for you.”
