CHAPTER SIX
CASEY
I said I’d bring popcorn, but what I actually brought was an overnight bag and enough food to feed an army. I want to be a gracious visitor; plus, I won’t be caught dead wearing the same clothes two days in a row again around this handsome, put-together god. I have standards.
In fact, they’re the only things I have left. So I gotta hold onto them.
My mason jar of farmer’s market kernels nicely complements the peanut brittle and the ready-to-go charcuterie board I picked up from the Daily Spot. Not to mention the honey I purchased for Griffin at last weekend’s farmer’s market, which I’d never forget to bring him.
Hell, if things really go south, maybe I could pay him rent in honey.
Do not suggest that to him, Casey. Shut your mouth.
The front door swings open after my awkward elbow knock, necessary due to the sheer number of bags dangling from my fingers. Griffin answers a moment later, his handsome face lighting up.
“Casey! You came prepared.” He immediately swoops in and relieves me of the grocery bags.
I step inside, spotting Piper and Kru already arranged on the big couch facing the enormous television.
Piper waves excitedly, and Kru twists to give me a thumbs up.
Branson is in an overstuffed chair off to the side, deep in conversation with a girl I don’t recognize but who looks younger than us.
“Hey, guys! Can’t wait for the B-movie sleaze.” I shut the door behind me and stow my bag nearby like it’s a purse instead of my overnight bag.
“Come sit by me,” Piper calls out. “So we can laugh together at the bad acting.”
“Save my spot.” I follow Griffin into the kitchen. I couldn’t go elsewhere if I tried; he’s a broad-shouldered hunk whose mere shadow I could hump and probably get off. Also, I need to present to him his honey. Once he’s got all the bags on the kitchen island, I dig out the mason jars.
“I have something for you,” I say, eagerly presenting the glass jar. Just before he reaches for it, I frown and put it to the side. “Nope, that’s the wrong one, sorry. That’s popcorn. It’s this one.” I grab the correct jar and ramp up my smile again. “Honey. For you.”
His handsome smile hits heartbreaker level as he takes it from me. “You remembered.”
“I promised I’d get you some. And this is Mr. Steinmetz’s finest honey.”
He nods approvingly as his gaze sweeps over the homemade label. “This is the good shit.”
“The sticky, dripping, sweet…” I trail off as my mind immediately heads for the gutter. I’d been talking about honey, but maybe I’m also talking about the state of my vagina when I’m in front of Griffin. I feel my cheeks start to heat up, so I hurry to add, “Properties of honey.”
Griffin looks amused as he holds my gaze, that damn slate swirl the only thing I can focus on. “Yeah. From all those busy, buzzing, vibrating…”
“Bees?” I offer.
He nods, looking like he’s holding in laughter. “Yeah. That’s what I was going to say.”
“OK, because it kind of sounded like—” I begin, but impatient groans interrupt our double-entendre conversation.
“Are you guys ready yet? I need the sleaze,” Branson whines.
“I need to make the popcorn,” I quip, grabbing the other jar.
My heart is pounding as I brush past Griffin’s solidity, which only lights me up further.
Fuck, were we flirting? Or was he just responding to my weird adjectives because I read too much smut?
I’m not sure, but my entire body is electrified and I’m desperate for another chance to stare into his beautiful eyes.
I try to remember where he stores the pots as I pass the jar back and forth between my hands.
“We’re doing this old school style, huh?” he asks, appearing beside me with the exact pot I’d have picked myself.
“It’s a requirement, with these gorgeous kernels.”
“Mmm.” His gaze drops to the popcorn jar, but it kind of equates to him looking at my chest, which only further delights the sixteen-year-old inside me. “On a scale of one to ten, I’d give them a ten.”
I’ll pretend he’s saying that about my boobs, at least for a few delusional seconds. “Everyone knows about Mrs. Harlow’s kernels,” I say as I oil the pot and set the heat.
“Legendary kernels,” Griffin goes on, not missing a beat. “Voluptuous, even.”
I dump half of the mason jar into the pot, then smile over at him. “Plentiful.”
“Kernels for days,” he returns.
“An eternal, never ending, kernel train that enters our mouths and winds through our—”
“What are you guys talking about?” Piper interrupts me before I can say the word intestines, which is probably a good thing. She looks highly amused, her gaze flicking back and forth between me and Griffin with suspicion, like she caught us kissing or something.
“The popcorn!” I say, gesturing to the pot. “What else would it be?”
“Still doesn’t fully make sense, but okay.
” Piper grins as she heads past me to the fridge, pulling it open and removing a hard cider.
I focus on the popcorn, feeling like that sixteen-year-old again.
Before I can verify that Griffin is feeling it too, Kru has called him over for input on a lively debate that’s cropped up between him and Branson regarding fly fishing.
I tune out, because I’m trying to relive the oddly sexy conversation with Griffin about honey and corn kernels.
But my reverie doesn’t last long. Once the popcorn is ready, it’s go time.
I move over to the couch, where positions have rearranged after the fly-fishing debate.
I’m right between Piper and an empty space for Griffin.
Thank you, B-movie gods. I pass around the bowl of popcorn, trying to play it absolutely cool while I wait for Griffin to finish adjusting the speaker connection and sit next to me.
Not like I think I’ll end up curled in his lap or anything, but having his manly heat next to me doesn’t sound like an awful way to spend an evening.
Even if it doesn’t end with him touching my gorgeous kernels. The ones on my body, that is.
“Let’s get ready for Nightbeast” Griffin finally says, lowering the lighting. We all ooh and aah, and then the movie starts and Griff fills the space next to me.
We’re not touching. It’s a big couch, so it’s not like we need to sit elbow to elbow.
But as the movie starts, all I can focus on is measuring the space between us. Figuring out if it’s one inch or three inches. I swear I can feel the air buzzing, and it takes an epic bout of bad acting to pull me out of my Griff stupor.
The bowl of popcorn is passed around. Once it hits my lap, I reach for a handful at the same time Griffin does.
Our knuckles brush, and my thighs clench.
Dear god, I am too attracted to this man.
I glance guiltily at him, but he’s looking at the TV screen.
Of course he is. Because he’s not one more popcorn kernel away from orgasming, like some of us on this couch.
I stuff my wild attraction to this man deep down inside me and force myself to comprehend the movie.
There is a bug-eyed alien with a ray gun and a sheriff desperately trying to get it to stop its killing spree.
Not only that, there’s a supremely awkward sex scene that makes us all cackle with laughter.
It’s an outrageous hour before the movie ends and we are watching each other in shock.
“I can’t believe we just watched that whole thing,” Piper blurts.
“I can feel the alien in my brain, I think,” Kru laments.
“What do we think?” Griffin looks over, the glow of the television showing me that his eyes are on me. Heat spreads through me again as I think about the knuckle brush and the kernels and the fact that I would ride this man for hours if there was an alien coming to kill us with a ray gun.
“In a nutshell? Cheesy and bad.” I reach for a few flecks of leftover popcorn in the bowl.
“I think I’m getting a headache from the bad acting,” Branson’s date, Kylie, says.
“So it sounds like it did exactly what it was supposed to,” Griffin says as he stands from the couch.
Soon the lights are back on and we’re still processing what hilarity and badness we just ingested.
Griffin cracks a beer and offers me one.
I take it gratefully, burrowing into the couch a bit more.
Piper sends me another one of those suspicious looks as she and Kru get up from the couch.
“I think we’re gonna call it a night,” she says with a yawn. “We have an early morning tomorrow.”
“Thanks for sharing your time with the Nightbeast,” Griffin says, giving his sister and Kru easy hugs.
“He was kind of a day beast half the time, now that I think about it,” Kru says before they head to the door. There’s a bit more discussion about the poorly crafted eighties alien, and then it’s just us.
Two couples.
If Griffin and I were dating, which we’re not.
“You down for another B-movie?” Branson pinches Kylie’s waist, but she groans.
“I’ll get a migraine if I watch anything else made in the eighties,” she whines. “Let’s go to karaoke night.”
Branson’s brows lift as his gaze slides to Griffin. “What do you think?”
There’s an awkward silence. Finally, Griffin gestures to me and Branson’s mouth rounds. “Ohhh, right. Do you wanna come too, Case?”
I’m working through the logistics in my head. I don’t actually want to go to Karaoke night; I want to spend the rest of my earthly existence curled up on Griffin’s perfect couch, brushing knuckles with him. But that seems a little extreme to admit to a friend.
“You guys go ahead. I’m not feeling the bar tonight, so I’ll head home. No big deal.” I force myself to stand, stretching after the hour and a half I spent with the Nightbeast. As I head for the kitchen, Griffin holds out a hand to stop me, which collides with my low belly.
“You don’t have to leave. I’m not going to karaoke night either,” he says. The heat pouring from his hand into my body is frightening. My core clenches and if he looks close, he’ll see my hard kernels right through my T-shirt.