CHAPTER SIX #2
“Are you sure?” I bite my bottom lip, suddenly worried that maybe I’m overstepping without realizing. Claire loves to remind me of how often I do that, too. “I promise it’s no big deal, I don’t need to stay here if you’d rather go out.”
“I want to start a fire and sit outside,” Griffin says. My gaze swings to the back porch, where I can see the prepped firepit. It looks like he has comfy lounge chairs, too. I draw a slow breath.
“I wanna do that tooooo,” I murmur.
“All right, well it sounds like we’re all set.” Branson and Kylie begin gathering their things on their way to the door. “You guys enjoy the fire pit, and we’ll enjoy questionable singing.”
“You know where to find us if it gets too bad,” Griffin calls out right before they shut the door behind them.
And then it’s just us.
My heart starts slamming in my chest. Griffin’s gaze moves my way, and suddenly I’m doubting his invitation.
He feels sorry for me, most likely, which is why he’s foregoing his own preferences to hang with me tonight.
It must be a pity thing—he knows that I have no permanent job, no home, no direction in life.
It’s what a good friend would do, after all.
“Let’s get the fire started,” Griffin says, jostling me out of my own thoughts.
I follow him, remembering I had a beer on the side table and grabbing it on my way.
Outside, the air has a touch of humidity—perfect outdoor-lounging-with-a-blanket-and-a-book weather.
I take a deep inhale, humming softly as I sink into the lounge chair by the firepit.
“I didn’t realize you were that excited for the fire,” Griffin comments as he arranges the logs in the pit.
“I am,” I say with a laugh.
“Nightbeast really got you in the fire mood.”
“Nightbeast is my new go-to for getting into the mood for anything,” I reply, bringing my legs to my chest before I take a sip of the beer. “Those endless rows of teeth remind me I can do anything I want in life.”
“Up to and including awkward sex?” Griffin asks as he uses a long lighter to ignite the kindling under the logs.
A laugh bursts out of me. “Honestly, I’ve never seen something so bad. It was the same level of sexiness as watching a homemade porno made by my parents or something. Which luckily I’ve never seen, nor do I want to.”
The kindling catches fire. Griffin’s eyes are on the baby flames as he says, “Be careful, Nightbeast is sneaky. You might want a rubber alien mask the next time you hook up with someone.”
I snort-laugh. “I’m not sure what’s funnier. The idea of a rubber alien mask in the bedroom, or the fact that you think I’m hooking up with people.”
His gaze snaps up to find mine, and there’s curiosity there, mixed with…something else. “What did I miss? Are you celibate?”
“Not celibate, just…” A total fucking loser. “Not really in a great position to be finding a life partner, I guess.”
“I said hookup, not life partner.”
“Oh, right. That makes more sense anyway. Can’t scare away my future husband with that rubber alien mask, after all.”
Griffin rests in the chair beside me as the flames begin to lick against the logs.
Inside I feel squirmy and strange. I want to know so much more about Griffin’s personal life, but I’m acutely aware of how different our existences are.
He’s a famous professional athlete who rubs elbows with celebrities and is built like a god.
I’m a corporate-America reject who’s fighting with her sister and hiding out in a friend’s house.
We are not the same.
Just make conversation, for god’s sake. I’m getting in my head and I know it. It’s time to get out of it.
I take a hard pull of the beer and when I set it down, I say, “Speaking of hookups and rubber alien masks…”
A cocky half grin curls at his lips as he leans back into his chair. “Go on.”
“The girls and I were talking the other night,” I fib. We did not mention what I’m about to say, but it seems somehow more innocuous if I pretend it wasn’t just me ruminating on this alone at night before drifting off to sleep. “And they informed me of people called puck bunnies.”
Again, a fib. The internet informed me. But the internet is also my friend.
“Yeah,” Griff says, which clarifies nothing.
I hold out a hand, encouraging him to go on. “So puck bunnies are real?”
He scratches at the back of his neck, eyes on the fire. “Define puck bunnies.”
“I don’t know. Willing, fertile women who follow around professional hockey players like swarms of hungry mosquitoes?”
A laugh bursts out of him. “It’s not quite like that.”
To me, though, he’s confirming there are at least some horny women following him around. How could they not? And now I count myself among them. “But the amount of hooking up must be at least above-average, right? I mean, isn’t that one of the perks of being a professional athlete?”
He grins like he’s hiding a secret and tilts his head noncommittally. “I mean…”
“You’re being so coy!” I reach over and slap his arm. “Look at you! Mr. Coy Keegan.”
His deep laugh sends electricity skating beneath my skin. “What do you want me to say? I don’t keep stats. I just…go with the flow and have fun doing it.”
He’s grinning while he takes another pull of his beer, and that’s all I need to know. He’s got to be a major playboy.
“Are there any puck bunnies in Bayshore?” My voice has notched up an octave by the end of the sentence. I need the tea, even if it hurts.
“A gentleman never reveals,” he says mysteriously, and I swat at him again.
“I didn’t realize there was a puck bunny code of ethics.” I drain my beer and set the can down on the ground.
“You’re making my life out to be a lot more interesting than it really is,” Griffin says, adjusting his position in the chair.
His knees have spread apart, and his stance is so masculine and powerful that I could become a puck bunny on the spot, if he were even slightly interested. “All I do is eat, sleep, and—”
“Puck,” I finish for him. We both burst out laughing.
“I’ll give you that,” he concedes.
“I thought you’d be married by now. Some of our peers are starting families, Griff! With children! I can’t imagine.”
He shakes his head, taking another pull at his beer. “Nope. Not even slightly. I can’t handle kids right now, let alone a girlfriend.”
“Girlfriends are notoriously difficult to handle,” I muse.
“That’s not what I mean. I just…can’t focus on anything if it’s not hockey. Friends and family are great. Anything more…maybe when I retire.”
His words trickle into me slowly, reaching new layers the longer I stew on them. “You’re a committed man.”
He nods, his gaze scanning the yard. He’s flexing his hands around the beer bottle, making veins pop out each time he does. “One hundred percent.”
Somehow I feel a wall come down between us. Not that I imagine he sees me in a sexual way, or even a romantic way, but his priorities are clear. And I respect that. Even if it makes the horny teenager inside me really sad.
“Thanks again for letting me escape my parent’s house for a night. Even if it came at the cost of my sexual orientation permanently changing to rubber-alien inclined.”
Griffin smiles devilishly. “It’s what I do.”
“Convert your regular heterosexual friends into alien-loving fiends?”
“You wouldn’t be the first.”
I burst into laughter. “There’s something suspicious afoot. I think this is your Big Alien Agenda.”
He sets down his beer and then holds out a hand, covering his heart with his other hand. “I swear this is not an extraterrestrial bid to lure earth women into outer space.”
I’m so delighted by our nonsensical, quirky conversation that I don’t even think twice when I put my hand in his outstretched palm. It’s only when I’m gripping his big, manly hand that I realize he might not have been asking me to hold his hand.
“Well consider me lured, if that’s your master plan,” I crack.
He squeezes my hand, scooting closer in the chair so that he can bring it to his chest. “You’re in trouble now.”
Based on how fast my heart is pounding, he’s not wrong. I’m in trouble because my high school crush has carried over to adulthood and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to scratch this itch.
He’s so close to me, our gazes so locked, that I have trouble formulating a response that isn’t a confession of love. Keep it light and breezy. “So when does the probing begin?”
He rolls his lips inward, tilting his head to the side. He hasn’t backed off, and my hand is still firmly gripped in his. I thought I’d fallen in love with my spot on the couch earlier, but this is way better. I’d like to stay here forever, please.
Griffin lets out a sigh, feigning deep concentration. He never lets go of my hand. “That depends on whether the rubber mask gets involved.”
Giggles escape me, partly spurred on by my very girlish fascination with being this close to such a handsome, virile man.
Somewhere deep inside me, it feels like I’ve never gotten laid, though I’m very much not a virgin.
I suspect I’ve never had excellent sex. Like what Griffin probably has with his puck bunnies.
“This must work a charm on the puck bunnies,” I tease.
“You have no idea.”
The moment is throbbing; intense and bloated and begging for just a little bit more. I’m lost in the gray-blue swirl of his eyes, the feel of his heat seeping into me. I’ve never held hands with a man like this before, where it felt as powerful as foreplay.
Does he feel this too?