CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CASEY
The pool party becomes a fun, blurry time, the type of night you sing about with girlfriends—the nights you’ll never remember with the friends you’ll never forget.
Those nights, of course, lead to consequences. Like Uber rides home. And hangovers that ruin the entire day after. And accidental confessions of maybe-this-is-more that remain unaddressed for days afterward.
As of the Monday post pool party, Griffin adopts a strict lifestyle—early rising, no alcohol, super-specific dietary requirements, constantly gone, barely texting throughout the day. I hate how little I’m seeing him and hearing from him. Like really hate it.
But no matter where he is during the day, he always shows up at the end of my work shifts to toss my bike in the bed of his truck and drive me home.
And then we sleep together, rinse and repeat.
I spend the days making more content and posting to my growing TikTok account, which is thrilling.
People are actually watching my videos and responding to them, which was the absolute last thing I imagined would happen.
So that’s a nice distraction amid Griffin’s absence.
We’re on day five of not-talking-about-what-he-said when I finally crack. I’m in his truck, pockets full of cash from a successful night of bartending and book recommending, when I turn to him.
“Can we finally talk about what you told me Saturday at Grant’s house?”
He looks at me blankly. “What?”
I sigh, rolling my eyes. “I guess that’s my answer.”
“Seriously, what?”
“That…thing you told me,” I sputter. “About how you’re sick of not being able to call me yours.”
Griffin clears his throat, focusing on the road. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I feel so dumb, bringing this up, only to have him respond like this. I frown and look out the window. “Never mind.”
“Let’s talk about it.”
“No, I just realized we don’t need to. You were clear about what this was from the start, and your silence since the pool party is clear enough. I’m the idiot thinking you wanted more.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
“Whatever I am, we weren’t on the same page,” I bite out. “But we are now.”
Silence thuds through the truck. Tears press at my eyes as I grapple with my own stupidity.
Am I just another puck bunny blinded by the hockey player’s prowess?
I need to find an equivalent romance novel to work through these feelings.
He told me from day one what this needed to be, and I got hopeful regardless.
I should never have taken his tipsy words to heart.
Too many Saturdays of picking out flower bouquets and shopping for honey with him. All those work shift pick-ups and heated glances. The tenderness, the companionship, the friendship that felt like love.
How could I not get hopeful, when this is the type of man Griffin is?
I brush away a tear, drawing a deep breath as he pulls into the driveway. “Just forget I said anything, okay? I don’t want to make this weirder than it already is.”
Griffin is quiet as we go inside. When the door clicks shut behind him, the weight of the situation bears down on me.
I’ve barely seen him this week. I’m leaving soon. What the fuck are we doing?
“Okay, just one more thing,” I say. He turns halfway to his bedroom. “I think I just…miss you.”
“Miss me?” His brow arches.
“You’ve been gone so much this week, and I get why. I haven’t seen you that much, we’ve barely talked, and I…I miss you. I’m leaving soon, so….”
He hefts with a rueful laugh. “Casey. You miss me when you see me daily. What the fuck do you think hockey season is going to be like?”
His words land like a slap.
“This, right here, is why what I said at the pool needs to be forgotten.” His words slice with the precision of a scalpel.
He’s cut right into the core of what I’m thinking about, what I’m afraid of.
“If you can’t handle the end of the summer, then you’ll never last through a professional hockey season. ”
I go rigid, staring at him, unable to form words. He’s right. I’m being delusional about him, about what we could be.
“Yeah. You’re right,” I finally manage to say. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m going back to Chicago soon.”
His face creases like I hurt him. I brush past him, heading for the bathroom to get in the shower. He grabs my wrist, stopping me in my tracks.
“Wait.”
“Let go,” I whisper. “I feel stupid.”
He pulls me into him, fitting me against his body as he wraps his arms around me. “I’m not letting you go. Because I’ve missed you too. And that’s exactly the problem.”
I melt into him, relishing the solidness of him, his woodsy, manly scent, the way he both calms and arouses me. We stand like this for a while, until I pull away.
“I need to go take a shower,” I tell him.
“Come to my room after,” he says, grabbing my chin between his thumb and forefinger.
I can’t fight the grin. “We’ll see.”
“You’re right. I’ll see you in my bed.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
He slaps my ass before I continue my trek to the bathroom. “That better turn into a yes, Hart.”
I roll my lips in, battling a smile that threatens to take over my entire face. “I like it when you get all professional hockey player on me.”
“Oh, you’ll have a professional hockey player on you,” he says, “in my bedroom.”
I sigh dreamily. “Fine. You win. I can’t say no to that.”
I’ll always say yes to Griffin. Even if it means getting less than what I really want from him.
It’s Saturday again. Another farmer’s market, another bouquet, another lazy morning spent acting like a couple and kissing in public.
The only difference now is that August is closer than ever, and I am dreading that month with a fiery passion.
I made it through the first round of interviews with both companies I applied to. I should be excited to be getting my life back on track. But I’m not.
Because it feels like I found a new track here.
Griffin and I are assessing the baguette selection—some made with organic spelt no less—in between kisses when I hear a familiar gasp.
“Casey? You’re the one holding up the line?” Claire grabs my arm, and I spin to face her. My eyes go wide.
Shit, it’s really my sister.
“Claire!” I feel my cheeks get hot, and I’m not sure why.
Maybe because Griffin and I have been canoodling more than selecting bread and we got called out on it.
“Hey! Fancy meeting you here.” I laugh nervously, my arm brushing up against Griffin’s side.
Thoughts of panic and anxiety flood me; nervousness is my go-to with her.
Expecting myself to fuck up. Make a misstep. Ruin the day.
“Hey, Claire. Good to see you.” Griffin’s smooth, confident voice grounds me, and I stand a little taller.
“Wow, you two are…really getting cozy, huh?” Claire laughs a little as her gaze rakes over us. I can’t tell if she’s pleased or unnerved by the idea of us together. “I thought you were just roommates, but…clearly not.”
Clearly. Even though we keep trying to convince the world otherwise.
“It’s been a fun summer, that’s for sure,” I manage to say.
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve barely seen you.” Claire’s clipped tone as she inspects the bread makes something deep in my gut go tight. My entire body is on alert.
“She’s been working her tail off this summer,” Griffin supplies coolly, squeezing my hand. “She’s the top selling bartender at Brews on the Bay, and she started a TikTok account that’s blowing up.”
I swat at his chest. “It’s not blowing up.”
“Your video yesterday hit ten thousand views,” he protests.
“Yeah, but that’s not, like, viral,” I clarify.
Claire watches us both with raised brows. “Certainly a lot going on here. And in such a short time! Maybe Jake was over for even longer than you let on.”
The digs don’t stop. But with Griffin at my side, I can think a little clearer. I feel steadier. “It’s hard to say when exactly I emotionally checked out of that relationship, even if we were physically together. It was hard being treated like an obligation instead of someone’s…favorite person.”
I’m bracing for snark or a snotty comeback. For her to spin it as one of my flaws. Instead she picks up a small loaf of banana nut bread and turns it over in her hands. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing you realized that. So does this mean Griffin’s going to be your plus one?”
I look up at Griffin expectantly. We haven’t talked about this at all, but now that she’s brought it up, I won’t accept any other plan. “What do you think, Griff? Be my plus one?”
He grins down at me. Like I’m his favorite person. I already know he’s mine.
“Yeah. I’d love to.”
“That settles that,” Claire says with a little laugh. “Case, just send me the updated meal preference ASAP, okay?” She gives us her networking smile and finger waves at us. “Gotta run, guys. See you soon.”
I feel odd once she’s gone, disjointed, somehow, like my head and body disconnected and are floating on opposite ends of the market.
We buy our baguette and roam the farmer’s market a bit more.
But I can’t shake the interaction. I’m combing through the last few times we spoke.
And then the last few years. Whatever broke between us, it broke so long ago I can’t even find the crack.
“Wanna say what’s on your mind?” Griffin finally asks. He’s led us toward the grassy, shaded area on the boulevard. We sit on a park bench between two flower beds packed with petunias and marigolds, looking out at the farmer’s market.
“I’m just tired of this…thing between me and Claire,” I say with a sigh.
“The second I realized it was her at the market, I got jumpy. I felt like I was sixteen again, being cut down by my big sister. It doesn’t go away.
And now that she’s gone, all I can think about is what she’ll tell our parents.
How I moved in with my friend and was caught canoodling at the market too fast after my break-up. ”
“Well, that’s not so bad,” Griffin begins.
“But she caught me. I hadn’t told her already. And it just fits into this stupid pattern—she catches me, I hedge, and then she gets mad that I didn’t tell her sooner.”
“Well…why don’t you tell her things sooner?”
“Because she’s always a bitch to me,” I say on an exhale. My body deflates and my head drops to his shoulder. “And I just can’t take any more of it.”
Griffin covers my knee with his hand, squeezing it gently. There’s a few moments of silence before he says, “I kinda get what you’re going through. Piper did something similar with me. And has for…her entire life.”
I sit up, looking him in the eye. “Seriously?”
“It happened most recently when she and Kru started dating. She kept it from me because she thought I would disapprove. And she was right. I did disapprove.” He cracks a grin.
“So I get why she hid it. But I caught them together—in my living room no less—and finding proof that she’d been lying to me made me furious. ”
“It’s a catch-22,” I say. “I don’t want to disappoint Claire. Just like Piper didn’t want to make you mad.”
“Yeah. And I was mad for a while, until Kru knocked some sense into me.”
“He punched you?”
“No, I punched him,” Griffin clarifies with a little laugh, “but he helped me realize that Piper was hiding things to protect herself from me and our brothers and our…opinions. I admit, we can be overbearing. And I was thirty years old before I realized I was doing that to my little sister. All of this is to say that maybe Claire doesn’t realize she’s doing this to you. ”
I snort, shaking my head. “She has to realize.”
“Does she?”
“She’s been this way with me for over a decade. It’s not an accident.”
“Yeah.” Griffin squints out at the grassy area, watching some kids playing nearby. “I always thought I was helping Piper. Guiding her toward her best life. And I guess I sort of see that in Claire too.”
I frown out at the market, watching as a customer puts a tomato into a paper bag and it falls straight through to the asphalt.
“It’s different,” I finally say.
“Yeah. Maybe.” Griffin drapes his arm over the back of the park bench, his gaze drifting to another corner of the shaded area.
The sounds of the market fill the air between us—raucous laughter from nearby, the excited squeals of children, the faint exclamation from the farm stand—“It just splattered on the ground! Such a juicy one too.”
“She’s always known what she wanted and who she was. And I’ve always been the opposite. That doesn’t go away.”
“But it can.”
The concept of my dynamic shifting with Claire makes me pause. I can’t even fathom what a healthier relationship would look like. All I ever think about is the ways in which it’s failing.
Griffin stretches his legs out in front of the bench, shifting beside me.
“Do something with her before the wedding. Just the two of you. Casey and Claire. But the real Casey needs to show up. Not the sixteen-year-old version. The sexy, confident Casey who’s recommending books and isn’t ashamed of it and doesn’t care if she disappoints anybody.
As long as she doesn’t disappoint herself. ”
I look over at him, tears prickling at my eyes. There’s a lot to unpack there but one thing stood out. “You think I’m confident?”
He cracks a grin. “Yes. Especially when you’re in your groove at work. It’s fucking awesome to watch. That book rec bartender commands the room.”
I bury my face in his shoulder, overwhelmed with emotion. My heart feels like it could burst into a million pieces, and I want to climb onto Griffin’s lap and never leave.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He gives my shoulders a tight side hug.
We watch the farmer’s market together, me half-crying but fully devoted to Griffin. I love this man. For real. Until the end of time. He sees me, he grounds me, and he completes me.
I just wonder if he’d say yes to what’s between us once the summer comes to an end.